Google plans to eliminate four search funnel columns in early April to simplify some AdWords reporting features, the company announced Monday in a Google+ post.
Today, AdWords offers two types of closely related Search Funnels columns: "Assist Clicks" and "Click-Assisted Conversions." The move comes after reports of advertisers being confused with the difference between the two. The columns being deleted include Assist Clicks, Assist Impressions, Assist Clicks / Last Clicks, and Assist Impressions / Last Clicks.
The change requires advertisers of these columns to switch to the Click-Assisted Conversions columns from the Assist Clicks. The Click-Assisted Conversions columns may be more useful for advertisers that want to know how many conversions were assisted by a particular keyword, rather than to know how often a particular keyword appeared on any conversion path.
Google said it is making this change in all places where Assist Clicks appear such as in the Campaigns tab, where the company will remove four of the 10 Search Funnels
columns -- as well as in the AdWords API, where Google will remove the same metrics as in the Campaigns tab, and in Search Funnels, where advertisers will no longer see
the Assist Clicks and Impressions report.
Is this a case of too much data causing confusion and designations that are either irrelevant or unimportant to the AdWords specialists? Perhaps the specialists also wound up with extraneous work manipulating data for reports that rolled up the metrics for senior management. If so, a change for the better.