Marketing Cloud enables you to set up the Conversion Attribution strategy without any coding effort. All you must do is configure a given set of parameters. And these parameters determine how we calculate and associate a campaign with an order.
NOTE: The Conversion Attribution is simply the best estimate (based on the setting) that the purchase event is most likely the direct action of a recent email event. If your parameter setting doesn't give you optimal results, change and refresh the setting.
Setting Up Conversion Attribution
You can set up the conversion attribution for your account on the Conversion Attribution page. Follow the steps as shown below:
- Click your username on the top-right corner of the application and then from the drop-down, select Settings.
- On the Settings page, under Connections, click Conversion Attribution.
- On the Conversion Attribution page, turn on the Enable Last-Touch Attribution toggle button.
- In the Attribute email conversions to section, select the event to which you want to attribute the email conversion.
- Campaigns that were most recently opened only: The most recent open event will be considered for the campaign attribution.
- Campaigns that were most recently clicked only: The most recent click event will be considered for the campaign attribution.
- Campaigns that were either most recently opened or clicked: The most recent event, whether open or click, will be considered for the campaign attribution.
Additionally, for each option, select whether you want to include the opens/clicks recorded from the data center.
NOTE: If the option 'The campaign most recently clicked is preferred' is selected, then the most recently clicked campaign is attributed to the order, even if there is a campaign more recently opened. However, if none of the campaigns were clicked, then the one most recently opened is attributed to the order.
- Select which order statuses are to be used.
- Any order status: All orders irrespective of their status are considered for calculation.
- Include only orders with status: The orders with statuses that you select here are considered for calculation.
- Exclude all orders with status: All orders, excluding the ones with statuses that you select here, are considered for calculation.
- Turn on the Exclude unsubscribers and spam complaints toggle switch to exclude the spam report events.
- In Attribution Window, select a day between 1 to 30 days. The attribution window is the date range immediately prior to the order date during which all email campaigns delivered to the contact are considered for conversion attribution.
The default value for Attribution Window is 7 days.
- Enable the Refresh previous attributions toggle switch if you want to refresh the campaign conversions for the last 30 days.
Depending on whether you are enabling the Conversion Attribution settings for the first time or updating the settings, here's how refreshing the previous attributions works:
- Historical Backfilling: If you are enabling Conversion Attribution settings for the first time, the campaign conversions are calculated for orders in the past 30 days to provide you with historical data.
- Recalculation: If you are making changes to your existing Conversion Attribution settings, the campaign conversions are recalculated and the new settings are reflected in the campaign associations with orders.
- Click SAVE.
How Does It Work?
When the Conversion Attribution is enabled, here's how it works:
- When an order is synched into your Marketing Cloud account, its order status is checked. The order status(es) selected in the setting are considered.
- Based on the order date, all the emails delivered to the contact (buyer) for the last X days are checked. Here, X refers to the number of days selected as the attribution window in the setting.
- Then, the most recently opened/clicked email by the same contact is looked up and associated with the order.
- If you chose Opens only in the setting, the most recently opened email is picked.
- If you chose Clicks only in the setting, the most recently clicked email is picked.
- If you chose Either Opens or Clicks in the setting, the most recently touched email, either opened or clicked, is picked.
NOTE: Your selections regarding including event records from data centers and Apple's MPP-enabled email apps are also considered.
