When an organization sanctions or makes provision for a marketing or advertisement budget they factor in all the different media that are used to spend this amount. However, very few actually try and analyze which medium contributed most to actual conversions. The same thing happens in case of online marketing and advertisement campaigns. Generally customers check the product or service on several channels before finally converting.
Google had introduced, in the fall of last year, Multi-Channel Funnels in Google Analytics to find the real path that customers take before they eventually convert. This was much needed information. There were several requests to Google to make this data available via API so that developers could make suitable corrections. Hence Google today announced the release of Multi-Channel Funnels Reporting API.
With this tool you can now query metrics like First interactions, Last interaction, and Assisted conversion. In addition you can also incorporate Path length, Top Path, and Time Lag into the API.
The results you get once you try to analyze the conversion appear as a DNA graph and sheds light on how different channels appear in a conversion funnel. You can also tabulate the CPA Cost per Acquisition of each customer and the ROI of using specific channels for online marketing services.
This will result in prudent spending by your customers and also in a much higher ROI for online marketing budgets.