Research paper · Attribution
Attributing Registrations and Deposits to Organic Search
Attribution decides how much of a registration or deposit belongs to organic search when a player also touched other channels. The model you choose can move organic's share more than any content change, so name it in every report.
What changed in 2023
Google announced that "first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models are going away." In Google Ads, advertisers lost the ability to choose them in June 2023, and conversion actions still using them moved to data-driven attribution in September 2023. Google said "Data-driven attribution, last click, and external attribution won't be impacted." In Google Analytics, the help center states that these four models "are no longer available as of November 2023."
For historic reports this matters. A year-over-year comparison that used position-based credit before November 2023 and a different model after it will show a change in organic's share that has nothing to do with organic search.
Models you can still use
| Model | How it credits | Effect on organic search |
|---|---|---|
| Last click (Google Ads) | All credit to the final click before the conversion | Undercounts organic when research visits come first and a branded visit comes last |
| Paid and organic channels last click | "Ignores direct traffic and attributes 100% of the conversion value to the last channel that the customer clicked through" | Gives organic credit when the last non-direct touch was organic; Google says to select it when comparing a Google Ads model with a Google Analytics one |
| Data-driven | "distributes credit for the conversion based on data for each conversion event" | Can credit earlier organic visits, but the weights are not shown in full and change over time |
Google Analytics "uses last click as the attribution model for all Google Ads conversions that are based on key events." That is one more reason to keep a single source for each number in a report.
The lookback window is a setting too. Google's Admin API lists 7 or 30 days for acquisition key events and 30, 60 or 90 days for other key events. A registration report with a 7-day window and a deposit report with a 90-day window will credit organic differently even with the same model.
Key events, conversions and double counting
Google now separates two ideas. A key event is "an event that measures an action that's particularly important to the success of your business." A conversion "now refers to an important action that you want to use to measure the performance of your ad campaigns," created from an analytics event. When a first-time deposit is a key event in analytics and a conversion in an ad account, each system credits it by its own rules. Adding organic's share from analytics to paid's share from the ad account can count the same depositor twice.
The fix is a rule, not a tool: one source of truth per report, named at the top, with the model and lookback window beside it.
Organic search before registration
Casino and sportsbook players often research before they register: rules pages, legality checks, payment explanations. Those visits are organic, and the registration that follows a week later may arrive through a branded search or a typed address. Under last click, organic gets none of that registration. Two practical checks help:
- Report organic-assisted registrations, the share of registered users who had at least one organic session in the lookback window, beside last-click organic registrations.
- Split brand and topic searches, as set out in how organic search feeds the funnel. A rise in brand searches after a content push is often the content working.
Cross-domain and app gaps
Many operators run registration or the cashier on a separate domain or inside an app. If analytics cannot follow the user across that boundary, the session restarts and the original organic source is lost or replaced. Before trusting any attribution report, test one full path yourself from an organic landing page to a test registration and check which source the registration receives. The funnel tracking guide lists the checks.
Limits of this paper
This paper describes model behavior as Google documents it on the dates shown. It does not evaluate any vendor's attribution product and uses no operator data.
Questions
Which model should an organic report use?
Use paid and organic channels last click when you compare against Google Ads data, as Google advises for that comparison, and add an organic-assisted count beside it. State both in the report.
Why did organic's share change in late 2023 with no content change?
Google Analytics removed first click, linear, time decay and position-based models in November 2023. Reports that used them switched model, which moves credit between channels.
Can Search Console clicks be attributed to registrations?
Not directly. Search Console has no user-level data, so attribution happens in analytics, using the organic sessions it recorded.
Sources
Each source was read on October 27, 2026. How we choose sources is set out on the sources and reading list page.
- Google Ads Help, First click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models are going away, no date shown.
- Google Analytics Help, Key event attribution models report, no date shown.
- Google Analytics Admin API documentation, AttributionSettings, last updated April 2, 2025.
- Google Analytics Help, Conversions vs. key events in Google Analytics, no date shown.