Skip to main content

High Organic (SEO) Share and Penalizing Non-Incremental Channels

Fix inflated Organic or Brand Search attribution in Kickbite by penalizing non-incremental channels

Written by Juan Garzon
Updated over 12 months ago

Why Is Organic Search So High?

  • Broader Session Collection: Kickbite’s tracking can capture more sessions than GA4, so Organic Search may appear with a higher share, especially in cases where there is a strong brand awareness.

  • No Source/Medium Breakdown: By default, Kickbite groups all SEO traffic (Branded and Non-Branded) under Organic Search without separate Source/Medium detail.

  • Channel definition: Kickbite identifies “Organic Search” sessions by checking if the referral (refr_urlhost) contains common search domains (e.g., google, bing, yahoo, etc.).

What About High Revenue Attributed to SEO or Brand Search?

  • Non-Incremental Channels: Some channels, like SEO or Brand Search, can benefit from users who were originally acquired through another paid channel. In other words, their presence in the purchase path may not reflect true incremental value.

  • Penalizing Channels: Kickbite’s attribution model can exclude or “penalize” these channels so that more credit goes to your paid or actively invested channels (e.g., Paid Social, PMAX).

How to Penalize a Channel

  1. Current Process (Before Q2 2025):

    • Contact your Customer Success Manager. They can adjust the advance settings from yourattribution model to exclude or penalize certain channels.

    • Example: If a purchase path is [Paid Social → PMAX → SEO], the model can reassign more credit to the first two channels and reduce SEO’s share.

  2. Future Self-Service (Starting Q2 2025):

    • Kickbite will roll out a feature that lets you directly manage your channel penalties or exclusions.

    • You’ll be able to decide which channels are considered non-incremental without contacting Support.

FAQs

  1. Does penalizing SEO mean I lose all tracking data?

    • No. You’ll still see sessions and revenue from SEO, but the model attributes less conversion value to it in multi-channel journeys.

  2. Why does Kickbite track more sessions than GA4?

    • Kickbite may use different session definitions and can capture more in-app or cross-domain activities. This is often beneficial if you need a more complete view of the user journey.

Next Steps

  • Contact Kickbite Support: If you suspect certain channels (SEO, Brand Search) inflate attribution or wish to exclude them from advanced attribution, get in touch.

  • Await Q2 2025 Update: Soon, you’ll be able to manage channel penalizations directly in your Kickbite account for faster and more flexible optimizations.

Did this answer your question?