Easily report on real impact with Klaviyo’s updated attribution model

Alicia
5 min read
Platform news
7 August 2024
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Customer journeys today are complicated, and, most importantly, unique.

To understand what makes your customers buy and how you’ve driven growth through marketing, you need to track customer journeys effectively.

At Klaviyo, we help you activate and measure your data in a way that powers smarter digital relationships. We take an unbiased approach to attribution, giving you the ability to customise your Klaviyo attribution model so that you can easily report on real marketing and business results.

As we’ve grown, we’ve launched improvements like cooperative attribution to help you identify, without a doubt, which channels are driving what revenue.

We’re continuing to invest in richer reporting and robust attribution enhancements so you have full control over your data. Over the next few months, we’ll be launching an unparalleled level of flexibility, so you can adjust your touchpoints, look-back windows, and filters—and apply all those changes retroactively so you see consistent, apples-to-apples comparisons for your entire account history.

“It’s better because it’s more real,” says Chad McClure, email marketing automation manager at Alphabroder. “We’ve got room for improvement, and we can filter out the noise and actually see if we’re making a difference.”

Even better, this update to the Klaviyo attribution model gives you the power to make changes right in your dashboard, whenever you want, without reaching out to customer support.

Precise measurements for attribution

Filter out bot clicks

You’ll be able to filter out bot clicks, so you can exclude non-human clicks like email scanners and SMS previews for more accurate engagement metrics. This rolls out for reporting in August, and will be available in attribution settings alongside larger updates in Q3 2024.

Exclude Apple privacy opens

You’ll also be able to exclude Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens from your opened email reporting. While Apple privacy opens could come from human engagement, some brands experience misleading attribution as a result. You’ve been able to filter them out of Klaviyo attribution for years, and soon you’ll be able to update your reporting to match.

Cancelled campaign performance

Finally, we’re bringing back reporting on cancelled campaign performance. If you need to cancel a campaign mid-send, you’ll still see all the results those initial emails generated in reporting and attribution.

Flexibility to attribute the way you see fit

With additional attribution touchpoints, you’ll be able to customise your Klaviyo attribution model even further. Whether that means only crediting clicks or expanding a look-back window based on your customers’ unique buying cycles, you can design your Klaviyo attribution model however you need to.

This updated set of attribution touchpoints and default look-back windows will provide you with a starting point to tailor from:

Updated attribution touchpoints

Opened email: 5 days

You can define a specific attribution window for opened emails, separately from clicked emails. The default window for opened emails will be 5 days.

Clicked email: 5 days

You can define a specific attribution window for clicked emails, separately from opened emails. The default window for clicked emails will be 5 days.

Clicked SMS: 5 days

Consumers often engage with SMS messages from their favorite brands. Even if the SMS doesn’t lead to an immediate purchase, it often influences purchasing decisions within a timeframe similar to other marketing channels. For this reason, the default clicked SMS attribution window will be updated to 5 days.

New attribution touchpoints

Delivered SMS: 1 day

Consumers typically open every text they receive, so you can now include delivered SMS as a touchpoint, and we’ll set the default attribution window as 1 day.

Unchanged attribution touchpoints

Opened push: 1 day

The default attribution window for opened push notifications will continue to be 1 day.

A new advanced attribution model for Klaviyo CDP: linear multi-touch

We’re also building a linear multi-touch attribution model for CDP customers. You’ll be able to understand the influence of every email, text, or push someone has engaged with—and recognise the impact of every interaction that led to a sale, instead of just the last one.

As a result, you’ll be able to more effectively prioritise which programmes to invest in or sunset.

Making the hard things easy: historical attribution

One of the most stressful parts of changing an attribution model is getting it right—because once you change it, you won’t be able to compare your new attribution with your old reporting.

That’s not the case with Klaviyo. With our revamped attribution model, your changes will apply retroactively so that you’ll be able to continue reporting and comparing performance to last year or last month. You can change your attribution settings at any time, and we’ll update your entire history of Klaviyo attribution.

Wondering if a change will increase or decrease your Klaviyo-attributed value (KAV)? Click “compare model” and you’ll be able to preview the impact of any changes.

The changes you choose to implement mean that you can match Klaviyo attribution and reporting to your business expectations, and that level of accuracy and alignment will allow you to leverage Klaviyo reports to make informed decisions on your strategy and investments.

When is all this coming?

In August, you’ll see a new option to exclude bot clicks from reporting in your settings. In the next few months, you’ll be able to start using the new attribution model, including the improvements highlighted above, and we’ll notify account owners via email when the new model is available for your accounts. Starting in September, you’ll see cancelled campaign performance included in reporting.

For those using Klaviyo CDP, we’ll reach out to you directly when linear multi-touch attribution is available in your account.

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Alicia
Alicia Chang
Alicia Chang is a product marketing manager at Klaviyo, focused on helping customers get the most out of their CDP and data. She aims to make it easy to understand and activate data, and drive impactful personalization at scale. Alicia is based in Boston, MA.