Overview

Attribution refers to the practice of identifying and attributing the influence of advertising on consumer behavior and purchasing decisions. In the digital advertising landscape, attribution plays a crucial role in understanding the impact and effectiveness of sponsored or promoted products and other ad formats in driving sales and revenue for businesses.

With Kevel, you can attribute any ad format to retail transactions—not just product listing ads (PLAs)—by defining a set of attributable products, categories, and brands associated with an ad. For PLAs this is set automatically based on the product metadata when using the create ads from products workflow in the UI or API via pre-defined Ad Template mappings. For display ads, sponsored brands and other formats, the set of attributable sales is explicitly set to match advertiser goals from specific product collection promotions to more general brand awareness campaigns.

There are four components to a successful attribution setup:

1. Catalog setup
   • Product feed synced with Kevel. Catalog data is used when processing purchase events to determine the category and brand associated with the purchased product ID. Product data also enables an enhanced UI experience during the campaign setup step and enriches product-based reports.
2. Campaign setup
   • A Campaign with at least one Flight that has Attribution Settings configured for post-click and/or post-view lookback window and product match.
   • One or more Ads in the Flight with Attributable Items set. For PLAs this is set automatically using the Ad Template selected in the Create Ads from Products workflow. For non-PLAs this is set on a per-ad basis.
3. Ad impressions and clicks
   • Ad interaction events associated with an end user. When a user sees or clicks on an attribution-enabled Ad, a touchpoint is recorded.
4. Purchase event stream
   • Ongoing stream of transaction data sent to Kevel's purchase event endpoint. When purchase events are received, Kevel looks for touchpoints from #2 for the same user that made the purchase.

Catalog Setup

To support attribution processing, product feeds must contain the following fields on each item:

• Main Category ID
  • This is used for "same category" matches by Kevel's Attribution model.
• Main Category Name
• Brand ID
• Brand Name
• Product Name
• Product ID
  • The ID of items that should be used for "same product" matches by Kevel's Attribution model.
• Merchant ID (optional)
  • Required for marketplaces where multiple merchants sell the same product.
• Merchant Name (optional)

Campaign Setup

Attribution settings are configured on Flights and Ads:

• Flight (applies to all associated Ads)
  • Post-Click and Post-View Lookback Windows
  • Post-Click and Post-View Match Types
  • Attributable Items — optional.
• Ad
  • Attributable Items — one or more product, category, or brand that, when purchased, can be attributed to this Ad.

Lookback Windows

A lookback window refers to a specific time period during which user interactions with sponsored product ads are attributed to conversions or actions. It determines how far back in time advertisers track and attribute conversions to their ad campaigns. Kevel supports both view-through and click-through attribution:

• View-through attribution: This match type attributes conversions to users who view a sponsored product ad but do not click on it.
• Click-through attribution: In this match type, conversions are attributed when a user clicks on a sponsored product ad and directly completes the desired action, such as making a purchase.

Kevel supports lookback windows of 1, 7, 14 and 30 days. Alternatively, you can select ‘none’ to not perform a specific kind of attribution.

Attribution Match Types

Attribution match types define the criteria used to match user interactions with sponsored product ads to conversions or actions. They determine how closely the interaction aligns with the attributed conversion.

Same Product Attribution

Same product attribution focuses on attributing conversions specifically to the exact product that was advertised.

Same Brand and Category Attribution

Same brand and category attribution expands the scope of attribution beyond the exact product to include other products within the same brand and category.

Same Brand Attribution

Same brand attribution takes a broader approach by attributing conversions to the overall brand rather than specific products or categories.

Merchant-Aware Attribution

The following additional options are available to marketplace customers. These can be used together or independently:

Same Merchant Attribution

This is the broadest possible match between an ad and a purchased product.

Require Merchant Match

In tandem with the match types defined above, it is also possible to enforce that for each product match level, the purchased product merchant must match the attribution criteria on the ad.

The choice of attribution model depends on the goals and objectives of advertisers. Same product attribution provides the specific insights into the impact of a particular advertised product. By considering both lookback windows and attribution match types, advertisers can gain a better understanding of how their sponsored product ads impact consumer behavior and conversions.

Attributable Items

For each attribution-enabled Ad, a set of "attributable items" must be defined. This is configured in the Management API on the Ad entity via the AttributionSettings field. Each object must have a MatchType key and one or more additional keys.

How to configure attribution using the Management API

Attribute sales of 1 SKU

{
  "AttributionSettings": {
    "AttributableItems": [
      {
        "MatchType": "SameProduct",
        "ProductId": "01936422964",
        "MerchantId": 111
      },
      {
        "MatchType": "SameCategoryBrand",
        "BrandId": 555,
        "CategoryId": 444
      },
      {
        "MatchType": "SameBrand",
        "BrandId": 555
      }
    ]
  }
}

Attribute sales of 2 specific SKUs

{
  "AttributionSettings": {
    "AttributableItems": [
      {
        "MatchType": "SameProduct",
        "ProductId": "01936422964",
        "MerchantId": 111
      },
      {
        "MatchType": "SameProduct",
        "ProductId": "01936422965",
        "MerchantId": 111
      },
      {
        "MatchType": "SameCategoryBrand",
        "BrandId": 555,
        "CategoryId": 444
      },
      {
        "MatchType": "SameBrand",
        "BrandId": 555
      }
    ]
  }
}

Limits, validation, and other considerations

A maximum of 30 attributable items across all match types can be added to a single Ad. The same limit applies to Flight-level AttributableItems. A minimum of 1 attributable item of any match type must be included when setting AttributableItems. To clear attribution settings and disable attribution for an Ad, set AttributionSettings to NULL.

Purchase Event Stream

In order to log purchase data with Kevel, send a server-side event for each purchase completed.

The following parameters are required for any attribution set up:

• userKey: Represents the userKey(s) this customer was seen on in previous ad requests.
• timestamp: (ISO 8601 format)
• quantity: The quantity of items in this transaction.
• price: The product price of the line item.

Sample purchase event fully constructed: https://e-123.adzerk.net/c/123/purchase?userKey=marketplaceshopper-456-abc&transactionId=1234567&timestamp=2022-11-02T16%3A27%3A20.974Z&productId=11982758&quantity=1&price=200&merchantId=12478.

It is important to send a consistent UserKey in both the Ad Decision and the Purchase event request so that Kevel is able to perform a look-back to determine whether the purchase can be attributable to an ad view or click.

Transactions with multiple products sold

For a given transaction where the cart contains multiple unique SKUs, send one purchase event per unique SKU. If more than one of the same SKU is purchased, that should be sent as a single purchase event with the quantity parameter reflecting the number purchased.