Overview
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to analyze ad spend to determine which sources and campaigns lead to the acquisition of valuable users.
Why it matters
Every user acquisition campaign is created with the intention of driving valuable new users to install your app. As a best practice, these campaigns should continuously be optimized to efficiently drive the acquisition of highly valuable users. It’s not enough to just track clicks and installs.
Use campaign source filters to track the downstream actions of your users. You need to know which channels are bringing in quality users that convert and stay engaged with your app, not just which channels produce the most clicks or installs.
How-to guide
The following steps will walk you through analyzing ad spend to identify sources that drive the acquisition of highly valuable users.
Step 1: Navigate to the Attribution Screen select the Filters icon
This is the home screen for Attribution, which enables you to easily get a quick overview of your acquisition efforts.
Step 2: Choose filter criteria
Next, filter by Dimensions. If you’ve instrumented Custom Dimensions, select the Custom Dimension that represents your most valuable users and the associated value.
In the example below, Purchase Frequency is the Custom Dimension and multiple purchases is the value.
Step 3: Sort and organize the attribution table
Here is where you will find all of your acquisition sources, campaigns and associated data in a tabular format. When the table is shown with By Source toggled to on then you will see all of your sources, number of new users, number of Sessions per user, lifetime value per acquired user, and total revenue of users by acquisition source.
Toggle the attribution table to By Campaign and sort Total Revenue in descending order to see which campaigns are bringing in the most revenue. Learn more about user behavior from these channels in Funnels and Event reporting.
Step 4: Optimize your ad spend based on insights from your attribution reporting
After reviewing your data, take these insights and modify your ad spend accordingly. Invest heavily in channels bringing you users who are high value—those who are likely to convert and keep coming back to your app again and again. Divest from channels driving few users or users who do not bring value to your business.
In the example above, the Buy One Get One Free campaign run on Facebook was by far the most valuable campaign in terms of total revenue, a key insight that should influence future user acquisition efforts.
Key takeaways
- Analyze the effectiveness of your acquisition campaigns in terms of new users, engagement, and revenue as the first step in optimizing the return on your user acquisition efforts.
- Remember the old saying “Quality over quantity” as you allocate your acquisition dollars. Be sure to track conversions and revenue to understand which channels bring the greatest ROI to your business. Don’t just track installs.
- Use custom dimensions to track actions you consider most valuable (e.g. articles read, subscribed to, purchase frequency, games played, etc.) and apply these to your attribution reporting to understand valuable user actions by source.