Overall, our findings point to the value of using diffusion of innovations theory in the evaluation of IPV interventions. Intervention research often examines the effect of exposure to different aspects of the intervention on the intended outcomes, but stops there. Our findings demonstrate the vital role played by CAs as well as the importance of the intervention’s attributes of observability, compatibility and relative advantage—whereas relative findings for trialability and complexity did not emerge in the qualitative data. These insights made an important contribution to our understanding of how the intervention worked to influence behaviour change and may have been missed if the study was guided by an individual behaviour change model alone (e.g., transtheoretical model ) as they do not account for community level intervention and social network factors. The study on the Stepping Stones noted earlier illuminates this point: through examining diffusion the study found the messages were not spreading to the wider community, illuminating an important limitation that can be used to inform future interventions . As Kippax and Stephenson contends we must design research to elucidate the ways individuals engage with interventions/messages and capture the mechanisms of change in order to find out what worked to improve interventions . Diffusion of innovations theory should be given strong consideration both when developing and researching community mobilisation interventions like SASA! which are designed to diffuse through community social networks and change agents.