Analyze success through attribution
Attribution helps you understand whether the money and effort you invest in your strategy are actually driving results. As you explore Klaviyo’s reporting tools, keep this in mind and take a critical look at your data to identify areas for improvement. The most successful brands focus on key performance indicators (KPIs) and understand how their owned revenue is being attributed.
Owned revenue, also called Klaviyo-attributed value (KAV), refers to revenue generated through your owned channels, like email, text messages, and push notifications. For example, if a customer engages with your email and makes a purchase within your attribution window, that purchase is counted toward your owned revenue. Understanding this relationship gives you a more complete picture of performance and helps guide your next steps.
What is attribution and why is it important?
Attribution indicates which message, channel, or strategy led to a customer conversion. With this data, you can better understand your subscribers and tailor your marketing efforts to draw more revenue for your business.
There are 2 types of attribution tracked in Klaviyo:
- Event attribution
When Klaviyo attributes events to specific messages and customer actions (for example, a placed order can be attributed to a text message campaign), event attribution data helps you understand how your marketing efforts influence your customers' behaviors and makes informed decisions about your messaging strategy. - Message attribution
When Klaviyo attributes message data to when the message was first sent (for example, if an email campaign was sent in a recipient’s local time zone, the attributed message data will be dated at the earliest sent time of the campaign.
Watch the video below to learn a bit more about what attribution is and why it’s important.
Note that this video discusses Klaviyo's use of last-touch attribution. With Marketing Analytics and Advanced KDP, you also have the option to use multi-touch attribution.
How does Klaviyo track attribution?
Klaviyo uses a cooperative, multi-channel model to track event attribution. This means that Klaviyo provides distinct attribution windows for each channel (email, SMS, and push). Klaviyo then attributes certain customer events (e.g., placed an order) to touchpoints in a given attribution window.
In your Klaviyo account, you can view and customize your attribution settings to best fit the needs of your business.
Default attribution windows
An attribution window is the period of time after a message is sent when a recipient’s action, like an engagement or a purchase, can be credited back to that message in your reporting.
Klaviyo uses the following default attribution windows for each channel:
- Email clicks: 5 days
- Email opens: 5 days
- SMS clicks: 5 days
- Delivered SMS: 12 hours
- Push opens: 24 hours
In all cases, these windows start once the message is sent from Klaviyo.
However, you can also customize your attribution window settings for all of your channels in Klaviyo. To do so, open your Klaviyo account and navigate to your account in the bottom left-hand corner. Click Settings > Attribution, and scroll to the Attribution windows section.
Customizing these windows allows you to better match your unique customers’ typical behaviors when it comes to interacting with your message, providing you with a more accurate picture of which messages led to customer action. Select which interactions you’d like to track by clicking on the checkboxes, and then customize your time frames using the accompanying fields. Make sure to click Save when you’re done.
Note: When you change your attribution window settings, they will only apply to conversions that take place after you’ve set your new attribution windows. Your data will not retroactively update to your new attribution windows.
Filtering out bot clicks and machine opens
In your Attribution settings in Klaviyo, you can also choose toexclude bot clicks and machine opens from tracking or reporting. This will help you get a more accurate depiction of how your subscribers are interacting with your messages, without conflation from automated clicks and opens.
To do so, open your Klaviyo account and navigate to your account in the bottom left-hand corner. Click Settings > Attribution, and then scroll to the Tracking & reporting data section.
You can select any of the following to exclude by selecting the checkbox next to each statement:
- Exclude bot clicks from email clicks
- Exclude bot clicks from SMS clicks
- Exclude Apple Privacy Protection opens from email opens
Make sure to click Save when you’re done.
It’s important to note that when you enact this setting in Klaviyo, it’s expected that your open and click rates will decrease. Do not panic; this is expected! This is occurring because you are no longer counting superfluous clicks and opens in your data. All of the click and open data you have is from the recipients you are trying to reach, giving you more accurate insights into your subscriber base.
When updating your settings, there are a few key details to note:
- If your Klaviyo account was created on or after August 27, 2024, Exclude bot clicks from email clicks and Exclude bot clicks from SMS clicks will be turned on in your Tracking & reporting data section by default.
- If your account was created before August 27, 2024, it’s recommended to update your settings by going to Settings > Attribution > Tracking to make sure bot clicks are removed from both reporting and attribution. You may have previously chosen to exclude bot clicks within your email settings, but doing so in your email settings only impacts your reporting, and not your actual attribution.
- Updates to attribution will take place going forward, as soon as your changes are saved. For your reporting, the exclusion of bot clicks will update as far back as January 1, 2022. The exclusion of Apple Privacy Opens is currently not included in reporting.
Choosing an attribution model
By default, Klaviyo uses a last-touch attribution model meaning every customer purchase is attributed to the last Klaviyo message that influenced the order. This helps you see which campaigns or flows are most effective at driving conversions in the final step of the customer journey.
If you're using Marketing Analytics or Advanced KDP, you also have the option to choose a linear multi-touch attribution model. With this model, credit is spread evenly across all Klaviyo messages a customer engaged with before making a purchase.
For example:
- Sam clicks a text message with an exclusive discount to browse your site.
- Later, he clicks on an older promotional email from your brand and makes a purchase.
With last-touch attribution, the purchase would be credited entirely to the email, since it was the last interaction before the purchase.
With linear multi-touch attribution, the purchase credit is split evenly: 50% to the SMS and 50% to the email, because both messages influenced Sam within their respective attribution windows.
No matter which model you choose, purchases must occur within the attribution window for each channel in order to be counted.
Key considerations
When tracking attributed revenue, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.
- Consider your customer’s buying journey
Consider your customer's buying journey to better understand how the way they engage with your brand might impact attribution. Some products and services might require more time and engagement to drive your customers to purchase. An awareness of how long this typically takes and how much engagement is needed to drive revenue will serve you well. - Consider the behaviors of each marketing channel
Think about how you interact with different types of messages you receive. When you receive a push notification or a text message, you likely interact with these messages very shortly after you see them. It may take you a little while longer to see an email and take action from it. Keep these behaviors in mind as you set up your attribution windows to make sure you’re accurately reflecting which messages are driving action. For example, it usually makes sense for brands to have shorter push open and SMS click windows, and longer email open and click windows. - Consider how your attribution windows work together
When setting your attribution windows, you may track multiple interactions per channel (e.g., email opens and email clicks). For example, if you set a longer click window than open window, you make sure to capture those who have high intent to purchase and may take longer to go through the purchase funnel. Coordinate these windows to align with the behaviors of your customers. - Consider the seasonality of your business
Analyze how your customers engage with your brand on an annual basis and consider this when reviewing your attribution data for the year. For example, a custom sandal business might see a huge boom in revenue in the lead-up to summer when hotter weather will drive business. Other seasonal events like Black Friday/Cyber Monday might give you wildly different results and require a separate marketing strategy.