Assisted conversion

Last-click attribution gives everything to the final touchpoint and zero to everything before it. Assisted conversion reports are the correction: they surface the channels that were involved but did not close.

That is genuinely useful. A channel with many assists and few last clicks is doing something, and a last-click report alone would have it looking like a cost centre.

But an assist is a very low bar. It means the channel appeared in a journey that ended in a conversion. It does not mean it contributed, and it certainly does not mean it caused anything. Channels with enormous reach accumulate assists mechanically — appear in enough journeys and you will be present in plenty that convert, whether or not you moved anyone.

Two specific traps.

Assists are not additive. Every touchpoint in a converting journey can be credited with an assist, so totals across channels exceed the number of conversions. Summing them produces a number that means nothing.

Volume of assists tracks volume of impressions. Buying more reach raises assist counts on its own. Reading that as improved contribution is the same error as reading view-through conversions as evidence of engagement.

How to use them honestly: as a flag that a channel deserves investigation, not as a measure of its value. The investigation is a holdout test — turn it off for a comparable group and see what happens.