The revenue, conversions, and clicks reporting on your Bluecore dashboard will typically look different than what you see in other online reporting tools like Omniture or Google Analytics. This occurs because Bluecore can only see engagement information from Bluecore campaigns, whereas a tool like Omniture or Google Analytics can see engagement information across more tools and channels.
How does Bluecore attribution work?
When Bluecore calculates and attributes revenue (or conversions) to a campaign, we use an attribution window based on when a customer clicks on an email and ultimately makes a purchase X number of days from that email click-through. We recommend a 5 day, last-click attribution window, but you can adjust this to any time span ranging from 24 hours up to 10 days.
For example, if you’re using a 5 day attribution window, and a customer clicks on a cart abandonment email and makes a purchase 3 days later, we would attribute the revenue from that purchase to your cart abandonment email program. If they purchase 7 days later, we would not attribute the revenue from that purchase to your cart abandonment email program.
Why does Bluecore’s attribution look different from internal reporting?
Even if you use the same attribution window in Bluecore as you do in an internal reporting tool like Omniture or Google Analytics, you may notice some differences. This discrepancy occurs because of a difference in channel view.
Bluecore only accounts for information from Bluecore campaigns, but tools like Omniture and Google Analytics account for information across all of your systems and channels. As a result, if a customer clicks on a Bluecore cart abandonment email, then clicks on a search ad 2 days later and makes a purchase on day 3, your Bluecore dashboard will attribute that revenue to the cart abandonment program, but your online reporting tool will likely attribute that revenue to the last clicked channel -- which in this case is search, not email.
Importantly, this means Bluecore can only report on emails sent through Bluecore Communicate™ and site personalization elements (e.g. pop-ups) managed through Bluecore Site™. Any activity outside of Bluecore (even on the email and eCommerce site channels) will not be reported within Bluecore.
What differences should you expect as a result of this?
The fact that Bluecore can only report on activity from its own campaigns, not from across various tools, typically means that revenue and conversions may be a lot lower in tools outside of Bluecore. Importantly, they are just looking at the same customer actions in a different light.