How purchase attribution and email conversion work

Measure what follows a price-drop email with confidence

GoScript Price Drop Alerts for WooCommerce gives you more than an alert count. Its attribution system connects qualifying purchases back to an accepted Price Drop Alert using a deliberately precise set of rules: the same registered customer, the same exact product or variation, the right timing, and a paid WooCommerce order.

That approach gives you useful evidence of the customer journey after an alert without pretending a single email was the only reason a purchase happened.

Where attribution appears

Post-email attribution appears throughout Price Drop Alerts → Reports, including the performance summary, Price-Watch Momentum chart, Price Drops & Sales Impact event table, catalog-level product table, Dashboard widget, and product-level intelligence panel.

The key reporting measures are Purchases After Email, Email-to-Sale Conversion, and Revenue After Email. Each uses the same underlying reconciliation logic.

What qualifies as an attributed purchase

For a purchase to be attributed to a Price Drop Alert, the plugin checks all of the following:

• The order belongs to a registered WooCommerce/WordPress customer account.
• The order is a valid WooCommerce shop order with a paid date and a paid order status.
• The customer received an accepted Price Drop Alert email.
• The accepted email was for the same exact product or variation that appears in the order line item.
• The accepted email was recorded before the order was created and before it was paid.
• The purchase happened before that alert’s attribution window expired.
• The relevant ordered quantity and net revenue remain positive after reconciliation.

If any of these conditions is not met, the order line is not counted as an attributed post-email result.

Why exact product and variation matching matters

Attribution follows the exact WooCommerce item. For a simple product, that means the product itself. For a variable product, it means the exact variation selected by the customer—not just the parent product’s broad price range.

This prevents a price-drop email for one size, colour, or variation from being credited for a purchase of a different option. It keeps your customer-demand and conversion reporting aligned with the actual product experience.

What “accepted email” means for attribution

The plugin uses accepted Price Drop Alert delivery records as the attribution starting point. A price drop that is still preparing or sending does not create a completed email result merely because the price changed.

Using accepted deliveries gives the reports a reliable reference point for the alert customer journey. It also means the email-conversion figures are tied to actual recorded alert deliveries rather than to a potential alert that never reached an accepted delivery state.

How the attribution window works

Each accepted Price Drop Alert has an expiry time based on your configured attribution window. A purchase qualifies only when it is paid before that expiry time.

The window gives your store a clear, consistent period for measuring the purchase activity that followed the alert. You set its length in Price Drop Alerts → Settings → Price Drop Rules. Choose a window that reflects your typical customer buying cycle and apply it consistently when comparing reports.

How Email-to-Sale Conversion is calculated

Email-to-Sale Conversion is the percentage of accepted Price Drop Alert deliveries that later led to at least one active qualifying attribution record. The plugin marks an accepted delivery as converted when it has an active qualifying post-email purchase.

In the reports summary and product table, conversion is calculated as converted accepted email deliveries divided by accepted email deliveries. If there are no accepted alert emails in the selected period or scope, the plugin shows a dash rather than a misleading zero percentage.

One accepted delivery is counted as converted once, even when reconciliation later confirms the qualifying result. This keeps conversion focused on the alert delivery’s outcome rather than inflating the rate through repeated updates.

How purchases and revenue are counted

Purchases After Email and Revenue After Email are created from active qualifying attribution records. Revenue uses the order line’s net amount after the relevant refunds have been taken into account, and the reporting currency follows the WooCommerce order data for the attributed record.

These results are written into the store, parent-product, and exact-item reporting scopes. That is why the same underlying attributed activity can be viewed at the store level, on a parent product, and in exact variation context without losing the match that made it qualify.

Why attribution can change after an order update or refund

The plugin schedules reconciliation when WooCommerce reports a payment completion, order-status change, refund, order update, or refund deletion. It then reviews the order against the current qualifying rules and updates the active attribution record, purchase totals, converted-email status, and revenue contributions as needed.

If a qualifying line item is fully refunded, removed, no longer paid, or otherwise no longer valid, its attributed quantity and net revenue are removed from active reporting. This protects you from treating refunded revenue as retained post-email revenue.

Attribution is not a causation claim

Customers may revisit a store through many channels: direct browsing, search, paid campaigns, social, or a reminder from another source. GoScript Price Drop Alerts WordPress Plugin for WooCommerce does not claim an email alone caused an order.

Instead, it gives you a defensible post-email measure: the same registered customer bought the same exact item after an accepted alert, within your chosen window. Use that evidence alongside your wider analytics and commercial context to make more confident decisions.