Google announced that it would deprecate non-last-click rules-based attribution models in Google Ads and Google Analytics starting in June 2023 and then completely by September 2023. Google said first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models are going away.

Data-driven attribution (DDA) is now recommended and last-click will remain available, Google added.

“Rules-based attribution models assign value to each advertising touchpoint based on predefined rules. These models don’t provide the flexibility needed to adapt to evolving consumer journeys,” Google explained. Google said this is why they made data-driven attribution the default attribution model in Google Ads and Google Analytics 4. “It uses Google AI to understand the impact each touchpoint has on a conversion, and when combined with auto bidding, data-driven attribution improves performance. Data-driven attribution is now the most-used attribution model for conversions used for automated bidding in Google Ads, resulting in a decline in the overall use of rules-based model,” Google added.

Google said that less than 3% of Google Ads web conversions are attributed using first click, linear, time decay, or position-based models.

In July 2023 first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models across Google Ads and Google Analytics 4 will be going away.

Starting in June 2023, Google will remove the ability to select first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models for conversion actions in Google Ads that do not already use one of these models.

Starting in September 2023, Google will switch any conversion actions still using these models to data-driven attribution. So if you don’t want your conversions to use data-driven attribution, you will be able to use the last click model. At this point, these rules-based models will also be removed from reporting throughout the rest of Google Ads, including the Overview page and the Model comparison report within the Attribution tab, Google added.

Google Analytics will also be sunsetting first-click, linear, time-decay and position-based attribution models from the attribution reports, property-level reporting-model setting, and Admin API. Starting in May, newly created properties will no longer be able to select these models. Starting in September, we will sunset these models for all other properties. Cross-channel data-driven attribution, cross-channel last click, and Ads preferred last click will continue to be available.

Rules-based attribution models assign value to each advertising touchpoint based on predefined rules. These models don’t provide the flexibility needed to adapt to evolving consumer journeys. Data-driven attribution uses advanced AI to understand the impact each touchpoint has on a conversion. That’s why we made data-driven attribution the default attribution model in Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads. For these reasons, first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models across Google Analytics 4 will be going away.

Here are the tweets on this from Ginny Marvin, Google’s Ads Liason.

Forum discussion at Twitter.