Orders to Email Attribution, Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Orders to Email Attribution, a cross-platform view of how much SFCC order revenue your email channel actually drives. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

Metrics type: Key Metrics • Category: Ecommerce Platform

Orders to Email Attribution, broken down by row.

At a glance

A cross-platform table that attributes your Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC, formerly Demandware) order revenue to email campaigns, joining SFCC orders with attribution data from a connected email platform such as Klaviyo or Dotdigital. It answers the question every marketing lead with an ESP should be able to answer instantly: how much of our revenue is email actually driving, and how much is flowing in unattributed while we are running active campaigns? A large unattributed share despite active email usually means a tracking or identity gap, not a dead channel. Because it spans two connectors, this card only populates when both your SFCC connector and an email connector are live.

Note on the card label: because of a bad data export, the dashboard card may render its title with a stray character as “Orders - Email Attribution” (or “Orders ? Email Attribution”). The intended, readable name is Orders to Email Attribution, used throughout this page. The underlying metric is the same.

What it counts	SFCC order revenue split by email attribution. From SFCC: orders and order_total in the window. From the email connector: which orders/revenue the ESP attributes to email sends, flows, and campaigns. The card breaks revenue into attributed-to-email vs unattributed, by row.
Why it matters	Email is usually the highest-ROI owned channel, but only if you can see its contribution. This card proves (or disproves) email’s revenue impact against the real source of truth for orders, SFCC, rather than trusting the ESP’s number alone. A high unattributed share while email is active is a flag that tracking, identity, or attribution windows are leaking credit.
Reading the value	Read it as a split, not a single number. The headline is the unattributed share of SFCC revenue during a period with active email. The rows decompose revenue by campaign/flow vs unattributed. Direction matters: rising unattributed share despite steady sending is a tracking problem, not a channel problem.
The join	Orders are matched to email activity on shared identity (typically email address / profile) and the ESP’s attribution model (last-click, last-touch within a window). Identity mismatches push revenue into “unattributed” even when email genuinely drove the sale, see the reconcile section.
Attribution model	Follows the connected ESP’s model and attribution window. SFCC has no native email-attribution concept; this side is entirely ESP-driven. Different windows produce materially different attributed shares.
Connectors feeding it	SFCC (orders and revenue) plus an email connector, for example Klaviyo or Dotdigital. Both must be connected.
Unit	currency
Time window	30D
Alert trigger	>30% unattributed despite active email
Sentiment key	scc_xc_orders_vs_email_attribution
Roles	owner, marketing, finance

Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Salesforce Commerce Cloud data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.

Worked example

A retailer runs an SFCC B2C realm with Klaviyo connected and an active calendar of campaigns and flows. The 30-day window covers 14 May 26 to 12 Jun 26. SFCC reports total order revenue of $4,200,000.

Revenue source	Attributed revenue	Share of SFCC revenue
Email campaigns (broadcasts)	$612,000	14.6%
Email flows (welcome, abandoned cart, win-back)	$498,000	11.9%
Other attributed channels (not email)	$1,470,000	35.0%
Unattributed	$1,620,000	38.6% (above the >30% alert)
SFCC total (source of truth)	$4,200,000	100%

Things to notice:

1. Email is driving 26.5% of revenue, and that is real. Campaigns plus flows attribute $1.11M of the$4.2M. For a healthy owned channel that is a strong number, and the flows (abandoned cart, win-back) are doing more than the broadcasts, which is the usual sign of well-built automation. This is the part of the card to celebrate and protect.
2. The 38.6% unattributed share is the alert, and it is a tracking flag, not a dead channel. Email is clearly active, so a high unattributed share almost always means credit is leaking: customers buying under a different email than they subscribed with, attribution-window settings too short, or tracking not firing on some order paths. The fix is in tracking and identity, not in sending more email.
3. SFCC is the denominator, and that is the point. Trusting the ESP’s own revenue total would hide the gap. By anchoring to SFCC’s $4.2M, the card exposes the$1.62M that no channel is claiming. That is why this is a cross-platform card and not just an ESP report. Pair with Total Revenue to confirm the denominator.
4. Closing the gap lifts the same lever as the win-back card. Much of the unattributed revenue is likely from customers who are on email but unlinked, the same identity problem behind High-Value Customers Unengaged on Email. Cleaning identity improves both cards at once.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Card	Why pair it with Orders to Email Attribution
Revenue by Site / Locale	Email attribution varies by site and locale; pairing tells you whether the unattributed gap is concentrated on one storefront or spread across the realm.
High-Value Customers Unengaged on Email	The customer side of the same relationship. Identity gaps that hurt attribution here also make customers look unengaged there; one fix improves both.
Total Revenue	The denominator and source of truth. The attributed and unattributed shares only mean something against the SFCC revenue total.
New Customers	Welcome and onboarding flows drive new-customer revenue; a weak attributed share on flows may explain soft new-customer numbers.
Average Order Value	Email-attributed orders often carry different AOV than the baseline; comparing tells you whether email drives volume or basket size.
Total Registered Customers	The reachable email base. Attribution can only credit revenue from customers your ESP can actually identify and reach.

Reconciling against Salesforce Commerce Cloud

This is a cross-platform card. It combines SFCC order revenue with email attribution from a connected ESP, so reconciliation means verifying each side separately and then confirming how the attribution join is built.

Verifying the SFCC side (orders and revenue), in Business Manager:

• Order revenue: Merchant Tools, Site, Reports & Dashboards, Sales over the same 30-day window gives the SFCC revenue total that is the denominator here. Set the status filter consistently (the same caveats as the Total Revenue card apply).
• Order detail: Merchant Tools, Ordering, Orders, lets you confirm individual orders and their order_total for sampled attributed rows.
• Site scope: confirm whether you are reconciling realm-wide or per-site, since attribution can be concentrated on one storefront.

Verifying the email side (attribution), in the email platform:

• In Klaviyo / Dotdigital (or whichever ESP is connected), open the campaign and flow reports for the same window and read the platform’s attributed revenue. Note the attribution model and window the ESP is using; these drive the attributed share.
• Confirm the ESP is receiving order/conversion events from SFCC at all, if the integration that sends purchase events is broken, the ESP under-attributes and this card’s unattributed share inflates.

Verifying the join / attribution model:

The card matches orders to email activity on shared identity and the ESP’s attribution model. The two biggest sources of legitimate divergence are identity mismatch and attribution-window differences.

Reason	Direction of divergence
Identity mismatch. Orders placed under a different email than the ESP subscription cannot be credited to email and fall into unattributed.	Inflates unattributed
Attribution window. A short ESP window credits less revenue to email than a long one; SFCC revenue is fixed, so the split shifts with the window.	Variable
Broken event feed. If SFCC is not sending purchase/conversion events to the ESP, email is under-credited even when it drove the sale.	Inflates unattributed
Model differences. Last-click vs last-touch vs multi-touch attribute the same order differently; the ESP’s model governs the split.	Variable
Revenue definition. The card anchors to SFCC order_total (tax and shipping inclusive); the ESP may report a different revenue basis, so absolute figures can differ even when shares agree.	±on absolute values

Because no single Business Manager report equals this card, treat the reconcile as “confirm SFCC revenue, confirm ESP attributed revenue, then check the model and the event feed”. If you run more than one email connector, confirm which one feeds this comparison.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why does the dashboard card title look like “Orders - Email Attribution” or show a stray character? A bad data export left a stray character in the stored label, so the card may render its title oddly on the dashboard. The intended, readable name is Orders to Email Attribution, which is what this page uses. The metric and its behaviour are unaffected; only the displayed label is cosmetic.

Which email platform feeds this card? Whichever email connector you have linked, commonly Klaviyo or Dotdigital. The card attributes SFCC order revenue using that platform’s attribution data. If no email connector is connected, the card cannot populate, because there is no attribution source to credit revenue against. Connect an ESP first.

Our unattributed share is high but we send a lot of email. Is email not working? Usually the opposite: email is working, but credit is leaking. A high unattributed share while campaigns are active almost always points at tracking or identity, customers buying under a different email than they subscribed with, an attribution window that is too short, or a broken purchase-event feed from SFCC to the ESP. The fix is in the plumbing, not in sending more email. Start by confirming the ESP is receiving SFCC order events.

Why anchor to SFCC revenue instead of trusting the ESP’s number? Because the ESP only sees what it is told about, and it will not flag revenue it never received an event for. Anchoring the denominator to SFCC order_total, the real source of truth for orders, is what exposes the unattributed gap. An ESP-only report would quietly hide it. That cross-system check is the entire point of this card.

Why does changing the attribution window move the number so much? SFCC revenue is fixed for the window; the split between attributed and unattributed is governed entirely by the ESP’s attribution model and lookback window. A longer window credits more orders to email; a shorter one credits fewer. If you compare this card to the ESP’s own report, make sure both use the same model and window, otherwise the shares will not agree.

Does this include flows as well as campaigns? Yes, if the ESP attributes them. The card breaks revenue down by the ESP’s attribution, which typically separates broadcast campaigns from automated flows (welcome, abandoned cart, win-back). On healthy setups flows often out-earn broadcasts per send, so seeing flows credited is a good sign that your automation is built and tracked correctly.

Can I tune the alert? Yes. The default fires when more than 30% of SFCC revenue is unattributed during a period with active email; the threshold is configurable per profile in the Alert Rules tab. Stores with heavy non-email demand (strong organic, retail, or marketplace traffic) may legitimately run a higher unattributed share and want a higher threshold; email-led stores may want it lower.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Orders to Email Attribution is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Salesforce Commerce Cloud and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

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