Google ditches last-click attribution in favor of machine learning-based model

Google has announced it is updating its attribution model for marketers. The company will no longer rely on last-click attribution, but will shift to what it's calling "data-driven attribution," per a blog post published earlier today by Google Ads' vice president and general manager of buying, analytics and measurement Vidhya Srinivasan. While last-click attribution measures which touchpoint a consumer engaged with last before making a purchase, Google's new framework employs machine learning to gauge everything from how conversions are measured to how to improve automated bidding in the media buying process. While Google's ads business already offers this data-driven attribution model, it was not previously accessible to all advertisers, due to minimum data requirements as well as some limitations on types of conversion. Per the company's announcement today, minimum data rules will be dropped and data-driven attribution will be made available to all advertisers in Google Ads beginning in October.