Journeys
How to understand Journeys.
Journeys is a new view inside Attribution that shows the paths people take across channels before they convert, not just the last click. Instead of looking at Meta or CTV or Google in isolation, Journeys answers questions like:
What are the most common paths people take before they book an appointment or enroll in a plan, and where do we lose them?
It surfaces sequences like CTV → Meta → Google Ads → conversion and makes it obvious which steps are doing the heavy lifting, which ones assist, and where drop-off happens.
Most existing reports don’t clearly tell a marketer how to change their spend or channels. Journeys closes that gap by giving them a simple, visual way to prove that upper- and mid-funnel channels are feeding lower-funnel performance, so they can defend spend, shift budget with confidence, and prove to leadership that specific multi-channel paths increased conversions.
Getting Started
In order to get started with Journeys, you need to select the event(s) that represent(s) your mid- and low-funnel conversions in order to measure performance at key stages of your customer journey. This is the same set up steps you need to get started with Attribution.
A customer journey is the sequence of marketing touches that happened before a conversion.
Example:
google_ads -> meta_ads -> bing_ads -> conversion
In the data model, each touch is tied to a specific conversion event. The journey views then roll those touch-level records up into three main reporting shapes:
Top paths: the most common full journeys
Journey Flow Edges: the step-to-step transitions within journeys
Channel contribution: how much each channel contributed across journeys
Journeys are based on a linear attribution model, which is why that filter is greyed out at the top. It's agnostic of any other attribution model and telling the story of what happened in sequential order.
Key Visualizations
The Journeys page provides four main visualizations to help you analyze your marketing performance: headline metrics, journey flow, top journeys and channel contribution table.
Headline Metrics
These metrics include
Sortable data by campaign showing:
Total Conversions
Total conversions represented in the selected date range for the chosen conversion events. Journeys are attributed with linear attribution, where each touchpoint receives equal credit.
Avg Path Length
Measures the average number of touchpoints or interactions a customer has before reaching a conversion or desired outcome.
This metric helps you understand how long customer journeys typically are and how many steps it takes to drive engagement or conversion.
Avg time to convert
Measures the average amount of time it takes for a customer to complete a conversion after their first interaction with your brand.
This metric helps you understand how quickly customers move through the journey and how long it typically takes to drive a conversion.
Multi-channel %
Measures the percentage of customer journeys that include interactions across more than one marketing channel before conversion.
This metric helps you understand how often customers engage with multiple channels throughout their journey and highlights the impact of cross-channel marketing efforts on conversions.
Journey Flow visualization
The Journey Flow visualizes the sequence of touchpoints users take across channels before converting. Each column represents a step in the journey, and the connecting paths show how users move between channels, with thickness indicating volume. Use this to understand common paths and channel influence over time.
Additional features:
Click into the specific number of touches you want to see before conversion, ranging from 1-5.
Click into a specific node in the diagram to filter by path, for example all journeys that the first touch was TheTradeDesk and the second touch was Google.
Filter by channel, by selecting the specific channels you want to view on the top right.
Top Journeys table
The Top Journeys table shows the 10 most common conversion paths in the selected date range, ranked by conversion volume.
What this data shows is that not all conversions happen the same way. We’re seeing a large volume of users converting directly through Google Ads—over 10,000 conversions in a single step, often within a day. But alongside that, there’s a meaningful set of longer journeys, especially involving Trade Desk, where users take multiple steps and up to 2.5 weeks to convert.
There are two distinct behavioral patterns in their data:
High-intent, short journeys Users coming through Google Ads often convert quickly, sometimes in a single session or within a few days. This suggests these users already have strong intent and are using search to act on it.
Longer, consideration-driven journeys Users exposed to programmatic channels like Trade Desk take longer and require multiple touchpoints before converting. These journeys reflect earlier-stage awareness and research behavior.
What you can do with this information:
Protect and scale Google Ads investment as a high-efficiency conversion driver, knowing it captures bottom-of-funnel demand.
Don’t undervalue Trade Desk, despite its longer paths, because the data shows it consistently appears in multi-step journeys that eventually convert.
Align messaging to journey length:
Short paths → direct, action-oriented messaging
Longer paths → educational, trust-building content
Adjust expectations internally: not all channels should be judged on immediate conversion speed, because the data clearly shows different roles in the journey.
Why this matters: Without this table, you might over-index on last-touch performance and cut upper-funnel channels. But the journey data shows that longer paths — while slower — are a meaningful and recurring part of how conversions actually happen.
Channel Contribution Table
The Channel Contribution table reveals each channel’s true role across the journey—helping marketers move beyond last-touch bias to invest in the mix of channels that actually drive total conversions.
Using the Channel Contribution table, you can break down performance across the full customer journey:
Understand true influence across the funnel: Channels like Trade Desk show a high Assist % (65%), indicating they play a critical role in influencing conversions even if they aren’t the final touch.
Balance acquisition vs. conversion roles: Google Ads drives strong Last Touch conversions, while Trade Desk & Meta Ads contributes heavily across assists, highlighting its role in nurturing and re-engagement.
Identify efficiency and timing differences: Avg. Days reveals how long each channel takes to influence a conversion, helping teams understand which channels drive faster vs. longer consideration cycles.
Make smarter budget decisions: Instead of over-investing in last-touch channels, marketers can confidently shift budget toward high-assist channels that drive incremental lift across the journey.
Defend strategy to stakeholders: Marketing can clearly show that cutting upper-funnel channels would reduce overall conversions, even if those channels don’t “close” the deal directly.
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