About Mailchimp Attribution

Attribution is a method for giving credit to the marketing email or text message that leads to an order. By connecting your online store to a Mailchimp audience, you can see how your campaigns affect sales and learn which messages convert best.

Things to know

Here are some things to know.

• Mailchimp attribution is automatically compatible with all e-commerce integrations.
• If you’re planning to send SMS campaigns, you’ll need to activate SMS. Check out About SMS Marketing with Mailchimp to learn more.

What's attribution?

Mailchimp links sales to the last message a contact interacted with before making a purchase. This process helps you understand the effectiveness of your marketing emails and text messages in driving revenue. This feature is automatically compatible with all e-commerce integrations. Attribution is determined using a "last-touch" model, where the most recent interaction a contact has within a set time frame, or "attribution window," gets credit for the sale.

How attribution works

Mailchimp attribution tracking is enabled automatically once you connect your online store. The system tracks opens, clicks, and deliveries and assigns an order to the last message a contact interacted with before their purchase.

Default attribution windows

The attribution window is the period during which interactions are tracked for a marketing message.

• Emails - An order is attributed to an email if it's placed within 5 days of an open or within 30 days of a click.
• Text Messages - An order is attributed to a text message if it's placed within 12 hours of delivery or within 5 days of a link click.

If interactions occur across both email and text, the most recent one within its respective window receives credit for the sale. For example, if a contact clicks a link in a text message and makes a purchase within 5 days, the sale is attributed to the text. If the purchase happens after 5 days but still within 30 days of an earlier email click, the sale is attributed to the email.

Now, let’s say your contact doesn't buy anything after clicking a link from an email, but then clicks a link from a text message. If they make a purchase within 5 days, we’ll attribute the sale to the text message. If the purchase happens more than 5 days after the text message, but within 30 days of the email, we’ll attribute it to the email.

Default settings can be customized to fit your needs in your e-commerce app on the Manage Integration page.

Find out more about attribution models.

Manage attribution settings

You can adjust the attribution windows for email and text message interactions. To adjust your settings:

1. Click Analytics.
2. On the Marketing dashboard, or from the Integrations page, click Attribution Settings.
3. Adjust your settings to fit your needs by clicking in the appropriate field and entering your new value. Settings that can be adjusted include:
   • Email clicked - Controls whether Mailchimp attribution considers email clicks within the specified window. You can enable or disable email clicks from being considered, or set the length of the window.
   • Email opened - Controls whether Mailchimp attribution takes email opens during the specified window into consideration. You can enable or disable email opens from being considered, or set the length of the window.
   • SMS clicked - Controls whether Mailchimp attribution considers text clicks within the specified window. You can enable or disable text clicks from being considered, or set the length of the window.
   • SMS delivered - Controls whether Mailchimp attribution considers text deliveries within the specified window. You can enable or disable text deliveries from being considered, or set the length of the window
4. Once you’ve completed your changes, click Save to finish.

Key terms

Here are some terms you’ll come across in this article.

Attribution
A method of assigning credits to the marketing email or text message that led to a sale.

Attribution window
The period of time that we track clicks for a marketing method like email or text.

Integrations
A link between your Mailchimp account and another account you own that lets you share information between the two accounts. For example, if you link your Shopify store with your Mailchimp account, your Shopify customers are added as contacts to your Mailchimp audience.

Last-touch attribution
A method of assigning attribution to the last marketing email or text message that a contact interacts with.