Blueshift provides end-to-end reporting to help you track conversions—both standard events and custom goals—driven by your campaigns.
Custom goals
Standard metrics like opens and clicks don't always show how a campaign impacts your bottom line. In Blueshift, you can designate specific events as custom goals to track the business outcomes that matter most—purchases, signups, content views, and more.
Once configured, Blueshift attributes these goal events to the campaigns that drove them, so you can track how your campaigns impact these business goals through your performance reports.
Common examples:
eCommerce — "Wishlist": An abandoned cart campaign prompts a user to add an item to their wishlist instead of buying immediately.
E-learning — "Course Signup": A personalized email drives users to register for a class.
Set up custom goals
Go to Customer Data > Events in the left menu.
Click an event name to view its details.
Check the Event Type field to see if it is marked as a Goal Event.
To set a new event as a custom goal, contact [email protected]. Once enabled, Blueshift automatically begins attributing these events based on your attribution settings.
Goal events and lifetime metrics
Lifetime revenue: Increments from all goal events that carry a revenue value, even non-purchase events.
Lifetime orders: Only increments on actual purchase events.
This means a user can have lifetime revenue without any lifetime orders.
Campaign attribution
Campaign attribution determines which campaign gets credit when a user completes a goal. Blueshift's built-in attribution engine works automatically—no extra setup needed beyond the Blueshift Javascript pixel or a tag manager like Segment.
Before you begin
Blueshift only attributes goals to Blueshift-initiated campaigns.
Each goal is assigned to one and only one campaign (100% credit).
This is not a replacement for multi-touch attribution across all marketing channels. For scientific lift measurement, use holdout reporting.
How the attribution engine works:
A user triggers a goal event (e.g., makes a purchase).
Blueshift looks back within your configured attribution time window.
It identifies eligible campaign interactions within that window.
Based on your chosen attribution model, it assigns credit to one campaign.
Attribution models
Choose one model for your account. We recommend Last Click—it is the most conservative and widely used model.
Model | Rule | External clicks |
Last Click | Credits a Blueshift campaign if the last click before conversion came from Blueshift. | Considered. If the last click is external, no Blueshift campaign gets credit. |
Any Click | Credits the most recent Blueshift campaign the user clicked. | Ignored. Only Blueshift clicks are evaluated. |
Any Engagement | Credits the most recent Blueshift campaign the user engaged with. | Ignored. Only Blueshift engagements are evaluated. |
Any View | Credits a Blueshift campaign if the user viewed it at any point during the attribution window, regardless of other campaigns. | Ignored. Only Blueshift campaign views are evaluated. |
Example: One journey, four different outcomes
The following illustrative example shows how these models can differ. A user interacts with several campaigns over the course of a week, then makes a purchase:
Date | Activity | Interaction |
Feb 20 | Blueshift Email A | User clicks a link in the email |
Feb 23 | Blueshift Email B | User opens the email (no click) |
Feb 24 | Blueshift Email C | User views the email (no open) |
Feb 26 | Google Ad (External) | User clicks the ad and purchases |
Here is how each model attributes the purchase:
Model | Attributed to | Why |
Last Click | No goal event attribution | The last click was the Google Ad (external). Since it wasn't a Blueshift campaign, no goal event attribution. |
Any Click | Blueshift Email A (Feb 20) | External clicks are ignored. The most recent Blueshift click was Email A. |
Any Engagement | Blueshift Email B (Feb 23) | External activity is ignored. The most recent Blueshift engagement (open or click) was the Email B open. |
Any View | Blueshift Email C (Feb 24) | External activity is ignored. The user viewed Email C within the attribution window. |
Select your attribution model
Go to Account Settings > Other Settings > Attribution Type.
Skip attribution for specific campaigns
For transactional campaigns (order confirmations, password resets) or test campaigns where goal attribution isn't useful, you can turn it off at the campaign level. In the campaign's Properties tab, under Attribution Preference, select Skip goal event attribution for this campaign.
This option is unselected by default. You must pause the campaign before making any changes. For details, see Attribution preference in campaign properties.
View custom goals in reports
Once goals and attribution are configured, you can view the results on the Campaign Dashboard or in Insights reports.
Note: Goal event counts may differ slightly between holdout reports and campaign reports. For details, see Holdout Analysis vs. Campaign Attribution.
Campaign Dashboard
Click the gear icon on the Campaign Dashboard and select the custom goal metrics you want to display.
In the example below, "Wishlisted" has been added as a metric. The dashboard shows how many items were wishlisted as a result of that campaign.
Insights reports
When creating an Insights report or dashboard widget, click Metric, go to the Custom Goals tab, and select the goal you want to measure.
Note: Blueshift automatically captures the first and last timestamp for all goal events in the customer profile.
For any goal event, such as a subscription or trial, corresponding attributes will appear in the format <goal_event_name>_first_occurred_at and <goal_event_name>_last_occurred_at.
Example: If the goal event is paid_subscription_started, the attributes paid_subscription_started_first_occurred_at and paid_subscription_started_last_occurred_at will reflect the initial subscription date and the most recent upgrade or renewal date.