All you need to know about attribution
You’ve probably heard that old marketing classic :
That’s the attribution dilemma.
Attribution is all about figuring out which touchpoints actually helped steer your customer toward making a purchase. Was it the newsletter? The Instagram ad? The SMS campaign? Attribution is here to anwer the question.
Why is it so important ?
Marketers use attribution models to answer two big questions:
Tactical – How did this campaign perform? Which channels are pulling their weight?
Strategic – How should we split our marketing budget to get the most bang for our buck?
Brands with important budgets often invest in complex attribution systems that can track most of the sources — from online ads to in-store visits.
But not every team has the time or tools for those tools.
🚀 What Attribution Models exist ?
To give you a quick overview, here are the main existing multi-touch attribution models :
Model | Description |
|---|---|
First-Touch | Full credit is given to the first customer interaction. |
Last-Touch | The last interaction before conversion receives all the credit. |
Linear | Equal credit is distributed across all touchpoints. |
Time Decay | Greater credit is given to more recent interactions. ⏳ |
U-Shaped | The first and last touchpoints receive the most credit, with the remaining distributed across the middle steps. |
Custom / Data-Driven | Attribution is determined based on advanced data analysis and machine learning, often requiring robust datasets. 🤖💸 |
And what is available on the Splio platform?
First, keep in mind that revenue attribution is often used to compare campaigns : from one type of campaigns to another or one year to another.
In that case, the most important thing is to make sure you’re using the same attribution model to have a reliable comparison.
Splio's attribution is working with your email data only and that means the model is not a multi-channel attribution (even if we are working on it)
Splio offers the following options :
📬 Post Email Sent / Open / Click
🎯 Last Email Sent / Open / Click
Which model should you follow ?
Highly Restrictive : Last Click
For a very strict revenue attribution model where the revenue is attributed to the last clicked email.Restrictive : Last Open
For a less strict model than click attribution, where the sale is attributed to the last opened email
(⚠️ This can be significantly biased due to the iOS 15 update).Restrictive : Last Sent
For a minimally restrictive model where revenue is attributed to the last received email, regardless of clicks or opens.Less Restrictive : Post Click
For a lenient revenue attribution model linked to the last email click → Revenue may be counted multiple times → All clicked emails by the user are considered contributors to the sale.Very Generous : Post Open
For an even more permissive model than click attribution, as it's based on email opens → Attribution to all opened emails
And of course, as usual, you can contact your Customer success manager if you need more information.