Before conversion, users repeatedly visit the company’s website. Clicks on advertisements, organic searches, links from social networks, bookmarks in the browser, etc. – the path to a purchase consists of many steps taken in different sequences.

To correctly assess the effectiveness of advertising, you need to determine which transition to the site is considered the main one in the chain. In Yandex.Direct, budget expenditure depends on this: today all display strategies use automatic conversion optimization (read more about it in the Help).

Attribution models are used to tell the system which clicks are more important to you.

The attribution model is the rule by which the contribution to the conversion is distributed among the different sources of referral to the site. Yandex assigns the entire conversion value to one click, which is up to the advertiser.

Let’s take a look at how each attribution model works so you can make sure you’re using the right option.

Last crossing

Considers the most recent user transition to the site as a source of conversion. The history of visits is not taken into account.

When to use

The last transition allows you to estimate which source converted the user. Suitable for goods and services with a short sales cycle based on the “see-buy” principle. Usually applied at the lower levels of the sales funnel associated with processing existing demand.

Yandex also recommends using the model for technical site audit. For example, to identify pages with a broken counter by analyzing internal transitions.

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First crossing

The source of conversion is the first visit to the site from any channel in the last 180 days.

When to use

Helps identify the source that first introduced the user to the brand. It is used to evaluate the effectiveness of display advertising. Also suitable for products with a long sales cycle, where the customer needs to come back to the site again and again to make a purchase decision.

The attribution model can be used by well-known companies with established demand, who know that the first click often indicates an intention to purchase a product. Otherwise, the solution for the upper levels of the sales funnel is awareness and engagement.

Last significant transition

Yandex divides the transitions into significant and insignificant. There is no official definition of types, but you can consider that significant traffic sources are those that can be used for paid promotion:

• advertising;
• links on sites;
• search engines;
• social networks;
• mailing lists;
• messengers;
• recommendation systems.

All the others are insignificant:

• direct visits;
• internal transitions (the visit timed out);
• from saved pages.

The last visit to a site that is determined to be significant is considered a source of conversion.

When to use

To evaluate the sources that converted the user or helped them remember your site. Also for sites with fast conversions, often occurring during one visit. Even if the visit has timed out, the one that originally led to the visit will still be considered a significant transition. A suitable level of the sales funnel is demand processing.

Last transition from Direct

Works in the same way as the last significant transition, but only takes into account transitions from ads in Yandex.Direct. The source of conversion is the last click on an ad, no matter which one it is in the chain.

If the conversion took place without the participation of Direct ads, the Last click attribution model is applied.

When to use

To evaluate the effectiveness of Yandex.Direct campaigns at all stages of the sales funnel, excluding the influence of other traffic sources. For example, if a click on your ad is in the middle of a conversion path, no other attribution model will be able to detect it.

Before disabling an ad campaign due to inefficiency, it is useful to test it through this model: it may be successfully maintaining the sales funnel at its average levels.

Conclusion

Yandex attribution determines how your ad works, even if you don’t know anything about it. When creating a new campaign, manual bid management with optimization is set by default, the attribution model is the last transition from Direct. This means that the system seeks to bring more conversions out of context, regardless of the effectiveness of other channels.

That’s why it’s important to have an understanding of each attribution model and choose the one that works best for your goals. We hope our small guide will help you with this.