Setting up SMS and Email Attribution

SMS and Email Attribution Overview

Tracking the performance of your strategies and campaigns has always been an integral part of online marketing, and attribution is key to doing that.

Attribution is the process of connecting user interactions to a specific marketing campaign, or, in other words - where and how your customers came across your product or service.

Since in most cases, there is a time gap between the moment you decide to buy something and the actual purchase, marketers find it hard to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. That is why professional platforms use the so-called conversion windows - they help determine if a sale was influenced by a specific campaign or not.

In this article, you'll learn how email and SMS attribution works and how you can adjust it in Yotpo SMS & Email.

Attribution Basics

Once you send out a marketing text message or email to your customers and they make a purchase within the conversion window, we’ll attribute this exact sale to this exact text message or email. Our model attributes the order to the event that occurred last, in other words, the latest customer interaction.

There are two types of customer interactions: Last delivered and Last clicked for SMS, and Last opened and Last clicked for Email. Priority is given to clicks. In simpler terms, if multiple events occur within the same conversion window, the purchase will always be attributed to the click.

Setting Up Email Attribution

Email attribution works with the following methods:

• Last opened or clicked: Attributes the order after a customer with the same ID opened an email or clicked a link in it within the conversion window

• Last opened or clicked (Excluding Apple Privacy Opens): Functions similarly to the method above but excludes Apple's automatic opens, which could impact data accuracy. For more information, see Privacy Changes with iOS 15.

• Last clicked: Attributes the order after a customer with the same ID opened an email and clicked a link in it within the conversion window

To adjust your email conversion window:

1. In your Yotpo SMS & Email main menu, go to Settings > General Settings.

2. Scroll down to Attribution.

3. In the Email conversion window section, select a method.

4. Set a timeframe of up to 10 days based on the frequency of your emails. For bi-weekly emails, set the value to 2-3 days.

5. Click Save.

Setting Up SMS Attribution

With the help of Yotpo’s advanced SMS attribution model, you can measure the effectiveness of each campaign or flow you use. We support two types of conversion windows:

• Last clicked: A subscriber received a text message in the last X days and clicked a link in it

• Last delivered: A subscriber received a text message in the last X day

When discount codes have been used, we’ll attribute their conversions depending on whether the code was generated in Yotpo:

• Scenario 1: If you send text messages containing unique discount codes created in Yotpo SMS, the results will surely be attributed to these exact messages. In this case, the last clicked/last delivered rule does not apply.

• Scenario 2: If you send text messages containing discount codes created outside Yotpo SMS (for example, in Shopify), the conversions will be attributed in line with the last clicked/last delivered rule

To adjust your SMS conversion window:

1. In your Yotpo SMS & Email main menu, go to Settings > General Settings.

2. Scroll down to Attribution.

3. In the SMS conversion window section, set a timeframe under each method:

   • You can set up to 10 days for Last clicked

   • You can set between 24 and 72 hours for Last delivered

4. Click Save.

Tip

To get more accurate results, we suggest you use a small attribution window for delivered messages (24 hours) and a bigger window for clicked messages (7 days). This is also the default setting in your Yotpo SMS Dashboard.

• If an order comes in and the last event was a delivered SMS, but the SMS was received 2 days before the order, this won’t count as a conversion, since the conversion window of Last delivered is 24 hours

• If the same subscriber received and clicked a link in the text message 5 days before the order came in, then this is within the conversion window of Last clicked and will be considered an attribution

Understanding SMS and Email Attribution

Understanding data attribution in Yotpo SMS & Email analytics dashboards is key to interpreting your performance. Dashboards attribute data based on one of two logics. Attribution can be:

• Send-based: Data is attributed to the date a campaign started sending or a flow message was sent.

• Event-based: Data is attributed to the date of a related event, such as when an order was placed.

Accurately analyzing metrics helps you refine your marketing strategy and maximize the insights Yotpo’s dashboards provide. For clarity, dashboards display a message at the top of the page explaining which attribution model is in use.

SMS and Email Attribution Logic

Imagine you send a campaign on April 1st.

Now picture this: a customer opens your email and clicks a link in it on April 3rd, and makes a purchase on April 5th.

Event Time Logic

In this setup, the system logs the click on April 3rd and the order and revenue on April 5th. So when you check your campaign analytics on April 8th, you won’t see those results under April 1st. This can make it hard to connect the impact of your campaign to the actual message that drove the results, especially when you’re running multiple campaigns or flows at once.

Send Time Logic

With this model, we attribute the click, order, and revenue back to April 1st, the day you sent the message. So when you check your analytics on April 8th, you’ll see the full impact of your campaign exactly where it belongs, under the send date.

This gives you a much clearer, more accurate view of your campaign’s performance.

Calculation Info

To make it easier for you to understand which logic each analytics dashboard uses, we’ve added a Calculation Info section at the top of every dashboard. Just hover over the tooltip to see a clear explanation, it’s that simple!