What does email revenue attribution show in a seven-day window?
The short answer
Divide the unique email clickers who bought within seven days by all unique clickers in the period, and you have the click-to-purchase rate behind email revenue attribution. Then list what those buyers purchased, and compare their rate with similar customers who received the email but did not click, which reveals how much revenue the email added.
Email click to purchase conversion, worked through
Why it matters
Email reports that credit every purchase after a click overstate what email earns, which skews budget and send frequency. A clean seven-day measure with a comparison group tells you which emails drive purchases and which only catch customers already on their way.
The question to ask
Copy this into Lexi as written.
How to work it out
1. Set the window. Choose an email attribution window, such as seven days from the click, and apply it to every campaign.
2. Calculate the rate and revenue. Count unique clickers in the last 90 days, the share who bought within seven days of a click, and their revenue, online and in store.
3. Compare with non-clickers. Take customers with similar purchase history who received the email but did not click, and measure their purchase rate over the same seven days.
What the answer looks like
Illustrative output on sample data
Illustrative example: how Lexi answers this for a beauty retailer. It looks at 90 days of email clicks and purchases within seven days, online and in store, against similar customers who did not click.
- Unique clickers: 48,000. Bought within seven days: 6,240, a 13% rate.
- Revenue from those buyers: $499,200.
- Comparable non-clickers: 7% bought.
What the data shows
About 6 points of the 13% rate, roughly 2,880 buyers, can be credited to email. At $80 per buyer that is about $230,400 of the $499,200 attributed.
What it means
Less than half of seven-day click revenue is caused by the email. Replenishment items made up 55% of purchases, and 28% of buyers finished in store.
What to do
Report email revenue against the comparison group, and include store purchases in every email report.
Want me to show what clickers bought by category?
Frequently asked questions
How long should an email conversion window be?
Long enough to capture purchases the email prompted and short enough to avoid claiming unrelated ones. Seven days is a practical default for retail email, with a shorter window for flash sales and a longer one for considered purchases like furniture. Keep one window per campaign type and state it in every report.
Why compare email clickers with non-clickers?
Clickers are the customers most interested in your brand and the most likely to buy anyway. Crediting every purchase after a click to the email counts those natural purchases as email revenue. A comparison group of similar customers who received the email but did not click shows how much of the rate the email really added.
Should in-store purchases count in email revenue attribution?
Yes, when you can match the store purchase to the customer who clicked. Some customers read an email, then buy in store, and leaving those sales out understates what email drives. Use the same seven-day window and the same comparison group for store and online purchases.