How Revenue Attribution works for Email Campaigns

Overview

Revenue attribution for email marketing campaigns is an important process of email marketing, because it is a vital data point in determining how effective email campaigns really are. Monitoring open rates and click through rates are also important metrics to monitor, but the ultimate goal of email marketing is to generate additional revenue. Each email marketing tool has their own method for determining how much revenue was generated by email marketing. Given that there is no agreed upon "standard" of revenue attribution, it's important to understand how different tools measure revenue attribution in their systems.

At ONE, our guiding principles are to create tools that help merchants make more money, but we also want to try to be as honest as we can when showing how much money we're helping contribute! Subsequently, we've taken a conservative approach to revenue attribution that is more likely to underestimate the actual revenue being generated on your store from email campaigns.

In short, the method that ONE uses to track revenue attribution is through reward redemption.

Reward Redemption in Revenue Attribution

Currently, ONE will only measure revenue attribution for your emails if there is a reward attached to the email itself (either broadcast or automation). If you do not have a coupon attached to your email, the attributed revenue will simply show up as "N/A" as seen below.



This is one of the primary reasons that ONE will underestimate the revenue generated by emails sent from the ONE platform. This is to ensure that we are not claiming credit for sales, that were not definitively made because of an email sent from our platform.

When there is a reward that is attached to email, then the revenue shown will be the revenue from the sales where the reward was used. There are three kinds of rewards that can be attached:
Static Coupon Codes (traditional Shopify coupons)
Dynamic Coupon Codes (Unique one-time use codes)
Gift Cards (Unique codes with tracked balances)

1. Revenue Attribution with Static Coupons

Revenue attribution with static coupons tends to be the least accurate, mainly because static coupons use the same redemption code, regardless of the recipient. What makes the attribution inaccurate is if the coupon code is being reused in other parts of the merchants store. Let's take a look at a couple of examples:

Example A

In this example, let's say the merchant has sent out an email broadcast to all of their subscribers with a static coupon code. Additionally, they are advertising the same static coupon code on their website for all new visitors to see. In this particular case, our system is not able to distinguish, whether or not a coupon was used because it came from our email, or if it was due to someone who saw it on the website itself. However, since the static coupon itself was used in our email platform, all of the revenue associated with that static coupon will show up as attributed revenue for the email that it's attached to. For this very reason, we highly recommend that if you are going to attach a static coupon to an email broadcast or automation that it is not used anywhere else on the website or in any other email automations or broadcasts.

Example B

In this example, let's say that the merchant has sent out two email broadcast to the exact same audience, using the exact same static coupon code. The attributed revenue, for both of these broadcasts will show the exact same amount in both records. This is because our system shows the revenue attributed with the coupon itself, not necessarily the individual broadcast. Therefore it's also a recommendation that if you are sending out multiple email broadcasts, to make sure that you were not reusing the same static coupon codes, and each one otherwise it becomes difficult to distinguish the impact on your revenue by email campaign.

2. Revenue Attribution with Dynamic Coupons and Gift Cards

Revenue attribution gets a little bit more accurate when using dynamic coupons or gift cards. This is because every single dynamic coupon, code or gift card has a unique identifier and is always assigned to an individual. Therefore, whenever one of these coupon codes are used, we are able to determine exactly how that coupon code was distributed, and therefore where to contribute the revenue for that coupon code. As a result, we would highly recommend that whenever sending out an email campaigns to attach either dynamic coupon codes or gift cards as a reward because they will show you the most accurate figures for email revenue attribution.

Pro Tip: For best results, do not reuse the same coupon codes across multiple broadcasts/automations. Creating a new coupon code for each broadcast/automation will deliver the optimal results for revenue attribution

Conclusion

The ONE platform will only attribute revenue from rewards that have been attached to an email and used, because we believe that's one of the most accurate ways to measure our impact on your store. We will continue to improve our revenue attribution in the future and will update our communication of the methodology accordingly. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to our live chat team and we'll be happy to help.

Updated on: 14/03/2023