You can use cross-channel conversions to connect the dots between your paid advertising activities, organic marketing activities, brand and performance campaign objectives, and the site and app behavior that matter most to you, across your channels.
Navigation overview for cross-channel conversion management
Here’s an overview of the Advertiser section navigation for cross-channel conversions:
Advertising snapshot
The advertising snapshot lets you view a summary of the key event and conversion performance reports, showing conversions created from Google Analytics events and key events in one place.
Conversions and key events have separate reporting sections, and are both located under the Advertising snapshot section.
Conversions reporting section
The Conversion performance report lets you review which marketing channels led to conversions across selected accounts.
This lets you apply Analytics property and attribution settings or Google Ads account and attribution settings:
- Google Analytics property and attribution settings let you plan, monitor, and optimize spend across all accounts and marketing channels.
- Google Ads account and attribution settings let you plan, monitor, and optimize spend within specific Google Ads accounts across Google channels or across all accounts and marketing channels.
- You can also choose which conversions to report on, the attribution model (when Analytics is selected only), and reporting by conversion or interaction time.
- With "conversion time", the report is based on when conversions occurred. This is helpful to review trends over time.
- With "interaction time", the report is based on when ad interactions occurred that led to a conversion. This is helpful to view recent conversion data and compare with Google Ads.
- The "All conversions" ("All conv.") metric shows you data for all primary and secondary conversion actions.
- In the report table, you can apply different dimensions, similar to other reports.
Conversions attribution models
The conversion attribution models page allows you to compare metrics for different attribution models side-by-side.
Attribution models can give you a better understanding of how your ads perform and can help you optimize across conversion journeys.
This report allows advertisers to compare campaign performance using various attribution models.
In the conversion attribution models report, you can:
- Switch between dimensions for various linked products.
- Select conversions and access conversion attribution models.
- Choose which conversions to report on.
- Apply different dimensions in the table, similar to other reports.
Learn more about attribution models in the Google Analytics Help Center
Conversion management
Under conversion management, you can view conversions based on Google Analytics events you created, compare Analytics and Ads conversion settings side by side, and edit settings on your Analytics or Ads conversion measurement.
In overflow settings, you can compare these conversion settings side by side:
- Conversion settings used for Google Analytics reporting
- Conversion settings used for Google Ads reporting and campaign optimization
This can help you understand how conversions are being measured and how to align them to business objectives. Learn more about creating and managing conversions
Key events reporting section
Key event reports distribute credit across channels for paid, organic, and direct traffic. All key event reports show up automatically once you mark an event as a key event.
You can manage Key event settings in Google Analytics from: Admin > Events > Key event table. These are independent of conversion settings, except for default value setting.
Using key events for reporting has various benefits:
- When a conversion based on a Google Analytics event isn’t available in reporting, you can use key events to fill in those data gaps and measure across different channels.
- If your query data in the Conversion Performance report falls outside the range of when conversions based on Google Analytics events are available.
- If you have a key event that didn’t have a conversion created, in order to get measurement across channels, you’ll continue using the key event until you create a conversion and accumulate enough data.
- If a report isn’t supported by conversions based on Google Analytics events, such as the Attribution paths report, you’ll continue to use key events to measure across channels.
- If a report doesn't support certain data like app conversions, Search Ads 360, Display Video 360, or Campaign Manager 360 dimensions, you’ll continue to use key events.
Key event performance report
The key event performance report lets you view key events measured with paid and organic channels and select a product dimension to view campaign performance. You can view and compare campaign performance across different products, such as Google Ads, Search Ads 360, or Display & Video 360.
In the key event performance reports, you can:
- Switch between dimensions for various linked products.
- Choose which key events to report on.
- Apply different dimensions in the table, similar to other reports.
For campaign performance across different products, you must first link those products to Google Analytics.
Key event attribution paths report
The key event attribution paths report helps you understand the different paths users take to complete key events, such as purchases or form submissions, and how credit is assigned to each touchpoint along those paths.
It visually represents the user journey and provides a data table with key metrics like touch points, revenue, and time taken for a key event. This can include insights such as the amount of time between when a customer interacted with an ad and then triggered a key event, etc.
In the key event attribution paths report, you can:
- Switch between dimensions for various linked products.
- Choose which key events to report on.
Key event attribution models report
The key event attribution models report lets you compare key event metrics for different attribution models side by side.
In the key event attribution models report, you can:
- Switch between dimensions for various linked products.
- Select key event and access key event attribution models.
- Choose which key events to report on.
- Apply different dimensions in the table, similar to other reports.