It's time to supercharge your subscription analytics! We're excited to announce that the most advanced analytics integration for ReCharge stores just got even better. With version 2.0 of Littledata's ReCharge connection, you can easily track subscription lifecycle events and attribute them back to the original source. The enhanced integration is now in public beta, so if you're a current user you can upgrade in the app. New users (get an unrestricted free trial here) will automatically start with ReCharge v2. Here's a quick guide to what's new and why it matters for your ecommerce business. What can you track? ReCharge has always been one of Littledata's most popular connections for ecommerce analytics. The new version of our ReCharge connection captures subscription lifecycle events for even more detailed tracking and attribution. What's new Track subscription lifecycle events, including subscription updates and cancellations Get accurate marketing attribution for subscription lifecycle events Include subscription lifecycle events in LTV calculations Automatically track the following subscription lifecycle events Subscription Created Subscription Cancelled Subscription Updated Order Processed Customer Updated Charge Failed Payment Method Updated Max Retries Reached [note]See everything you can track with v2, and how the events are named for Segment and Google Analytics.[/note] Of course, all the advanced ReCharge tracking in 1.0 is still there too, including LTV tracking and a separate view for recurring purchases. We've simply expanded the functionality to capture even more data points! Where can you see the data? Data is everywhere. But at Littledata, we believe you should have full ownership of your own ecommerce data. Unlike reporting tools that focus on external data storage or sexy interfaces, our app actually audits your setup, fixes your tracking, and leaves the data where it should be: with you. So where can you see the subscription analytics from our enhanced ReCharge data? ReCharge v2 is an advanced analytics connection for Shopify and Shopify Plus stores using ReCharge to sell products by subscription Littledata uses a combination of server-side tracking and web-based tracking to capture the events and original customer source, then sends that data to Google Analytics or Segment If you're using our Google Analytics app for Shopify, you can see the data directly in Google Analytics (GA) or Google Tag Manager (GTM), or your favorite reporting tool that works with GA data, such as Google Data Studio If you're using our Segment app for Shopify, you can send the data to hundreds of Segment destinations for analysis or remarketing  Benefits .The number one question that drives new users to Littledata is this: why doesn't Google Analytics data match what I see in Shopify? So from Standard and PRO plans to enterprise plans, the number one benefit our customers find with any Littledata connection is still accurate data.  The benefits of our ReCharge connection have always covered three core areas: Accurate sales data, broken down by first-time and recurring payments Better marketing attribution Custom dimensions for customer lifetime value (LTV) calculations Industry benchmarks to help you take data-driven action With v2 of our ReCharge connection, all of those benefits have become even more powerful. For example, with v2, you can now: See how a particular Facebook campaign contributes to subscriptions to a particular product group over time Dive deeper into the data to see if that campaign is acquiring customers who then update their subscriptions in a particular way 6 months later. But don't take my word for it. Check out some of the successful Shopify and ReCharge merchants using a data-driven approach to scale the smart way. As I mentioned earlier, ReCharge v2 is now the default ReCharge connection for new users. If you're a current Littledata customer, just login to your account and you'll be prompted to upgrade to the latest version of the connection. As always, let us know if you have any questions. Let's make 2020 the year that independent DTC subscription brands give Amazon a run for its money!

Fashion consumers are buying more online than ever have before. In fact, Forrester even predicted the number of worldwide online fashion buyers will surpass 910 million in the next two years, making fashion & beauty the largest ecommerce industry overall. Naturally, like any industry with a slice of the ecommerce pie, fashion is dynamic — continuously changing the way products are presented to shoppers and innovating in order to stand out among sky-high shopper expectations. This effects marketing, sales and every stage of the buying funnel. And that's not even mentioning social marketing, with growing social commerce and the meteoric effect that influencer marketing has had on fashion ecommerce. Bottom line: with the landscape only growing larger, how can your Shopify store rise to the challenge and compete with top fashion ecommerce sites in 2020? 1. Know your KPIs In October 2019, to help stores compare their marketing and sales performance with others in their industry, our team at Littledata came up with several benchmarks for fashion and beauty stores based on industry data. Check out some of the more interesting KPIs for fashion stores: After surveying 455 stores a few months ago, we found the average conversion rate for Style and fashion was 1.3%. What's a good conversion rate? Anything more than 2.6% would put you in the best 20% of Style and fashion stores we benchmark for conversion rate, and more than 3.6% would put you in the best 10%. What's a not-so-good conversion rate? On the other hand, a conversion rate (both mobile and desktop) less than 0.5% would put you in the worst 20% of style and fashion stores, with less than 0.2% placing you among the worst-performing stores. How do you compare? If your store has a conversion rate between 0.5% and 2.6%, then your store is average compared with this benchmark. With less than 0.2%, your fashion store is certainly underperforming. 2. Optimize your store for conversions To give your store a better chance at converting visitors, have you tried: more attractive product displays improving the checkout process ensuring your product pages load and respond quickly Thankfully, tools like Enhanced Ecommerce tracking in Google Analytics can help you identify where your potential blockers lie. But even before getting too deep in the data, it's important to look at the basics — are there areas for quick wins and easy improvements? [subscribe] Let's take a look at 3 areas: Navigation OROS is a terrific example of simple, clean navigation that makes it easy for shoppers to find what they're looking for. As you can see, OROS's main sidebar menu is organized by apparel type.  Product pages They also nail it with their product pages, with pricing and reviews front and center, plus prominent descriptions and features listed below. Shopping experience Buck Mason creates a seamless shopping experience, with simple filters and a "quick add" feature where shoppers don't even have to be on a product page to add an item to cart. If you like an item, you can simply select a size from the image and it adds it to cart. Features like this create an enjoyable experience for shoppers, which helps boost retention and encourages repeat purchases. 3. Create a smooth checkout process More often than not, customer checkouts serve as a "checkpoint" for stores in terms of measuring shopping experience. If your cart abandonment rate is low and your checkout completion rate is high, it's fair to assume your CRO efforts are succeeding. However, many stores find themselves performing below par. Luckily, there are a number of helpful tools to smoothen your checkout process and give yourself the best possible chance for completing the highest number of purchases. First, Littledata's Google Analytics app fixes tracking automatically for Shopify stores. Your customers won't be the the only ones checking out with confidence — with the app, you can track shopper behavior and ecommerce events with accuracy and ease. Shopify apps like CartHook also help the checkout and post-checkout process run smoothly for shoppers. With customizable one-page checkouts and post-purchase upsells you can set up with one click, tools like CartHook can help maximize your conversion rate at the end of the funnel. [tip]Littledata's advanced Google Analytics connection for CartHook helps you accurately track every sale, refund and checkout step in your Shopify store.[/tip] What if you sell by subscription? CRO (conversion rate optimization) for subscription stores works similarly, in that on-page optimizations are where you'll get the most ROI. Where subscription CRO differs is how you measure conversions. Crucial metrics for subscription stores include: churn rate (the rate at which your customers drop their subscription) AOV (average order value per subscription box, etc.) CLV/LTV (customer lifetime value, which requires a different type of calculation) Tools like Littledata's ReCharge connection help you not only optimize conversions, but accurately track them. Are you drawing more new subscribers? Are you retaining your current ones? Are you convincing subscribers "on the hinge" to stay on for an extra month? Shoot for repeat customers Box of Style, a Shopify customer and user of the Littledata ReCharge connection, is a popular fashion & beauty brand that uses a unique subscription system. They offer boxes with exclusive seasonal clothing styles for women, which are delivered to your door four times per year. Subscribers can choose a "pay as you go option" in order to pay quarterly, or they can pre-pay for one year: Just below their add to cart button, the company has added a "what's inside" section to their product pages, giving shoppers a glimpse of what they're getting: The brand's modern web design, simple navigation and transparency give shoppers every opportunity to subscribe to a box. Like many subscription brands, the company offers the option to save money per box by pre-paying or paying annually. 4. Get Shopify reporting you can trust Unfortunately, Shopify tracking within the Shopify analytics platform is not the most reliable system for merchants. And while Google Analytics' robust, free platform is widely used and filled with helpful features, data traveling from Shopify checkouts to your GA account is a broken system. Thankfully, we built a better way. With Littledata's Google Analytics app for Shopify stores, the tracking is fixed automatically for your store, from marketing attribution (including connections for Facebook Ads, Google Ads, affiliate marketing, etc.) to buying behavior. With fixed tracking and accurate reporting, you're free to focus on what you do best – promoting and selling your products to fashion aficionados online!

Many of Littledata's subscription customers come to us with a similar problem: how to calculate return on advertising spend, considering the varying customer lifetime value (CLV) of subscription signups. Calculating marketing ROI for subscription ecommerce is a big problem with a number of potential solutions, but even the initial problem is often misunderstood. In this post, I'll break down what the problem is and walk through two proven solutions for getting consistent, reliable customer lifetime value reporting in Google Analytics. What is customer lifetime value? I work with all kinds of subscription ecommerce businesses: beauty boxes, nutritional supplements, training courses and even sunglasses-by-the-month. All of them want to optimise customer acquisition costs. The common factor is they are all willing to pay way MORE than the value of the customers' first subscription payment. Why? Because they expect the customer to subscribe for multiple months. But for how many months exactly? That's the big question. Paying for a marketing campaign which bring trial customers who cancel after one payment – or worse, before the first payment – is very different from paying to attract sticky subscribers. A marketing director of a subscription business should be willing to pay WAY more to attract customers that stay 12 months than customers who only stay one month. 12 times more, to be precise. So how do we measure the different contribution of marketing campaigns to customer lifetime value? In Google Analytics, you may be using ecommerce tracking to measure the first order value, but this misses the crucial detail of how long those shoppers will remain subscribers. [subscribe] As you can see below, with lifetime customer value segments, we can: make more efficient use of media tailor adverts to different segments find new customers with lookalike audiences and target loyalty campaigns There are two ways for a marketing manager to see this data in Google Analytics: the first is a more difficult, manual solution. The other is an easier, automated solution that ties recurring payments back to their original campaigns. Manual solution: segment orders and assign a lifetime value to each channel It's possible to see the required data in GA by manually segmenting orders and assigning a lifetime value to each channel. For this solution you'll need to join together: (a) the source of a sample of first orders from more than a year ago, by customer number or transaction ID and (b) the CLV of these customers The accuracy of the data set for A is limited by how your Google Analytics is set up: if your ecommerce marketing attribution is not accurate (e.g. using Shopify's out-the-box GA scripts) then any analysis is flawed. You can get B from your subscription billing solution, exporting a list of customer payments (and anonymising the name or email before you share the file internally). To link B to A, you'll need to either have the customer number or transaction ID of the first payment (if this is stored in Google Analytics). Then you can join the two data sets in Excel (using VLOOKUP or similar function), and average out the lifetime value by channel. Even though it's only a sample, if you have more than 100 customers in each major channel it should give you enough data to extrapolate from. Now you've got that CLV by channel, and assuming that is steady over time, you could import that back into Google Analytics by sending a custom event when a new customer subscribes with the 'event value' set as the lifetime value. The caveat is that CLV by channel will likely change over time, so you'll need to repeat the analysis every month. If you're looking to get away from manual solutions and excessive spreadsheets, read on... Calculating customer lifetime value Subscription ecommerce is huge, and continuing to grow around the world. But Shopify Plus stores (in particular) selling products by subscription have a unique problem: how do I link the recurring customer payments back to the marketing campaign or channel that led to them subscribing? Unlike standard ecommerce, it’s not enough to track the payment upon a first signup. It is the customer lifetime value (CLV) which counts in any marketing calculation. “The great thing about a subscription businesses is that you don’t have to rely on one-time purchases.”-- Rob Hoxie, co-founder of Tiege Hanley (read the full interview). I've already laid out the time-intensive manual solution for subscription tracking. But before we get into the automated solution, let's discuss why you need to track customer lifetime value in the first place (and the various problems with tracking it in Google Analytics). I'll also get into Littledata's solution, which will work for you whether you’re using Bold or ReCharge as your Shopify subscription app. [note]Check out my ReCharge talk in full from the ChargeX conference in September 2019, where I discussed a similar topic.[/note] Why you must track lifetime value Let’s imagine a simple store selling a single subscription product for $50 per month. On average, it takes them $70 to acquire a new subscriber via Google Ads. Now let’s think about 3 fictional customers of that store: Claire, Eric and Luke. These 3 offer very different values to the business, and differentiating them (or the customer segment they represent) in Google Analytics is critical to business success. In the graphic below, you’ll see that Claire is costing the business money, as her lifetime value is less than the cost of acquiring her as a customer. Eric pays something, possibly buying twice from the business, but still has a short ‘lifetime’. Only Luke continues for a reasonable time (and may continue subscribing). Which of them brings the company profit? The answer is only Luke. Many subscription businesses only make money on customers who subscribe for over 3 months — but the loyal customers are immensely valuable, and may go on to pay for years. This also speaks to the immense value of customer retention among Shopify Plus stores.   The problem with subscription analytics Measuring and attributing this lifetime value is hard. The events happen in three different places, and need to be linked back to give a net value to be properly tracked: Unfortunately, by default, the customer who chooses a subscription in Shopify may not be linked to the user that actually commits to a payment in ReCharge. In other words, transactions are often left improperly tracked and attributed; in many cases, the refund or cancellation is not tracked at all. Take this Google Analytics screenshot from one of our customers (before fixing): Although 19% of the traffic comes from paid search, none of the ecommerce transactions are attributed to paid search. Instead, they are linked to a totally different group of users from ‘direct’ traffic. Littledata’s solution  Littledata’s Shopify app combines the three steps in the customer lifecycle to bring together a unified view of the customer in Google Analytics.  Once that customer has gone through the checkout, we can also track each subsequent recurring payment back to that same pre-checkout user journey (including the marketing campaign from which they came), along with other custom dimensions in Google Analytics to help you analyse lifetime value. How subscription stores can use data to optimise marketing campaigns  Once you have recurring payments feeding into Google Analytics, you can begin segmenting your marketing channels by those that bring a higher quality customer — ones that nearly or exactly match your target personas. By using Littledata’s smart PPC connections for Facebook Ads and Google Ads, you can also pull in advertising costs to calculate Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS). So do you know which marketing channels bring you customers with the highest lifetime value? Maybe you have one stand-out channel that brings the majority of Lukes, and some that only bring you Claires. A better, automated solution: tie recurring payments back to the original campaign(s) What if you could import the recurring payments into Google Analytics directly, as they are paid, so the CLV is constantly updated and can be segmented by campaign, country, device or any other standard GA dimension? This is what our Google Analytics connection for ReCharge does. Available for any store using Shopify or Shopify Plus as their ecommerce platform and ReCharge for recurring billing, the smart connection (integration) ties every recurring payment back to the campaigns in GA.  Then, if you also import your campaign costs automatically, you can do the Return on Investment (ROI) calculations directly in Google Analytics, using GA's new ROI Analysis report (under Conversions > Attribution), or in your favourite reporting tool. Do you have a unique way of tracking your marketing to maximise CLV? Are there other metrics you think are more important for subscription retailers? Littledata's connections are growing. We'll be launching integrations for other payment solutions later this year, so let us know if there's a particular one you'd like to see next. Quick recap Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the one metric that matters for a subscription business To scale using metrics like Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS), you need to have accurate CLV calculations first  Getting that data into Google Analytics allows you to segment by marketing channel or campaign Littledata’s advanced Google Analytics integration for ReCharge stores provides an easy way to stitch the data together

Finding the right tools for your ecommerce business can be a daunting task. Luckily, Shopify’s app store provides easy access to hundreds of tools (including enterprise level analytics tools) for Shopify Plus stores. While manny of these tools are designed to make life easier for store owners, not all Shopify apps are created equal. Some stand above the rest. Below are 3 top apps for Shopify Plus, with consideration to different marketing and sales goals. Refersion Refersion is “advanced affiliate marketing made simple.”  In other words, Refersion helps stores manage, track, and grow branded promotions and a strong affiliate network. The popular Shopify app is also known for offering Plus stores full setup support and help “every step of the way.” They offer webinars, comprehensive guides, API documentation and community support to help Plus stores launch, manage and grow a profitable affiliate program (or multiple programs for multi store businesses).  Pricing starts at $89/mo, but they offer a 14-day free trial. Quick benefits Track any digital sale your affiliate refers Automate commissions (with unlimited commission structures) to save time Improve affiliate relationships with a personalized affiliate portal and an analytics performance dashboard Enquire Enquire is a popular new Shopify app that offers post purchase surveys for customers.  Based on data that the fastest way to customer feedback is on the order confirmation page, Enquire has built a twofold solution — customer surveys for marketing attribution data, and post purchase surveys directly following the checkout page.  Enquire also helps Shopify Plus stores marry their survey responses with existing data, including referral source and UTMs. Pricing begins at $10/mo, but they offer a 14-day free trial. Quick benefits Gain deeper insights into your marketing channel distribution Simple survey builder with responsive design and high response rates (60%+) Simple integrations for popular Shopify apps like ReCharge, Klaviyo and Shopify Flow Littledata Ecommerce analytics are broken, so we built a better way. That’s the line that started it all at Littledata, our one-of-a-kind tracking solution for Shopify Plus businesses.  Littledata’s smart analytics Shopify app connects your Shopify store with Google Analytics to automatically fix your tracking across the board, from marketing channels to buying behavior. The app also provides a seamless connection between your Shopify site, Google Analytics and popular Shopify apps platforms such as:  Segment to use Shopify as a Segment source (often in addition to Google Analytics) ReCharge for managing subscription ecommerce and tracking recurring revenue CartHook to capture every sale, refund and checkout Facebook Ads and Google Ads for accurate marketing attribution For Shopify stores that sell in multiple countries or currencies, Littledata offers tiered enterprise plans including include personal support from a Google Analytics expert, a dedicated account manager and custom setup and reporting.  Pricing begins at $59/mo for a Standard plan, but we offer a 14-day free trial. Quick benefits With complete Shopify tracking (and when your data is automatically fixed), you’re able to make better decisions for your store Your Shopify data is 100% accurate within 24 hours — don’t wait months for data you can trust Free & frequent data audits, plus a powerful ecommerce benchmarking tool to identify areas for improvement [subscribe heading="Try the Littledata Shopify App free" background_color="green" button_text="Try it free" button_link="https://apps.shopify.com/littledata"]

There are so many aspects that go into running your ecommerce store — finding the right combination of products, creating eye-catching product pages with tasteful images, reaching relevant customers with your marketing efforts, managing inventory and shipping, to name a few. The decision of which payment option to use likely falls to the bottom of your list. A payment is a payment, right? Wrong! Selecting a payment method is one of the most critical elements of the customer journey, and offering the right assortment of payment options is one of the most direct ways to impact your conversion rate. Think of it this way: by the time a prospective customer has reached the payment phase of the checkout, they have already made a purchase decision. They’ve found your site, chosen a product, selected the right size and color, etc. They’ve already done the main leg work. At this point, any friction in the payment process can result in a lost sale. A customer is not a customer until they click that pay button. Your job as an online store is to make clicking that button as easy as possible. By now, you've probably heard of “buy now, pay later” solutions, like Sezzle. This new wave of alternative payment methods make optimizing conversions at this critical juncture especially easy. By allowing shoppers to pay for purchases over time (rather than all up front), this new payment solution has opened doors for consumers all over the world that fear the use of traditional credit.  What is a “buy now, pay later” solution? Retailers have long provided shoppers the ability to pay over time with installments. “Buy Now, Pay Later” solutions offer a new twist on financing for Shopify merchants (and any online retailer) with simple installment plans.  Layaway options became popular in the United States after the Great Depression, when retailers began offering them as a way to generate sales with cash-strapped consumers. In the old layaway model, shoppers would physically go to the store and put down installment payments for merchants to hold an item they wanted. Once a shopper had made enough payments to cover the purchase, the sale was complete. But in the 1950s, a new innovation was introduced that allowed shoppers to pay over time: the credit card. Credit cards allowed shoppers to swipe, receive their items immediately, and then pay the credit card company back at a later date. Credit cards quickly expanded to the nearly ubiquitous presence they are in retail today. Of course, the downside of paying with credit cards is that they are only available to those who are approved for credit; as many of us know, they also carry the threatening potential of exorbitant interest and fees. Luckily, new fintech solutions offer a modern alternative to credit cards designed for the modern consumer. Sezzle, for instance, allows shoppers to pay for ecommerce purchases in four equal, interest-free installments.  With this solution, shoppers pay only a fraction of the purchase price during checkout and merchants ship their orders right away. The buy now, pay later platform then pays the merchant upfront for the full amount, less a small processing fee. The remaining installments are automatically collected from the shopper every two weeks, with no interest or additional cost to the consumer. In short, buy now, pay later options provide a new way for shoppers to buy now, get their item now, and pay over time, at no additional cost. Why offer a “buy now, pay later” option? Buy now, pay later solutions are a proven way to increase sales for merchants. There are many benefits to adding an installment payment solution to merchants, including: 1. Reaching new customers To maximize your reach, it's no longer sufficient to offer only credit card options. Credit cards are a great purchasing tool, but only for customers who have them. However, the number of credit card holders in your target audience might be far fewer than you think; only one in three millennials own a credit card, according to a 2016 bankrate study.  There are many underlying factors driving this statistic — from the credit crisis of 2008, to mounting student loan debts for young people, to regulatory changes that made it more difficult for credit card companies to extend offers to those under the age of 21.  The key point for merchants is this: payment behaviors are changing dramatically for young consumers who have increasingly come to expect to be able to pay with a digital wallet, alternative payment platform, or an installment plan. In fact, over 87% of consumers want a simpler way to pay over time that is not a credit card. By not providing these options, you are leaving potential money in the cart. 2. Increasing conversions More than two-thirds of all online shopping carts are abandoned, according to the Baymard Institute. The second most commonly-cited reason was the cart becoming too expensive.  When customers see the total tallied up, they get sticker shock. Offering an installment payment solution that lets shoppers check out now and pay over time dramatically reduces cart abandonment rates.  On average, for stores that have added a buy now, pay later method, checkout conversions have increased by almost 40% for first time visitors. Reducing sticker shock of a one time purchase reduces cart abandonment, which means more sales! [note]There are other effective methods for reducing cart abandonment, too.[/note] 3. Reducing return rates High return rates are a pain point for merchants. When customers are consistently returning their purchases, it can add a lot of unwanted and unneeded stress to your store. For merchants that use interest-free installments, return rates have decreased dramatically — some stores even drop down to 1% in returns by adding this alternative payment method. Through lowering these returns rates, buy now, pay later solutions can keep you and your customers happy.  4. Tapping into a millennial trend Buy now, pay later solutions have exploded in popularity in recent months. In other parts of the world, similar payment methods have become the predominant form of payment, with young shoppers mainly driving this trend. Young shoppers like the freedom of paying over time, without the financial pitfalls that credit cards pose. For them, they see these solutions as a kind of layaway on-demand or layaway for the digital age. As more and more major brands accept these payment methods, the trend will only accelerate. Why not get ahead of the curve by implementing this solution for your store now? Global expansion of “buy now, pay later” The rapid customer acceptance and adoption of buy now, pay later solutions led to Sezzle’s first international expansion into Canada in 2019. This market was chosen given the similar customer profile and online shopping habits of American and Canadian consumers. Much like their American neighbors, Canadian consumers have an aversion to credit cards and a desire for more flexible and lenient payment methods, making this move a logical extension of Sezzle’s platform. This entry gives Canadian merchants the opportunity to offer a new payment solution to their customers. As Kappa Canada CEO stated, Sezzle is essential to delivering “flexibility in the buying process” to customers and gives them a platform to extend their brand reach. This expansion also opens up an entirely new market of consumers. The market of Canadian online shoppers is growing at an unprecedented rate and is anticipated to increase by more than 25% by 2021, making this the opportune time to expand into this space.  This rapid global expansion of the buy now, pay later space has proved very beneficial to those merchants that sell in multiple countries or use differing currencies. [note]If you have stores on Shopify Plus, learn how you can easily track your multi-currency sales with 100% accuracy.[/note] The US is brimming with merchants that sell their products worldwide, making it difficult when a payment platform only serves US shoppers. However, as the buy now, pay later space maintains its global growth, this problem will continue to diminish. Since its expansion in Canada, Sezzle has seen success with global merchants that now have the ability to sell to both US and Canadian consumers, in both American and Canadian currencies. For merchants looking to expand internationally, it will be important to note the aggressive growth that the buy now, pay later space has seen in recent years and the rapid growth that is expected to continue moving forward. As this alternative form of payment expands, so will its acceptance into international countries, making it an innovative move for every type of merchant.  The best pay later solution for small businesses Buy now, pay later payment solutions are a proven way to reach new consumers, increase conversions, and tap into what Visa has called a trillion dollar market. The right payment solution can have a dramatic impact on your sales and customer lifetime value (CLV / LTV). As you consider which payment methods to use, think of the customer first. In the customer’s mind, the payment process is an extension of the store. A bad payment experience — whether it involves high interest rates or getting hit with hidden fees — equals a negative shopping experience.  Therefore, it’s important to integrate payment options on your store that fit with the values and customer experience standards of your high-potential customers and buyer personas.   This is a guest post by Kevin Wild of Sezzle, a payments disruptor that allows shoppers to budget their payments over time by splitting purchases into four interest-free installments over six weeks. By offering its ‘buy now pay later’ solution, Sezzle provides consumers with the financial freedom to buy what they want without having to fall back on high-interest credit cards. 

The short answer is no: until these new properties come out of Beta testing and support Enhanced Ecommerce reporting, we can’t recommend you use them with your Shopify store. This past July, Google brought out a public beta forcombining website and native mobile app tracking called ‘App + Web’ properties. These are technically a big step forward for Google Analytics (GA), combining some of the flexible, event-based tracking from Firebase Analytics for mobile with the deeper reporting and journey analysis tools in GA. However, we believe these are not yet suitable for use with ecommerce stores because they miss the Enhanced Ecommerce reporting that makes GA so powerful for Shopify analysis. Where’s this new reporting going? What Google appears to be doing is rebuilding Google Analytics from the ground up, so it’s fair to call it ‘GA v2’. Some of the long-term problems they are addressing include: Flexible ways of building funnels based on a series of events and page views (i.e. no more limitation on ONLY page views or event funnels) More powerful ways to build ‘audiences’ used in other Google tools (such as Google Ads), instead of the clunky and error-prone advanced segment builder True event-level views of the data with ‘stream view’ Enabling events to be sent with many properties, rather than just event ‘action’ and ‘label’ See Krista Seiden’s excellent post for more information on the features. What’s next with App + Web? We hope that (eventually) ecommerce events are added to that list, but it might be in a more flexible way to how GA v1 copes with events. We’ll keep watching the progress, as this ‘App + Web’ setup is going to be the future it seems.

As a Shopify merchant, you probably use a number of marketing strategies to drive unique traffic to your store.  With the help of SEO marketing, PPC ads, and even influencer advertising, you will notice a significant increase in traffic to your site. However, not all new visitors ensure a conversion (most don't), and not all Shopify marketing strategies are created equal. In fact, over 75% of all online businesses report that new visitors hardly convert or commit to making a purchase.  If you're finding many of your shoppers stop midway through the purchase funnel (either after adding an item to cart or not purchasing after multiple store visits), thenGoogle dynamic remarketing ads  sounds like the perfect solution for you. Campaigns from these types of ads result in increased sales and greater visibility among potential buyers. With the full guide below to creating dynamic remarketing ads that drive higher-quality traffic to your store, you'll give shoppers the extra push they need to convert.   What are Google dynamic remarketing campaigns? Google’s dynamic remarketing campaigns are special Google Ads campaign types that target users who have already visited your Shopify store at least once. These campaigns are fully customizable; different ads can be used for different visitors based on their interaction with your store. As a concept, remarketing ads were born from the idea anyone who has visited your store or clicked on a product must be interested in a purchase. While this may seem like an assumption, the stats don't lie. The main job of remarketing campaigns is to follow up with visitors and remind them of their initial interest, which inducing them to make the purchase. For example, let's say you sell sports apparel on your Shopify store. A visitor on your site looks up a pair of Nike shoes, reads the product description, stays on the page for 45 seconds, and then exits the tab. With a Google dynamic remarketing campaign, you can send targeted ads for Nike shoes to that visitor based on the product page they visited. You can create these campaigns with multiple iterations as well. For instance, you can split your visitors into customizable audience lists and have Google send out custom ads based on the list they belong to. These lists include shoppers who visited your home page, product pages, added an item to cart, and more.  Why Shopify merchants need Google dynamic remarketing campaigns  There are many advantages of using Google dynamic remarketing ads in order to meet your sales goals and increase your business’s growth. There are many advantages of using Google dynamic remarketing ads in order to meet your sales goals and increase your business’s growth. Here are a few of the best reasons for you to sue such a campaign using a Google ads dynamic remarketing guide.   Reason 1: Encourage shoppers to return to their carts About 75% of shopping carts are abandoned without a completed checkout. This is where remarketing ads can make a difference. Most shoppers simply browse or add things to their cart for a purchase at a later date. You can create a campaign that targets such kinds of visitors and remind them of their interest which will nudge them into making a sale. If your store has a special offer, you can also add this to the ad which sweetens the deal for the customer. Reason 2: Personalized ads Recent studies by Accenture show that customers prefer personalized ads. Not surprisingly, the chances of a shopper making a purchase increase significantly following a "personalized" ad. Google dynamic remarketing campaigns are tailor-made for ads that feel personal and highly targeted.  One way to do this is sending customized emails based on past shopping behavior on your site. This creates a personal connection with the customer and makes them feel like you care about their experience and patronage. Reason 3: Returning customers Returning customers tend to spend more money than any other type of shopper. A remarketing campaign wades through the sea of choices and reminds customers of their previous spending history. These types of targeted ads will boost your sales and create a stronger bond with your customers. Reason 4: Updating shoppers One of the top advantages of a remarketing campaign is showing new products to past (interested) visitors.  For example, if you have recently expanded your product line to sell plus-size clothing for women, creating a campaign about this update will keep you relevant. A shopper who couldn’t find her right size (but liked the style of clothes at your store) has a better chance of returning to your store. You can also use the campaign to promote customer loyalty programs. Reason 5: Great ROI Blue Mist Marketing found remarketing campaigns cost 56% less than other types of marketing strategies. Google dynamic remarketing campaigns give you relevant data to show exactly how much you are profiting with respect to your time investment. Based on this data, you can create more effective marketing ads. How to create a dynamic remarketing campaign in Google Ads Even with minimal coding experience, dynamic remarketing is fairly easy to set up. Google automatically creates 5 different customer match lists based on the pages shoppers have visited on your store. These include: Converted customers Homepage viewers Product Page viewers Shopping cart abandoners Category Page viewers You can also customize these lists. However, if this is your first time using dynamic remarketing, we suggest you use Google’s list and make changes later. Creating a remarketing campaign is a simple 3-step process. For success, carry out the following steps in order: Make sure that your Google Merchant Account is linked with your Google Ads account Using the right tag, add the Google remarketing pixel to your online store Set up a bid after you have created your desired dynamic remarketing ads Step 1: Link your Google Ads account with your Google Merchant account 1. Go to the Google Merchant Center. Click on the three small dots in the top right-hand corner next to your icon. Click on Account Linking. 2. Add your Customer ID for Google Ads, and then click on ‘Send link request’. 3. Select the Settings to a cog in your Ads account, and click ‘Linked accounts’ from the drop-down menu 4. Select the Google Merchant option 5. You will see a request in your Google Merchant Center like the screenshot below: 6. Select ‘View request’, and click on ‘Approve’. It will say ‘Approved’. Your Google Merchant Center will be now linked with Google Ads. [note]If you want to audit your Google Merchant Center, check out the Google Merchant Center audit guide.[/note] Now that you've linked your Google Ads account with your Google Merchant Account. Let’s move on to Step 2. Step 2: Use the right tag & add the Google remarketing pixel to your Shopify store Go to ‘Shared Library’ in Ads, and select ‘Audiences’. Select website visitors and click on ‘Set up remarketing’. Check the “use dynamic search ads” box and select the type of business from the dropdown. Click on 'Set up remarketing'. Select ‘View Ads tag for websites’ and then add the code to have the remarketing pixel on your website. For Google to build the lists, you'll need to first identify your category pages, home page, checkout pages and product pages. Step 3: Create your dynamic remarketing ads Now that your Ads account is linked and you've added the Google remarketing pixel, the next step for you is to create your Dynamic Remarketing Ads: Use the Google Display Network to create a new campaign. Select the option that says ‘Take action on your website’. Name your campaign and fill the settings as you would do for a search campaign. Tick the box next to ‘Use dynamic ads’ to confirm that you want to use dynamic ads. Select the business area and the merchant feed you choose for your dynamic ads. Save the campaign, and create your first ad and relevant ad groups. How to create Google dynamic remarketing campaigns with AdNabu  AdNabu dynamic remarketing app is a convenient app that helps Shopify merchants simplify  process of creating customized and targeted remarketing ads. It takes out all the guesswork and offers full customer support while merchants install and run their ad campaigns.  AdNabu automatically creates the remarketing tag on its own, saving you the effort of doing it yourself. It applies this tag to all of your site pages, scans each relevant visitor profile for matching campaigns and ensures audiences are properly created in Google Ads.  Here is how to easily install the AdNabu dynamic remarketing app: Login in to the Shopify app store Use the search bar to find AdNabu Dynamic remarketing App Select the Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing App Select Add App Link your Google Ads account Login with your Gmail address linked with your Google Ads account Read the terms & conditions and allow permission Your Shopify store will show a success page. Google Dynamic Remarketing app is now live! Google Ads conversion tracking for Shopify success Remarketing ads are a great strategy for stores of all sizes. But if you can't track how ther ads are performing or converting, what's the point? Linking Google Ads with Google Analytics is the easiest and best way to track your campaigns to make adjustments and improvements over time. But only one tool connects them with 100% data accuracy. Littledata's smart connection for Google Ads automatically pulls your Shopify data into your Google Ads account, so you can retarget ecommerce segments and track your sales easily. To name a few, the connection: Increases your Google Ads ROI with Shopify data for smarter retargeting Get back visitors who abandoned cart Retarget your users who viewed product details but didn't buy Prevents you from wasting money acquiring visitors who have previously purchased Get consistent data across both platforms View Google Ads costs in Google Analytics Connect Littledata's Shopify app for accurate tracking of checkout steps [note]You can try Littledata free for 2 weeks and test out the connection for yourself![/note] Wrapping up Google dynamic remarketing campaigns have proven to be a cost-effective, sales-boosting marketing move. One of the biggest advantages of using these campaigns is the ability to capture returning shoppers. Without a loyal customer base, your store can't survive in a market where merchants live and die by churn. Capturing the attention of shoppers is vital tom Shopify success, and Google dynamic remarketing does just that!   This is a guest post by AdNabu. AdNabu helps improve sales in Google Ads for ecommerce companies. If you are running search, shopping or display campaigns in Google Ads, their software will be able to increase your sales. Sign up today for a 14-day free trial.

Historically, early-through-late December is one of the biggest sales seasons of the year for ecommerce businesses. We recently took a look at some of the more popular ecommerce metrics and created 20+ benchmarks specifically tailored to the current sales season. With our Benchmark your site tool, compare your site's engagement and conversion metrics with over 10,000 other websites this holiday season. [note]Want to know where you store stands during Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend? Check out our top 9 benchmarks to track during BFCM.[/note] To give insight on your product and digital marketing, we gathered the data from Google Analytics from different industry sectors.  So why did we create the benchmarks? Let's take a quick look at last year's holiday sales. Holiday ecommerce sales in 2018 For ease's sake, let's define the holiday shopping period from November through the end of December. Last year, Digital Commerce 360 estimated shoppers spent $122.0 billion with online stores — a massive 17.4% jump from 2017. They also estimated total ecommerce sales grew ~5.6% over the same period, according to their holiday 2018 estimates report. From the same report, ecommerce represented nearly 17% of all holiday spending, up from 15.2% in 2017. Explaining the numbers Over the past decade as online shopping has become more of a preference for consumers (especially when it comes to gift-giving), shoppers have browsed more sites for gift ideas, deals, discounts and more. Shoppers are exercising their options (and taking advantage of stiff seasonal competition between stores), which often leads to increased spending volume across multiple stores — though this may cause stores to see a drop in average order value (AOV)  per customer. Of course, stores tend to also increase their digital marketing spend during hot sales periods and peak shopping seasons, which leads to more online sales. What about this December? This past weekend alone (Black Friday Cyber Monday), Shopify reported record-breaking global sales numbers ~$2.9 billion. On the Shopify network alone — which now boasts over 1 million merchants — merchants across 175+ countries sold $2.9+ billion, up from last year’s $1.8+ billion. While the holiday shopping period (which is underway) does not necessarily stack up to BFCM weekend by sheer sales alone, it's a terrific chance for companies to finish out the year strong or get rid of extra inventory from BFCM. Since December will yield massive sales figures to round out 2019, it's crucial to track the metrics that matter to your store. If you don't know where you stand among the stores you compete with, what's the point? That's why we created a free ebook to help you stack up: Top 5 ecommerce benchmarks to track during the holidays. [subscribe heading="Download the top 5 benchmarks free" background_color="green" button_text="get the ebook" button_link="https://www.littledata.io/app/top-5-holiday-benchmarks"]