Can anyone clearly explain what an "Assist" is? When you mouseover it says: "Number of times a keyword or ad contributed to a converstion that was credited to a keyword or other marketing activity" What the hell does that mean?? I called Yahoo, and the rep I got on the line said "That's new to me, I have no idea." She then put me on hold, and basically said they are clicks on the ad that didn't convert. "Really, I said? So what is a click then?" She then said that she had just made a "guess". I was put on hold for another 15 minutes, and then she came back with a new answer. "An assist is when somebody clicked on your ad, then searches another term, and then clicks on another one of your ads and makes a purchase." What???? That makes no sense. It was clear this girl was clueless, so I just thanked her and hung up. One of my campaigns yesterday had 2 conversions with 7 assists. So that means that those 2 conversions each did 3.5 different searches and clicked on my ads each time, and then finally decided to buy? I think the odds of that happening are quite slim. So... If anyone can share what an Assist really is, I would appreciate it.
Ditto. I am a bit unclear about what an assist is also. I would think that any "click" on an Advert would be an "assist"... but it sure in the hell doesn't seem that way looking at my stats.
One thing this could be based on some reserach I have done. Yahoo Toolbar activity..direct usage of what Yahoo! calls "Yahoo! Assist" Perhaps this gets you a little closer!
that is a much better explanation, but I find it hard to believe that every conversion from the day mentioned above all clicked multiple ads of mine on different keywords. i wonder why Google Analytics doesn't track such a thing.
Sorry, you're right, it doesn't seem active anymore - if I come up with something similar I'll post it.
"An assist is when somebody clicked on your ad, then searches another term, and then clicks on another one of your ads and makes a purchase." This has to do with the 'buying cycle' line of thought. For example, someone may search the term "loan" which is very generic and they click on your Ad. However, then they go back to searching and refine their searches, i.e. "loans for people with bad credit". They may then convert on this more targetted term. Therefore, you would have one conversion next to "loans for people with bad credit" as well as 1 Assist from the keyword "loan". You may have a higher number of Assists than Leads because people frequently search on numerous terms before they convert (and in doing so, a number of your Ads may be clicked on before they actually convert). The cookies on your PC are noting which keywords you are searching on. Hope this makes sense!
I have a keyword that just converted today, and it shows 2 assists and 1 conversion for the same keyword. Would that just be someone clicking multiple times?