How do you measure assisted conversions?
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A subscriber reads your welcome email on Monday and doesn't buy. Gets your newsletter on Tuesday and still doesn't. On Thursday they search for your product, click an ad, and purchase. Under last-click attribution, that sale goes to the ad. But email was there twice.
Assisted conversions measure how often email was part of the journey without being the final step. They answer "did this email help nudge someone toward eventually buying?" rather than just "did this email directly sell something?"
How to find them in GA4:
- Go to Advertising, then Attribution, then Conversion paths
- Look for paths where Email appears as an early or mid-funnel touchpoint before a conversion
- Compare "Attributed conversions" (last-click credit) vs. paths that include email but end on another channel
GA4's default data-driven attribution model already distributes some credit to assisted touchpoints. If you're using strict last-click attribution, you're missing this entirely, and email almost certainly looks less valuable than it is.
Assisted conversion data is especially revealing for longer purchase journeys. A subscriber might receive 4 emails before buying, with a Google search or direct visit being the final click. GA4's attribution models affect which of those touchpoints gets counted, so it's worth understanding how yours is configured.
If you want to measure email's true causal lift rather than just its appearance in conversion paths, the cleanest approach is holdout group testing.
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