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Measure revenue per email, not just opens

Mailprompt connects a click on a tracked email link to the orders that follow it. Revenue is credited on a click-based, five-day, last-click model, so an open alone never earns credit. Reports show revenue per email, per flow and per campaign, while opens remain visible as a separate, less reliable signal.

Key facts

  • Apple says Mail Privacy Protection downloads remote content in the background by default, which affects how email opens are measured. Source
  • Shopify records orders and their totals, which is the revenue side of an email attribution report. Source
  • Mailprompt credits revenue on a click with a five-day, last-click window and does not use opens for attribution. Source

What this page covers

Part of the Mailprompt features set, this page explains how revenue is credited to an email. It is a reporting page, but the interesting decisions happen before the report: what counts as a signal, what window applies and what the number deliberately leaves out.

Opens are not a revenue signal

Open tracking works by placing a tiny image in the email. When the image loads, the platform records an open. That worked well enough when a person opened the message and the client fetched the image at the same time. It is less useful now.

Apple's Mail Privacy Protection downloads remote content in the background by default, which means the image may load before the person reads the message, or without the person reading it at all. Corporate security scanners do the same thing. A high open rate can therefore mean a popular subject line, an aggressive privacy feature or a scanner doing its job. None of those is revenue.

Mailprompt still shows opens because they can help with subject-line tests and because some teams expect them. The number is labelled as an open, not as proof of attention, and it is never the basis for revenue credit.

The click is the commitment

A click is a more expensive action than an open. The customer has to decide that the link is worth following, and the destination has to load. That decision is not a purchase, but it is a step toward one, and it is much harder for a privacy feature or a scanner to fake accidentally.

When Mailprompt sends a marketing email, the links point at a signed redirect. The redirect records the click, attaches it to the message and the profile, then forwards the customer to the original destination. The signature keeps the link self-contained, so a click still resolves if the app is having a bad day.

The redirect is not a tracking page with a countdown or an interstitial. It is a fast hop that preserves the destination and the campaign parameters. A tracking system that makes the customer wait is trading revenue for a nicer dashboard.

Last click, five days

Attribution models are arguments about credit. Mailprompt uses a click-based, five-day, last-click model. The rules are intentionally simple.

A click starts a five-day window. If the customer orders inside that window, the order is credited to the email that produced the most recent click. If another tracked email is clicked first, the later click takes the credit. If the order happens after the window closes, the click does not earn credit.

Last click is not a claim that the final email caused the purchase. It is a consistent rule that can be explained to a store owner and compared across periods. First click would tell a different story, and a linear model would tell a third. The value comes from using one rule consistently, not from pretending the rule captures every influence.

The five-day window is a product setting, not a universal truth. A store with a long consideration period may want a different window later. Until that setting exists, the report should state the window it used so nobody reads the number as a lifetime value.

What the reports show

At the message level, a report shows sends, clicks, orders and attributed revenue. At the flow level, the same numbers roll up across the emails in the flow. At the campaign level, the report compares one campaign with another. The account view combines both.

The report should also show the denominator. Revenue per email is only meaningful when you know how many emails were sent and how many clicks produced the orders. A flow with a high revenue total and a large send volume may be less efficient than a smaller flow with a better click-to-order rate.

Mailprompt reports revenue in the store's currency. Amounts are stored as integer minor units, so a report does not drift because of floating-point rounding.

What the number cannot tell you

Attribution measures the path that was observed, not the path that happened. A customer may see an email, ignore it, search for the brand later and buy. If the search click is not tracked, the email gets no credit. If the customer clicks the email and then buys in a second tab, the click gets credit even if the final decision came from somewhere else.

The report also cannot see a purchase that happens in a store the integration does not cover, or an order that is later cancelled without a state update. It is a useful operating number, not an accounting ledger. Treat it as a way to compare emails and flows, not as a replacement for the store's finance report.

Privacy matters here too. The click redirect uses signed tokens rather than a full profile in the URL, and the reports aggregate by message and flow. A person reading the report should see performance, not a list of individual browsing histories.

How to use it

Start with one question: which email in this flow earns its place? Compare the first message with the second, and compare both with the flow total. If the first email gets the clicks and the second gets the orders, the second may be doing the closing work even though the first looks better on a click report.

Then change one thing at a time. A new subject line, a different send time and a new offer in the same week produce a number nobody can interpret. The approval workflow exists so you can review the change before it goes out; the reporting workflow exists so you can tell whether the change helped.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Mailprompt not count opens as revenue?

An open is a weak signal. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection downloads remote content in the background by default, security scanners open messages and a person can open an email without buying anything. A click is a deliberate action that leads somewhere, so it is a better place to start attribution. Opens are still reported because they can be useful for subject-line testing, but they do not earn revenue credit.

What is the five-day, last-click window?

When a customer clicks a tracked link and later places an order within five days, the order is credited to the email that produced the most recent click. If another tracked email produces a click before the order, the later click wins. After five days the click no longer earns credit, which keeps a newsletter click from taking credit for a purchase weeks later.

Can I see revenue for a single flow email?

Yes. Revenue is recorded per send, so a flow report can break down the welcome email, the first abandoned checkout reminder and the post-purchase message separately. The same data rolls up to the flow and to the account. A small sample should be read as a small sample, not as a stable per-email average.

How are refunds and cancelled orders handled?

The report follows the order state that the store provides. If an order is refunded or cancelled, the revenue report should reflect the corrected total rather than leaving the original amount in place. The important part is that the correction is tied to the same order and the same attributed click, so a refund does not silently move revenue to a different email.

Does every click get tracked?

Marketing email links are rewritten to a signed redirect that records the click and sends the customer to the original destination. A link that cannot be signed, such as a malformed URL, is left alone rather than broken. The redirect is designed to work even when the app is unavailable, so a click does not fail just because a dashboard is down.

Sources