Attribution, demystified
Every platform claims credit for the same dollar. Here's how attribution actually works in email and SMS, and how to set it up so your numbers mean something.
The three decisions that define your numbers
Attribution isn't one setting — it's three: what counts as a touch (open vs click), how long it counts (the lookback window), and who wins ties (last touch vs first touch). Change any one and your "email revenue" can double or halve overnight.
Use click attribution, not opens
Apple Mail Privacy Protection fires opens for emails nobody read. Open-based attribution inflates email revenue by 20–40% and rewards your worst sends. Clicks are the only touch worth crediting.
Pick honest lookback windows
Our defaults: 5 days for email, 24 hours for SMS. If your platform defaults to 30-day open attribution, your dashboard is fiction — almost any purchase will have some email open in the prior month.
Flows vs campaigns: read them differently
Flows intercept high-intent moments, so their attributed revenue is close to truly incremental. Campaign revenue always contains some "would have bought anyway" — sanity-check it with holdout tests on your biggest sends.
The cross-channel tie-breaker
When an SMS click and an email click both precede a purchase, last touch wins inside Bozuro. What matters isn't which rule you pick — it's that one platform applies one rule, instead of three platforms each claiming 100%.
The one-page setup
- Click attribution only, everywhere
- 5-day email / 24-hour SMS windows
- Quarterly holdout test on the house list
- Judge channels on revenue per recipient, not totals
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