SMS Attribution Explained

In this article, you'll learn the basics of SMS Attribution, why it's so helpful, and how to configure the attribution settings in your Yotpo SMS & Email account.

What is attribution and why is it so Important?

Attribution is the process of connecting user interactions to a specific marketing campaign, or, in other words - where and how your customers came across your product or service.

Since in most cases, there is a time gap between the moment you decide to buy something and the actual purchase, marketers find it hard to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and the professional platforms use the so-called conversion windows - they help determine if a sale was influenced by a specific campaign or not.

In terms of SMS, attribution will show how many people made a purchase on your store after receiving a text marketing message from your brand.

Merchants need to track the efforts that brought the best results and try to improve their performance in future campaigns. And with the help of our advanced attribution model you’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of each SMS campaign, automation or flow you use.

How attribution works in Yotpo SMS

Once you send out a text marketing message to your customers and they make a purchase within a specific time frame, we will attribute this exact sale to this exact message.

The Yotpo SMS attribution model works with 2 possible scenarios:

• last delivered SMS: if a customer received a text message from you in the last X days.
• last clicked SMS: if a customer received a text message from you in the last X days and clicked on it.

We are attributing the order to the event that occurred last - the latest customer interaction.

Our advanced attribution model helps merchants check whether incoming orders are a result of their SMS marketing efforts or not. It even digs a little deeper and shows the specific campaign, flow or automation that drove the conversion. Please note, that this is in case no discount codes have been used.

SMS attribution and discount codes

If you use a discount code in your text messages, we will attribute its conversions depending on whether the code was generated in Yotpo SMS or not:

• Scenario 1: If you send text messages containing unique discount codes, created in SMS, the results will surely be attributed to these exact messages. In this case the last clicked/last delivered SMS rule does not apply.
• Scenario 2: If you send text messages containing discount codes, created outside SMS (for example, in Shopify), the conversions will be attributed according to the last clicked/last delivered SMS rule.

Setting up attribution in Yotpo SMS & Email

We will now walk you through the process of configuring your Yotpo SMS attribution settings.

Go to your Settings from the Dashboard and click on the Attribution section.

From here on you can start setting up the SMS conversion windows and UTM tracking.

SMS conversion windows

Start off by choosing the time periods (conversion windows) for when a purchase on your store will be attributed to your text marketing initiatives. It means that if you send a text marketing message to a specific customer and they end up making a purchase from your store within the conversion window, their order will be attributed to the corresponding option you used to send the SMS: a one-off SMS campaign, an ongoing automation, or a flow.

There are 2 types of conversion windows: Last clicked and Last delivered.

• Last clicked: this setting will attribute orders in the last X days, after a customer with the same ID received a message from you and clicked on it.
• Last delivered: this setting will attribute orders in the last X hours, after a customer with the same ID received a message from you.

You can set each period between 1 and 10 days for clicked, and between 24 and 72 hours for delivered.

Example:

If an order comes in and the last event was a delivered SMS, but the SMS was received 2 days before the order, this won’t count as a conversion, since the conversion window of “last delivered” SMS is 24 hours.

If the same contactreceived and clicked on the text message 5 days before the order came in, then this is within the conversion window of “last clicked” SMS and will be considered as an attribution.

UTM parameters

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) is a simple code that you can attach to any custom link, to track key information - the main source of your web traffic, how visitors came to you and why. It is a great tool to measure the effectiveness of a specific marketing strategy or campaign.

With the UTM builder you can create your own UTM parameters and automate the link creation process. That way the information you collect in your analytics solution will always be relevant and synchronized and your measurements - accurate.

You can start configuring your UTM parameters as soon as you enable the option from the drop-down menu.

There are 3 preset parameters you can use: utm_source, utm_medium, and utm_campaign. You can also add more parameters of your choosing within the Add Custom Parameter field. Each parameter can work with 2 types of values: dynamic and static.

• Dynamic parameter values change according to the selected value. Choose between Event type, Event name, Event ID or different combinations. Example: let’s say you created aBFCM Upsell flow and you want to track its effectiveness. Use its name under Event name (e.g. BFCM Upsell) or its ID under Event ID.
• Static parameter values: remain the same at all times. Choose between SMS, SMSBump, or fill in a Custom name (e.g. BFCM SMS campaign).

The UTM tracking parameters will be automatically added to the URLs provided to merchants via short codes. These parameters will apply to all your links. You can preview the UTM link in the green box below.

Keep in mind that the link won’t look like that in the message, all links are automatically shortened to the following format: https://yourstore.smsb.co/XXXXXX.

Use the Add button to add more custom parameters (up to 5) that will help you track the performance of your SMS marketing efforts.

UTM tracking for pasted links

Although you can add your very own links and UTM’s in, we highly recommend you check the box for UTM tracking for pasted links, because that way you will have the most accurate results from your SMS marketing efforts.

However, if you want to use your own UTM parameters when you paste links, simply uncheck the box.

When you are done configuring the conversion windows and the UTM parameters, don’t forget to click on the blue Save button below.