Great post. Glad to see that more people are starting to write about attribution models. It’s a hot topic and I hope it stays that way.

Here at Yahoo! we don’t focus so much on how much weight each contributing ad or campaign should recieve. We simply give those contributing ads/campaigns an Assist. We then give the last ad/campaign clicked before a conversion, a Conversion.

So for example, if you’re using Yahoo’s Full Analytics solution (found free in Yahoo advertisers’ search accounts) and you’re tracking display ads and search ads for example, you will see Assists attributed to ads or keywords that contribute to the conversion of your other ads or keywords.

So for example, if a visitor originally clicks on a display (that’s being tracked with Yahoo’s Full Analytics) and then later converts off a Yahoo search ad (also being tracked by Yahoo Full Analytics), then the display ad will receive an Assist and the search campaign will receive the Conversions.

With this information now in hand, as an advertiser, I now know that my display ads are helping to drive conversions to my other ads/campaigns.

Assists are extremely helpful when it comes to budgeting for display campaigns or bidding on search keywords. Here’s why….

Most people only look at the direct response of the ad or campaign when making budgeting decisions (basically just looking at conversions). No attribution view is being factored in. But with Assists, the attribution view is opened. For example…

Normally I made have dumped a display campaign because it didn’t convert well on its own. But once I factor in Assists, I may see that while the display ad was not converting well on it’s own, it was very valuable at driving conversions for my other ads (such as search). This happens a lot!

Same with search. I may lower the bid on a keword because it didn’t convert well on its own. Using Assists though, I find out that the keyword was driving conversion for my other keywords. Now rather than loweing the bid or pausing the keyword, I continue to spend or actually raise the bid.

Simply put, Assists change the way advertisers manage their online ad/campaign budgets.

For more info, check out:

http://mattlillig.blogspot.com/2008/12/yahoo-assistsput-money-back-into-your.html

and

http://www.ysmblog.com/blog/2008/11/03/measuring-search-and-display-for-success/

Regards,

Matt Lillig
Yahoo Search Analytics – Team Lead