2021 was a trying year for DTC marketers. Sleepless nights, gallons of Comeeter coffee, and hours on analytics dashboards just to figure out where the customer came from. 

Yes, I’m talking about marketing attribution, and it’s an absolute fiasco. 

While there are a few ways to solve attribution, one of the easiest is to hook up post-purchase surveys 🎣

Post-purchase surveys are one or more questions shown to a customer immediately after they’ve bought a product or completed some other meaningful activity.

Besides marketing attribution, post-purchase surveys can come in handy with personalization and conversion optimization.

🕵️‍♀️ Solving marketing attribution

Jeremiah Prummer, Founder & CEO at KnoCommerce, a post-purchase survey platform, notes: 

“The only way you can understand where a customer first found a brand is to ask them. Clicks and pixels can’t tell you with certainty because it’s extremely segmented, and with Apple’s latest updates, everything's chaotic.”

Post-purchase surveys are one of those modern tactics that can aid you in answering a simple question: “where’s my customer coming from?”

In other words, did they buy from an ad, a tweet, influencer content, or simply good ‘ol search? 🎯

You can use a tool like KnoCommerce or EnquireLabs and insert a question that pops up right after a customer purchases a product. 

The question generally is: “How did you hear about us?” and the answer is one-choice, or if they choose “Other,” a field appears for them to enter the source. 

Around 60% of customers who purchase respond to this survey. 

Take this data, tally it with Google Analytics and other platform-specific measurement tools, and almost accurately attribute the conversion to the right channel.

🤝 Level up your personalization game

Post-purchase surveys also allow you to personalize your messages. Let’s look at two examples:

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1) You run a dog accessories brand. When someone purchases for the first time, collect the pup’s name in a survey. Then, take that data, plug it into Klaviyo or Postscript, and start personalizing your emails and SMS. 

For example, you can include the pup’s name instead of the customer’s like “Hello, Cooper’s Mom” 🐕

2) Attach a “who did you purchase for?” question at the end of a purchase. For example, if you know that a customer buys for others, put them on a flow focused on gifting, where you talk about gift cards and special holiday offers. 

🏗 Fix your site’s conversion pitfalls

One way to figure out your store’s CRO woes is by asking customers. Post-purchase surveys make it easy to do this. 

Ask your customers to rate their shopping experience on a scale of 1 to 10. 

If they tap anywhere between 1 and 5, but they still purchased from you, you can ask, “what almost prevented you from buying?” Keep it open-ended. 

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You can collect some exciting data through those answers like:

• “I had issues checking out”
• “The price could be lower”
• “I wasn’t able to understand what I was getting for this product”
• “I didn’t find enough reviews”
• “I had concerns about the ingredients used”

Depending on your store’s niche, you’ll uncover hidden opportunities that you can use to fix your site’s conversion and the overall experience.