What is the attribution window of Campaign Dimensions and is there any way to change it?

Data collection and tags
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Campaign Source / Medium / Name / Content → they all work via Last-click-non-direct Attribution other than in the special attribution reports.
But how long does a value persist, i.e. what is the attribution window? I could not find any info on this within 15 minutes of searching through community and support section.
Also it would be good to be able to change the default. In GA, the default is an insane 120 days (or was it “only” 90 days), which I always change to 30, 14 or 7, depending on the client’s typical conversion latency.

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Hi Lucas,

Few things here:

  • The default attribution model is Last Click (not Last Non-Direct).
  • Unfortunately, the default model cannot be changed—I will make a feature request on your behalf though :slightly_smiling_face:
  • As a result, the value is attributed to the session through which the visitor arrived at the website. In other words, the Last Click conversion attribution model does not consider the lookback window. However, you are correct that in GA, one could set the lookback window to up to 90 days, but this applied to models where more than one session was taken into account or when there was an option to ingest offline conversions (I am unsure about the last).
  • Finally, for Last Non-Direct and other models available in attribution-designated reports, we have the option to define the lookback window, with the maximum being 90 days.

I hope it helps :slight_smile:

Michał

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@M.Idziak Thanks.

So you are saying that Piwik Pro does NOT apply the Last-Click-non-Direct model? So if I return via Direct, I am “Direct”? This is pretty serious for reporting as any conversion would have to happen within the 30 minute session window…
The differences between Session-only and LC-non-direct (even just within 1 day) are usually quite big.

It is embarassing for me to not know this any sooner, but Piwik could also provide this crucial information somewhere easily accessible. Is there a place where is this is documented?

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And while we are at it, can you confirm what happens in a within-Session change if the “Change of Campaign starts new Session” setting is OFF.

  1. User arrives via Campaign A (utm_source=x&utm_medium=y&utm_campaign=z).
  2. In same Session, same user also has a Pageview with Campaign B (utm_source=a&utm_medium=b&utm_campaign=c).

Will there be 1 Session with 2 Source/Medium/Campaign values (this is what I would have expected)?

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So you are saying that Piwik Pro does NOT apply the Last-Click-non-Direct model? So if I return via Direct, I am “Direct”?

Not in default reports (you can still access the Last-Click-Non-Direct model in Attribution reports). There’s an argument to be made that, for Piwik PRO, where we strive to have a “privacy by design” approach, in many setups where a significant number of visitors do not consent and some are tracked anonymously (i.e., it would neither be GDPR-compliant nor possible to look for visitors’ previous sessions), the most consistent and appropriate attribution model is the Last-Click model. Even if as many as 50% of users gave their consent (and that number is optimistically high), it would mean that only for 50% of visitors would we see credible data if the Last-Click-Non-Direct model were the default. For the rest, it would have been Last-Click anyway.

This is pretty serious for reporting as any conversion would have to happen within the 30 minute session window…

30 minutes is the session timeout, it means that Session can be much longer if the Visitor comes back before the timeout elaps.

It is embarassing for me to not know this any sooner, but Piwik could also provide this crucial information somewhere easily accessible. Is there a place where is this is documented?

This is the article that states:
In core and custom reports, we use the last-click model for goals and orders, which cannot be modified.

Perhaps we should consider adding that somewhere in the UI :thinking:

I hope it helps :slight_smile:

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Thanks. Well, you could not persist traffic sources to the next session if there is no consent and you track with a session hash only.

30 minutes is the session timeout, it means that Session can be much longer if the Visitor comes back before the timeout elaps.
=> yes that’s what I meant. But still. I recently did an investigation with adobe analytics comparing different attribution windows for contact form submissions, and the biggest gap was not between 1 and 30 days, but between session and 1 day. So it happens quite often that people interrupt their session and then later (but within 24h) finish the conversion.

Also given that last click non direct is kind of the default in the analytics sphere, I think Piwik should do it the same way. Overriding everything with direct takes a lot of due credit away from marketing campaigns.

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Well, you could not persist traffic sources to the next session if there is no consent and you track with a session hash only.
Correct, and as a result, making any other model than Last click, futile in this case. Or in other words, despite having last-non-direct, the results would have been for last-click nonetheless (for anonymous Visitors of course).

Also given that last click non direct is kind of the default in the analytics sphere, I think Piwik should do it the same way. Overriding everything with direct takes a lot of due credit away from marketing campaigns.
I have made a Feature Request for being able to change the default attribution model in the non-Attribution reports and Dashboards, which would hit few birds with one stone :slight_smile:

Thank you for your input @loldenburg :bowing_man:

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