Source Medium Multi-Touch Attribution FAQs

Where does Source Medium MTA data come from?

What is Attributable Revenue? What are Attributable Purchases?

What is the difference between a Touch Point and a Distinct Dimension Value?

What is a Purchase Journey?

What is Multi-Touch Attribution?

How do I use Source Medium MTA built-in reporting?

What are the three attribution types within Source Medium MTA?

Why doesn't Email/SMS receive first touch or linear attribution?

Why do brand campaigns receive zero attribution?

What is the difference between ad-level and channel-level data?

What is the dedicated Email/SMS dimension?

How can I improve my attribution rate?

Can I customize attribution rules for my business?

How do I analyze unattributed spend?

Unattributed spend represents marketing activities that cannot be tied to specific ads but still contributes to overall marketing costs. To analyze this spend:

Identify Channel-Level Rows:
- Look for rows where sm_marketing_channel is present but ad_id is NULL
- These rows contain only the unattributed portion of each channel’s metrics

Run Analysis Queries:

-- Unattributed spend by channel
SELECT
  sm_marketing_channel as channel,
  SUM(ad_spend) as unattributed_spend
FROM `sm-{{account_id}}.sm_transformed_v2_ad_attribution_performance_daily`
WHERE 
  sm_store_id = 'your-sm_store_id'
  AND date BETWEEN DATE_SUB(CURRENT_DATE(), INTERVAL 30 DAY) AND CURRENT_DATE()
  AND sm_marketing_channel IS NOT NULL
  AND ad_id IS NULL -- Only channel-level data
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 2 DESC

Calculate Unattributed Percentage:

-- Percentage of spend that is unattributed by channel
WITH channel_totals AS (
  SELECT
    COALESCE(sm_marketing_channel, 'Unknown') as channel,
    SUM(ad_spend) as total_spend
  FROM `sm-{{account_id}}.sm_transformed_v2_ad_attribution_performance_daily`
  WHERE sm_store_id = 'your-sm_store_id'
    AND date BETWEEN DATE_SUB(CURRENT_DATE(), INTERVAL 30 DAY) AND CURRENT_DATE()
  GROUP BY 1
),
unattributed AS (
  SELECT
    sm_marketing_channel as channel,
    SUM(ad_spend) as unattributed_spend
  FROM `sm-{{account_id}}.sm_transformed_v2_ad_attribution_performance_daily`
  WHERE sm_store_id = 'your-sm_store_id'
    AND date BETWEEN DATE_SUB(CURRENT_DATE(), INTERVAL 30 DAY) AND CURRENT_DATE()
    AND sm_marketing_channel IS NOT NULL
    AND ad_id IS NULL
  GROUP BY 1
)
SELECT 
  t.channel,
  t.total_spend,
  COALESCE(u.unattributed_spend, 0) as unattributed_spend,
  SAFE_DIVIDE(COALESCE(u.unattributed_spend, 0), t.total_spend) * 100 as unattributed_percent
FROM channel_totals t
LEFT JOIN unattributed u ON t.sm_channel u.channel
ORDER BY 4 DESC

For more details, see our Channel-Level Attribution & Unattributed Metrics documentation.

How does linear attribution handle duplicate touches?