Measure your marketing impact more accurately with attribution best practices

Consumers are growing their connections with brands digitally

In today’s world, SMS is an increasingly critical marketing channel, with consumers who not only want to receive text messages to stay in touch with brands, but also have begun to buy more often.

According to Klaviyo’s 2024 SMS Consumer Report, 86% of consumers say they made 2 or more purchases in the last year from a branded text, up from 55% in 2022. They subscribe for reasons like It’s a brand I love and I am about to make a purchase and want to get a discount – indicating very high purchase intent when your customers engage through owned channels.

At the same time, phishing attacks mean that consumers aren’t always comfortable clicking on links, but they’ll certainly keep your brand top of mind and even visit your website directly.

Beyond that, the importance of email marketing cannot be understated. Klaviyo’s 2024 State of the Ecommerce Industry Report shows that when consumers are asked which marketing channels have the biggest influence over their purchasing decisions, they continue to rank email as one of the top channels.

Measuring the real impact of your campaigns

Businesses often see huge value from consolidating SMS and email with Klaviyo – Laura Geller grew quarterly SMS revenue 3.9x in their first year, and Frances Valentine grows their revenue from multi-channel flows by 32% YoY through better analytics to understand their customer engagement.

“Being able to see how customers are engaging with email and SMS, and having both channels in Klaviyo, is definitely going to help us continue to level up our marketing and make sure we’re giving customers what they want.”
Florencia Gilardoni, Director of Marketing at Frances Valentine

See how sending an SMS campaign drives an increase in site traffic

Klaviyo analyzed over 13,000 businesses using SMS to track how an SMS delivery drives customers to visit your website even if they don’t click.

Here’s an example from a large fast fashion ecommerce brand based in the United States. They sent an SMS campaign and tracked the behavior of customers who received the SMS for the next few hours and days.

It’s clear that immediately after the SMS is delivered, there’s a sharp increase in site traffic from the audience that received the SMS. Around eight to twelve hours after the send, that increase in traffic begins to flatten.

Klaviyo recommends using a twelve hour window to capture the impact of delivering an SMS, without overstating the influence of SMS.

Proper credit without double-counting

Klaviyo’s attribution credits the last interaction before a purchase, ensuring email and SMS impacts aren’t double counted with our cooperative multi-channel attribution model. Different types of interactions warrant different attribution windows, and our recommendation is:

• Opened email: 5 days
  • Opening an email is a level of engagement that confirms you’ve reached an interested and relevant audience, and they’ve actively read your message.
• Clicked email: 5 days
  • Clicking an email signals interest or intent to shop, as customers open the browsing window to view a product or explore more.
• Delivered SMS: 12 hours
  • An SMS message is like a billboard that shows up in someone’s phone. They’ll read it, and your message will be top of mind, whether or not they click.
• Clicked SMS: 5 days
  • Clicking an SMS signals interest or intent to shop, as customers open the browsing window to view a product or explore more.
• Opened push: 1 day
  • When a customer opens a push notification, they’re immediately taken into your app, so your message takes over their entire screen.
• Exclude bot clicks
  • We’ll filter out clicks that come from email scanners and SMS previews to ensure that you’re only crediting interactions from real people.

Unlike many platforms, we use conservative attribution windows because consumers today constantly scroll, shop quickly, and have shorter attention spans. This helps capture a message’s true influence without over-attributing, so you can confidently and accurately report on your marketing impact.

Customize your attribution today

You should customize your attribution windows to reflect how long it typically takes your customers to make a purchase after receiving a message. While Klaviyo’s default settings work well for most, every business is unique.

For instance, buying a necessity like dish soap happens quickly, while a high-consideration item like a dishwasher takes longer. Adjusting your attribution windows based on customer behavior ensures you accurately capture their decision-making process and your influence on their motivation to buy.

That’s why we created a model comparison tool that you can use to explore different attribution settings before you make a change.

With the model comparison, we recommend reviewing the difference between:

• Your current attribution model
• Klaviyo’s recommended attribution model

Click here to check it out in your Klaviyo attribution settings.

Learn more about attribution at Klaviyo and the improvements we’re making to give you the flexibility and precision to track real business and marketing results.