We’re excited to announce that Littledata launched it’s second app, GA4 Conversions Checker, today on Product Hunt, a community where people find great apps and tools. Littledata has created a free GA4 conversions checker to help ecommerce managers track missing transaction data in Google Analytics 4. The tool can identify missing key conversion data and ensure that data is flowing correctly, allowing for more informed decisions and better audience building. Most importantly you can also make sure you are not missing conversion data. The tool is free to use and can be accessed through a Google account or by looking up a Measurement ID. Littledata also offers a 30-day free trial for their app, which connects Shopify and BigCommerce stores to GA4 and allows for the monitoring of customer behavior and conversion data. Product Hunt will help us bring more visibility to Littledata’s data platform—but we could use your help. Jump into our launch to engage with the community and try out the app for yourself.

Meta is pushing all ecommerce brands to implement the Facebook Conversions API. But what is it exactly? And what is the benefit of using an ecommerce data platform to push data back to Facebook? If you're running a Shopify store and you're not using Meta's Conversions API via Littledata, you're missing out on a lot of benefits that can help you drive more sales, grow your business and most importantly run higher converting Facebook Ad Campaigns. As Meta explains, the Conversions API can get you “closer to your customers” and help you “take advantage of first part data” from your Shopify store. But what does that all mean? Can’t you just add some extra code and be done with it? In fact, it’s not so simple. As with GA4 implementations, there are a lot of soft apps and integrations for Facebook Ads that work ok for very small merchants (less than $500k GMV). But serious brands need complete data in Meta — whether you’re focused on retargeting the checkout funnel, building better audiences, or just improving your overall top-line ad spend. Littledata has worked with several of the top DTC brands on Shopify and BigCommerce. Here are the top 4 reasons why you should reconsider your tech stack for advertising on Meta. These are the top benefits our most successful brands have seen after installing our Facebook Conversions API connection. 1. Better targeting of potential customers Meta's machine learning algorithm uses conversion signals to understand what type of people on their platform are likely to purchase products from your shop. By sending conversion event data to Meta, you're helping them understand your audience better and allowing them to target the right people with your ads. This can result in cheaper impressions and conversions for you. Think of this like training the platform to understand your ideal customer profile (ICP). Because Littledata tracks both one-off and repeat purchases (including subscriptions from apps like Recharge, Smarter and Stay Ai), you get complete data for both targeting and audience building (lookalike audiences with a higher LTV). 2. Improved ad performance Meta uses conversion signals to optimize your ads and find the highest quality potential customers within their user base. By sending Meta conversion complete event data and using it as the optimization event for your ads, Meta can show your ad to the right people at the right time, increasing the chances of them becoming your customer. This will cut down on wasted ad spend and increase overall conversions. 3. Better marketing attribution Meta's Conversions API allows you to send conversion event data to Meta from your backend systems instead of directly from the browser. This means that even if the user leaves the page quickly or has an ad blocker, the data is still being sent to Meta’s event manager. Using the Conversions API can improve the attribution of your conversions to your ads, which can result in better ad spend performance and audience building in the future. 4. More data to work with When you use the Conversions API, you can send personally identifiable information (PII) like email address, phone numbers back to Meta/Facebook. This allows Meta to match the user with their internal database and get a better understanding of who is converting on your site. It means that shoppers get better, personalized ads that fit their interests. You can also send Meta pseudo-anonymous data like IP address and user agent, as well as Meta's own cookies from the frontend. This gives Meta more data to work with and can help improve their targeting and optimization algorithms. How it works Littledata is the most advanced solution for Conversions API, but we didn’t get there by accident. Our Google Analytics integration has been the industry leader since 2017 and we used a similar framework to support CAPI so that brands can get complete, accurate data in Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads. In addition to the server-side tracking that’s automatically added by Littledata to capture everything that happens in your online store’s “lower conversion funnel”, such as checkout funnel activity and purchases, Littledata's integration with the Conversion API is superior to other solutions because of the way it sends the fbp and fbc cookies, which are crucial parameters for the event match quality score. Littledata ensures that an fbp is always available and automatically generates one in the event that the fbp parameter cannot be retrieved due to ad blockers. Additionally, the fbp and fbc parameters are passed with server-side events to ensure the highest event match quality. Why are the fbc and fbp parameters crucial for Meta CAPI? The event match quality score is an algorithm used by Meta to price impressions, choosing the right users within their user-base to target and provide you with the cheapest impressions and conversions. If the fbp and fbc parameters are not sent, the event match quality score will be negatively impacted, and Meta will not be able to optimize your ads to target the right users effectively. To overcome this, Littledata's integration with Meta Conversion API ensures that the fbp parameter is always available, even if it cannot be retrieved due to ad blockers. The fbp is automatically generated, and the user is attributed to it to ensure that the event match quality is not negatively affected. When using Littledata's integration with Meta's Conversion API, Shopfiy and BigCommerce brands can expect to see a boost in the number of conversions that Meta is able to attribute to their ads, resulting in significant ad spend performance and improvements to the overall ad campaign.  Still wondering how these four reasons work out in action? Check out how Flux Footwear used Littledata to support multiple data destinations. A shoe brand that embraced data when they kicked off their business, Flux saw amazing six-figure growth by making data-driven decisions with data they could trust.  On Shopify Plus? Book a Littledata Plus demo today. We’re happy to audit your Facebook data for free in advance of the call.

First-party data and server-side tracking is no longer an afterthought for DTC brands and ecommerce managers—rather, it is a centrepiece to their tech stack. But how do you make sure you aren’t “reinventing the wheel” when it comes to 1st party tracking? With the increasing number of “data platform” options it is often challenging to know what is truly needed for accurate attribution. With over 1500+ stores using Littledata’s Shopify and BigCommerce tracking app, we’ve learned a thing or two about the mistakes brands can often make. Allow us to help set the record straight and be a helping hand as you scale up your efforts in 2022.  1. Making data a lesser priority when launching We’ve talked to entrepreneurs across industries and one thing is certain—all are motivated to grow their business and many are managing multiple efforts across the business. One that often gets skipped in launching and updating a Shopify store is setting up data as an afterthought or using default or native tools that miss the mark.  Some of the common replies we receive from customers that find out they have a data problem is that they planned on getting to it later or we thought we were getting all the information with pixel tracking (client-side) and the classic it just wasn’t in the budget. The first two we understand, because until folks know this can be automated with a tool like Littledata, the time for learning APIs, implementation, and maintenance can be overwhelming. However, we’ve seen brands give Littledata a shot as a temporary solution and report hours of time saved in an increase in their retention efforts like skincare brand Geologie.  When it comes to budget we know the difference between those who do not prioritise data and those who truly can’t add this additional line item. That is why our Client Services team launched a new Littledata Startups program specifically for those just getting going. We have already offered a generous 30 day trial for merchants but realised some teams need a longer runway after seeing companies like Flux Footwear soar in the first year of getting started.  2. Thinking that fancy reporting will fix your data issues  There are a lot of nifty reporting and visualization tools out there. But none of them actually fix your tracking. When reviewing how the platforms work be sure to ask about how the data is tracked and reported. While many reporting of these tools offer merchants a great UI/UX experience or insights they can also miss on the most important step, tracking. We are excited to see Google Analytics 4 offer free reporting tools and improved user experience in explorations. This will allow merchants to get more granular insights in GA4 which many consider their single source of truth.  Littledata isn’t the new kid on the block. We got our start helping brands first hand get up and running with their data solutions. Then in 2017 we launched our app on Shopify that solved a big problem merchants were facing—accurate data and attribution. The issue we are hearing from partners and customers  is that newly launched data tools are not fixing the tracking and analytics but rather they are pulling the data (which is likely inaccurate) and reporting through visualisation tools. We know this because our customers who use these other tools do so after fixing the tracking and attribution issues they are facing with Littledata. Then they use these reporting tools and dashboards in order to analyse the data or generate reports from the insights and recommendations of these tools. Or focus on fixing the tracking and conversion data. Nearly 1 of 5 orders is missed using Shopify’s native tracking tool. Littledata’s engine stitches together client-side and server-side tracking, without server setup and fees needed by merchants, to report end-to-end tracking. This includes important events like add_to_cart, one_time vs. recurring subscriptions, refunds, purchases, and more. We also calculate from these events Lifetime Value (LTV) and Average Order Value (AOV) so that merchants can understand what is really happening in their business—right in Google Analytics.  If that wasn’t enough we also work out-of-the-box with many of the SMS, Subscriptions, and post-purchase upsell apps merchants are already using in their store or checkout. Making it easy to find out which channels or tools are working or not.  3. Short-term thinking about setup costs and maintenance  This one is self explanatory but often gets missed. Because of our deep integrations with Shopify and BigCommerce our team is always making updates, improving the product, and implementing best practices for the Littledata app. Supercharging your store and functionality without having to outsource which often leads to scope creep.   When you get started with Littledata you know exactly what you will be paying month to month with our tiers based on your order volume and not the revenue you bring in. Meaning you are paying for the data you are using and getting access to the same tools 100M GMV companies are using. This predictability makes it easy for merchants to budget for data tracking without having to account for surprises of outsourcing on your own.  The best part is that Littledata has partnerships with some of the top agencies in the ecosystem like Swanky, Underwater Pistol, and Ragnarok. Recently, Steven Aldrich the Co-CEO of Ragnarok said on this topic: Merchants not aligning their tracking plan to their actual use cases; building your tracking plan on common sense and legacy schemas with no application is a surefire way to get little to no value out of your tools  We don’t think there should be surprises when it comes to pricing. You can learn more on how we structure pricing here or by booking a chat with our Client Services team.  4. Missing the golden opportunity of creating audiences  Creating audiences has to be one of the top priorities of any marketing team for retargeting and creating lookalike audiences. We know when you can understand your audience demographics through reporting and build and target your audience by metrics like LTV and AOV it can do wonders for brands.  We’ve already seen Google Analytics 4 improve this by tightening up the relationship between Analytics and Ads. Now using event based tracking vs. session based tracking we will be able to understand customer behaviours even more and develop effective strategies to run ads and reduce wasted spend on the wrong audience.  One area we are excited to see expanding within our own customers tracking portfolio is the implementation of Meta Conversions API which enables browser and server side tracking of your events in Facebook Ad Manager. Here you review events and create new campaigns based on this advanced implementation of server-side. The best part is Littledata reports many of the most needed ecommerce events right out of the box that you would have to set up manually through other means of connection.  5. Regular data health checks When maintaining your data stack it is important to know your data is flowing properly from your store to Google Analytics or Segment from your decisions like Shopify or any third party apps you use like Recharge Payments. Manually checking and testing these connections outside of Littledata can be a hassle and time consuming.  With Littledata we show your live processed orders and connection details are active. This can help with any troubleshooting that might occur and as a normal check that the data is flowing properly. Merchants can often overlook this small detail but it can be a good habit to instill for any size organization. Any missed orders or transactions could amount to a lost opportunity for merchants or missed insights in your analysis.  Recently, we caught up with Littledata’s Head of Client Services, David Pascu, who shared how this plays out in action for brands:  Imagine it's the end of the quarter, and you're preparing to analyze a new product's purchase activity compared to a similar product launched in the previous quarter—only to find that the new theme you launched a couple of months ago broke the event tracking on the product detail pages, it went unnoticed, and you don't have the right data to work with. Frustrating, right? I stopped counting how many teams at top DTC brands have voiced their frustration about such situations. This is why tools like Littledata are valuable so that you have complete data without any unpleasant surprises. Let's be realistic, mistakes can happen within any business but it's our responsibility to limit those mistakes where possible. At Littledata we pride ourselves on building an app that can help your business thrive and grow through accurate data and analytics. Don’t make another mistake by missing out on 30 days with no strings attached to try our app with your store.  P.S. Worried your conversions are not tracking well in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)? Use our GA4 conversion checker to see in a few clicks if your property is set up properly. 

You might have seen the message below in your Shopify store settings about setting up the Google Channel app. What should you do when you see this message? Shopify offers a number of sales channels to make it easy to sell products on different online channels like Facebook and the Shop app. The Google sales channel is a bit different, since 1) it now also includes Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tracking, and 2) it is now managed directly by Google. Although we work with larger merchants at Littledata, who typically use external apps and agency partners to manage sales channels and analytics, we’ve been getting a lot of questions about the recent updates. Here’s a first look at what the Google Channel app does, and how that compares with other ways to set up Google Analytics 4 (GA4). What is the Google Channel app? Shopify launched the Google Channel app back in 2017 to provide an easier way for stores to sell on Google, using Google Ads and Google Shopping. It’s free to install, though of course you pay for the Ads ;) “Sync your products to Google Merchant Center, list products for free on Search, YouTube and more and even run paid Performance Max campaigns.” In the relaunch in March 2023 Shopify/Google added tracking for GA4, along with better support for Google PMax (Performance Max) campaigns. Shopify wants to offer you with a no-code install process for GA4, but adding the Google Channel won’t “avoid any data disruptions” for all stores. [subscribe] Why Shopify is moving GA4 tracking to the Google Channel Universal Analytics - the previous GA version - will stop collecting data on 1st July 2023, so Shopify was under pressure from customers to offer in-built GA4 tracking ahead of that deadline. GA4 is also Google’s preferred way of tracking conversions in Google Ads, and PMax campaigns need conversions (purchases) tracked to maximize Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). I also think Shopify wants to push support for GA4 onto Google by moving all of the Google connections out of their core platform and into a ‘third party’ app. What’s included in Google Channel tracking? The Google Channel app allows a store to pick a GA4 property and copies most of the ecommerce event tracking available from Shopify to Universal Analytics: Page views Product views (including product name and price) Add to cart Checkout started Purchase (Order completed) [note]Are you tracking conversions in GA4? Find out in 5 minutes with our free order checker app[/note] What are the limitations of Google Channel for tracking GA4? Firstly, the Google Channel is built to work with Google Ads. However, there’s many other reasons to use Google Analytics other than for Google Ads targeting: tracking all marketing channels, understanding on -site conversion, checkout conversion, product performance and more. Shopify hasn’t optimized the tracking for that. So there are some limitations with the events sent to GA: No tracking of product list views or clicks No checkout steps, beyond begin_checkout * No currency field on Product Detail views No reporting on product SKUs No tracking of coupons and discount codes No server-side tracking for accurate orders and revenue No Enhanced Conversions for cross-device tracking of Google Ads * Theoretically, an event is triggered when users add payment info, but we couldn’t get this to fire in multiple tests. See a full comparison with Littledata tracking. Secondly, the GA4 tracking is tightly coupled with the implementation of Google Shopping feed (which has some bugs, judging by the thirty 1-star reviews from the last month) so while you can just use the GA4 part of the Google Channel app, you run the risk of disrupting Google Analytics when you edit Google Ads settings. Thirdly, there are no settings to adjust the Google Channel tracking - so if you want only certain events tracked, or integrate with third-party apps, your hands are tied. "There are no settings to adjust the Google Channel tracking. So if you want only certain events tracked, or integrate with third-party apps, your hands are tied." Lastly, Shopify does not provide full support for GA4 tracking via the Google Channel app. The app is theoretically supported by Google, but Google only provides technical support if you pay $50k+ a year for Google Analytics 360. Other than that you’d need to pay a consultant to check the set up for you. What is the best way to set up GA4? You need to start getting data into GA4 by July this year - not just for analysis, but also for building audiences and retargeting your own customer base in Google Ads. So beyond this app, you have two options: 1. Add Google Tag Manager to your store theme Pros: Reliable page view tracking, simple to customize settings, free to run Cons: No tracking of the checkout steps (even for Plus stores), revenue in GA won’t match revenue in Shopify, lots of time (and developer cost) required to set up all the shopping behavior events 2. Use a proven, highly rated app like Littledata Pros: Reliable tracking of the whole customer journey in GA4, 100% match between orders and revenue in Shopify, no implementation effort, no developers needed, instant data quality; and Littledata is optimized for Shopify Plus, including headless tracking, Shop App tracking and multi-currency tracking in GA4 Cons: Ongoing app charge to maintain data quality [note]Are you tracking conversions in GA4? Find out in 5 minutes with our free order checker app[/note] Why server-side tracking? The basic limitation of the Google Channel is client-side tracking -- which means all the events to Google are sent from the end user’s browser. This isn’t a reliable way to attribute sales to marketing campaigns in an age when many browsers and ad blockers limit tracking. The world of web analytics has changed a lot since Shopify added GA via the Shopify store preferences back in 2014 - but Google Channel isn’t changing how the event data is actually tracked. In contrast, server-side tracking allows apps like Littledata to hook into what is happening on Shopify’s servers from the add to cart onwards. This means 100% of revenue can be tracked and the vast majority (~90%) of that can be linked to a pre-checkout user journey and marketing campaign. There’s many apps that promise to ‘fix’ marketing attribution (Rockerbox, Northbeam, etc), but the only way to get truly reliable tracking of orders and revenue is server-side tracking. What your store should do today While I understand that Shopify wants to provide an out-the-box integration with Google Analytics for smaller stores, this Google Channel won’t be suitable for any scaling brand spending heavily on online customer acquisition and retention. You DO need to start tracking in Google Analytics 4 ASAP! If your brand turns over less than $1M a year, and you don’t have the time to dive into marketing attribution and targeting, then the Google Channel may be enough right now. And that's great! But if you are doing $1M+, or need to dive into the details of what drives customers to purchase, then I don’t think the Google Channel will be robust enough for you. If you're ready to be truly data-driven this year, consider applying for a Littledata Plus plan so we can support you fully with higher SLAs and analytics training for your team. Shopify has reason to launch limited free apps (eg reviews, email and geolocation) to address the concern that their sticker price doesn’t reflect all the paid app add-ons you need to run a store. Yet professionals at growing brands know you need paid apps to guarantee quality and support. Littledata’s Google Analytics connection is no exception -- try it for free in the Shopify App store today!

Each year, The Lead honors 50 digitally native, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands that are challenging the industry norms and changing the way we do business online. 2023’s list just dropped and we’re thrilled to see so many of Littledata’s favorite brands celebrated for breaking the mold and redefining the future of ecommerce. Athletic Brewing Co. The craft beer industry is booming! And for health-conscious consumers, who want to enjoy an artisanal brew without the buzz, Athletic Brewing is the way to go! Since 2018, Athletic Brewing has offered a wide range of great-tasting, non-alcoholic beers, delivered straight to your front door. Five years later and Athletic Brewing is the largest non-alcoholic beer brand in the world, recently expanding operations across North America and Europe. But global expansion has its challenges, including unique preferences in both product and marketing.  To succeed in the global marketplace, it’s critical that Athletic Brewing tests different site layouts, product displays, and marketing strategies. By leveraging Littledata’s Google Analytics app for Shopify Plus stores, Athletic Brewing has an accurate view of their A/B test performance and can fuel their business decisions with real results. Don’t just take our word for it though, here is what Athletic Brewing said about Littledata: “​​Great tool that provides valuable information and insights for our eComm business. A must-have for back-end Google Analytics management and data connections. Customer support is top-notch with quick response and friendly service. Setup is easy and has really expanded our reporting capabilities.” — Athletic Brewing Company Littledata’s Google Analytics connection and advanced Recharge tracking give subscription brands like Athletic Brewing a deeper understanding of their customer’s lifetime value (LTV) and how it varies by product and channel. LTV is a crucial metric for any ecommerce brand, but especially for brands selling by subscription, revealing which product lines have the most loyal and profitable customers and which marketing channels are converting those high-LTV customers.  How Athletic Brewing leverages data With accurate LTV insights by channel, Athletic Brewing identified their top-performing channels and doubled down on their most profitable campaigns. They were able to boost conversion and retention rates, without increasing their ad budget or customer acquisition costs (CAC). Through optimizing their paid campaigns, Athletic Brewing successfully reached high-LTV customers.  BloomChic BloomChic is a digitally native, DTC clothing and lifestyle brand for the modern woman. Built on the philosophy “Live with ease, dress with joy,” BloomChic is dedicated to offering affordable, stylish, and comfortable clothes for women sizes 10-30. BloomChic has scaled their Shopify Plus store internationally to empower women around the world through accessible, inclusive fashion. After the release of iOS 14, ecommerce brands struggled to understand where their customers were coming from and which campaigns were converting them. BloomChic was no exception. As a fast-growing, data-driven brand, setting up Littledata’s Google Analytics connection was a no-brainer. The more data BloomChic captures about their global audience, the better they can optimize their marketing campaigns and boost conversions. By employing Littledata’s server-side tracking solution, BloomChic unlocked a complete picture of the customer journey. From discovery at the source to post-purchase events, they fixed their attribution dilemma and continue to scale their top-performing campaigns and marketing channels. How BloomChic leverages data When it comes to website optimization and UI/UX decisions, browsing behavior speaks volumes. BloomChic relies on accurate browsing and checkout behavior to optimize the user journey, identifying key customer touchpoints, which interactions lead to higher conversion rates, and where customers drop off during the checkout process. By leveraging accurate Shopify data in Google Analytics, BloomChic has improved their customer journey, optimizing conversion touchpoints for higher conversion rates and revenue. Bobbie Bobbie is shaking the stigma of how mothers choose to feed their babies. Bobbie’s revolutionary baby formula is the first European-inspired recipe to be approved by the FDA. As a mom-founded and led company, Bobbie is designed with high-quality ingredients and affordability and accessibility in mind. One of the biggest challenges new moms face is a lack of time in their newfound routines. Bobbie helps to support busy moms by offering convenient delivery options, including flexible subscriptions — easily pause, edit, or cancel your subscription at any time. Retention is always the goal — especially when it comes to subscription-based businesses — but the key to retaining customers lies in understanding them. And while Shopify’s standard Google Analytics tracking misses between 30 and 90% of orders for non-standard, subscription checkouts, Bobbie leverages Littledata’s plug-and-play Recharge connection to capture complete customer data, including post-purchase events like subscriptions. With complete subscription data at their fingertips, the Bobbie team is able to perfect their retargeting campaigns, optimize their subscriber experience, and never miss out on a loyalty opportunity. How Bobbie leverages data The majority of Bobbie’s sales are recurring orders, which makes complete subscription data an essential piece of their business. With accurate insights into their recurring orders, Bobbie’s management team can project quarterly and annual sales with ease and accuracy, helping them improve ecommerce logistics in ordering and managing inventory. By matching demand to their upcoming sales, Bobbie saves more on overhead costs, maximizes profit, and inventory doesn’t go to waste. [tip] Do you trust your subscription tracking? Download the Recharge smart connection guide to learn how to capture complete subscriber data in Google Analytics. [/tip] Harper Wilde Tired of the over-sexualized, overpriced bra industry, Jenna and Jane set out to create a more comfortable world for women, starting with the basics — bras and underwear. Along came Harper Wilde. Harper Wilde is built on a core belief that every woman deserves to feel comfortable and confident in her own skin, which is why they focus on creating high-quality, comfortable, and affordable undergarments for women of all shapes and sizes. But here’s the thing — they don’t just rely on their intuition to make decisions about their product development and business strategy. They’ve implemented a data-driven approach, powered by Littledata’s Shopify source to Google Analytics, to understand how customers interact with their ecommerce store and marketing campaigns.  With a complete view of their store performance in Google Analytics, Harper Wilde uses data to guide product, marketing, and UI/UX decisions. Accurate churn, retention, and LTV data in Google Analytics fuels critical business strategies, directs decision-making, and leads long-term growth plans. How Harper Wilde leverages data Harper Wilde uses accurate data in Google Analytics to better understand and communicate with their customers. With accurate insights on browsing behavior, Harper Wilde has built out personalized SMS and email marketing campaigns to retarget abandoned carts and engage customers based on their interests, previous purchases, and shopping behavior. By implementing a customer-centric messaging strategy, Harper Wilde has increased revenue, lowered customer acquisition costs, and boosted customer lifetime value. Spot & Tango Since the DTC boom in 2020, new brands have been popping up left and right, offering the products you love from the convenience of your home — and your pup’s favorite meal service is no exception! Spot & Tango specializes in curating custom meal plans based on your dog’s breed, age, weight, and activity level, ensuring that they have the proper nutrition to live a healthy life. And the best part? They use only the freshest, locally sourced ingredients. It’s no surprise that a brand like Spot & Tango has gone headless for maximum flexibility, speed, and personalization opportunities. But headless builds come with their fair share of challenges. Without the right tools, headless Shopify stores struggle with inaccurate and incomplete data across marketing channels, browsing behavior, sales data, and more.  By connecting Spot & Tango’s headless Shopify store to Google Analytics with Littledata, they didn’t skip a beat. Littledata uses server-side tracking to capture complete sales data, checkout events, and marketing attribution for headless setups, no matter how complex. How Spot & Tango leverages data A common challenge headless stores face is the disconnect between the front-end browsing experience and the back-end checkout events. Lucky for Spot & Tango, Littledata stitches together sessions to ensure accurate marketing attribution. They have since leveraged accurate marketing attribution and transaction data across first-time, one-off, and recurring orders to fix their retargeting and cart abandonment campaigns. With a real view of their customers’ behavior, Spot & Tango built out loyalty opportunities, increased customer lifetime value, and reduced acquisition costs through impactful marketing. [tip] Littledata tracks headless Shopify stores in Google Analytics and Segment. [/tip] Conclusion We love that The Lead pays homage to the top DTC brands that are redefining the future of ecommerce, and we’re honored to work hand-in-hand with so many of those incredible brands. Learn more about Littledata: Advanced Facebook Ads via Facebook Conversions API GA4: What Shopify stores should do TODAY to keep up with the new version of Google Analytics Is it possible to track headless Shopify setups? The Ultimate Guide to Subscription Analytics

The ecommerce industry is ever-changing and in today’s increasingly unpredictable market, it’s more important now than ever before for brands to be on top of the latest trends. In 2022, rising inflation, privacy regulations, and continuous supply chain issues changed the ways many direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands do business. What trends does 2023 have in store, and how can you best prepare your brand to overcome these challenges? Littledata is joining forces with the ecommerce experts at Ordergroove, ShipBob, Checkout.com, and Avex to arm you with the insider knowledge every brand needs to supercharge their ecommerce strategy and make for a fruitful 2023. If you missed the live webinar on Thursday, January 26 at 3 PM EST you can now watch on demand above or on our Youtube Channel. [tip] Learn more about tracking subscriptions with our handy ebook: The DTC Guide to Subscription Analytics[/tip] In this webinar, you’ll learn: Ways top brands are leveraging technology to keep up with consumer demands Little-known ecommerce insights that will impact your brand in a big way  Actionable hacks to supercharge your 2023 strategy Claim your spot >>> About Littledata In today’s uncertain market, brands need to take a data-driven approach to their marketing.  Littledata’s combined client-side and server-side tracking captures data at every touchpoint, from discovery with accurate marketing attribution insights to post-purchase events like subscriptions and upsells, to empower Shopify and BigCommerce with a holistic view of the customer journey. Littledata's Ordergroove integration is just the beginning — it's what you do with the data that counts. Our plug-and-play connections send 100% accurate data to the top reporting tools, including Google Analytics (Universal Analytics and GA4) and Segment.  Check out our Shopify app for Google Analytics and GA4 Check out our BigCommerce app for Google Analytics and GA4 Get our free Ordergroove ebook to learn how to track recurring orders in Google Analytics, Segment, or the reporting tool of your choice See how to automatically improve Facebook Ads performance with the Conversions API (especially powerful for brands selling by subscription!)

We are off to the races in 2023 already with Shopify officially launching Commerce Components by Shopify (CCS), an improved offering for large retailers. CCS allows enterprise retailers to access Shopify's foundational, high-performing components, such as its checkout, along with flexible APIs to build dynamic customer experiences that integrate seamlessly with a retailer's preferred existing services. But larger brands don't just want composable commerce. They also want -- actually, need -- complete, accurate, actionable data. Have Shopify's new Commerce Components been designed with the modern data stack in mind? There are lots of good things to say about Commerce Components. Enterprise retailers can take the components they need and leave those they do not, and developers are “free to build with any front-end framework they choose”, says Shopify. CCS uses Shopify's global scale infrastructure, which has over 275 network edge points to enable fast storefronts and checkouts no matter where customers are located -- and in a year where consumers are savvier than ever and demand a great experience. While we are excited about how this will attract larger brands to the Shopify ecosystem, we feel the Data Analytics component is underwhelming -- and won’t allow enterprise brands to track full server-side event data for building marketing attribution, product recommendation, or personalization data models. This component uses ShopifyQL, launched in mid-2022, as a neat query language for charting. But data analysts using ShopifyQL to query Shopify’s own data tables can only query the current state of the customer or order, and not understand the customer journey that led to that order. Popular reports such as marketing attribution by campaign or channel are just not possible from this data set. Furthermore, most enterprise brands we talk to want to own their own data warehouse and have the flexibility to use best-in-class tools like BigQuery, Looker, and dbt to store and analyze the data. Littledata provides a raw event data feed, directly sourced from Shopify’s servers to power just such a modern data stack -- and gives analysts the flexibility to build their own data models. Littledata is excited to work with brands using Commence Components (including headless stores), but we think Shopify will need to lean on its partner network to provide the breadth of functionality, especially in data analysis, that enterprise brands require. For now brands on our Littledata Plus plans are skeptical about the initial release of Commerce Components, just as they have been about Shopify's new Web Pixel and overall Shopify Theme changes.

Have you mapped out a data plan for 2023 yet? If you’re selling on a major DTC platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, GA4 is probably on your mind. With the sunsetting of Universal Analytics (GA3 or the “old version” of Google Analytics) on the horizon, it’s time to get going with event-based tracking. Many brands have been procrastinating about setting up GA4 – or, worse, only setting it up halfway so that browsing behavior is tracked but revenue and conversions are missing. But can you blame them? Shopify isn’t planning to release native GA4 integration until March 2023 at the earliest (and nobody’s expecting it to work well for serious DTC brands) BigCommerce released a beta version of their GA4 integration in November, but it’s extremely minimal, tracking only begin_checkout and purchase events Manual setup is costly and confusing (and has to be maintained every time you change your site or checkout flow) GA4 revenue tracking should be your top priority, but there’s a lot of confusion around GA4, made worse by Shopify apps that claim to offer GA4 integration but only offer client-side tracking. It shouldn’t be so complicated. At Littledata we’ve already fixed GA4 tracking for hundreds of top DTC brands. In this post I’ll show you how to check if you’ve set up GA4 correctly to capture orders and revenue, and how to start tracking ecommerce conversions today in the most secure and reliable way possible. Follow this guide to GA4 and you’ll be on your way to ecommerce data tracking in no time. We’ll look at how to get from this: To this: How to check if you’re tracking GA4 revenue and conversions After creating a new GA4 property and following the setup assistant to create a new data stream, you might have noticed that you’re instructed to copy and paste the Google tag (gtag.js) script on every page of your ecommerce site. Once you’ve added the Google tag to your site and linked your GA4 property, everything will just start tracking automatically, right? Wrong. With the basic script all you get are engagement events such as page_view, session_start, view_search_result, and click. Obviously these “automatic events” are super important, but they don’t tell you what happens post-click. Here’s how to check if your GA4 ecommerce setup is working or not. 1. Check your Acquisition reporting in GA4 There are two places to look to see if you’re capturing ecommerce conversions. First, the Acquisition reports. You’ll see user and traffic engagement details grouped by channel, but no conversion or revenue data exists. You’re seeing which organic or paid channels are bringing visitors to your store, but you can’t tell if you’re generating any revenue from these visitors. GA4 revenue reporting not showing is one of the most asked questions by merchants and performance marketers. 2. Check your Engagement and Monetization reporting in GA4Taking a step further, check your Engagement and Monetization reports. Do you see GA4 reporting data about cart updates, interactions with the checkout flow, or any purchase or revenue data? If revenue is missing in GA4’s monetization overview, you need to start tracking ecommerce activity ASAP. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a lot of data points that lead nowhere and you will not have an accurate understanding of your ecommerce store’s performance.  [tip] Use our complementary instant order checker for GA4 to check your property [/tip] How to track ecommerce conversions and revenue in GA4 After landing on your store, online shoppers interact with collections and products before adding items to their carts and going through the checkout process. These web interactions must be captured as events and linked with customers and marketing data in GA4 to get a complete picture of your business. We have looked at what data can be missing from your GA4 events and which enhanced ecommerce events you should track. But how can you get all these ecommerce events in GA4?  Google Tag Manager (GTM) has always been the most common tracking method for Universal Analytics, and the setup process can be carried over to GA4. However, for a lean team, the setup process can be quite time-consuming and complex, having to create a Data Layer In Shopify, and then for each event, you must create: Firing Triggers in GTM  Data Layer Variables in GTM Ecommerce Tags in GTM Needless to say, there are quite a few maintenance pitfalls if you're going down this route. Setup is just the beginning. To make matters worse, Shopify is removing GTM from the checkout for Shopify Plus stores (standard Shopify stores never had access). So even if you take the time to add all your own events to tracking visitors before they make a purchase, you’ll no longer be able to track checkout steps (add-to-cart, etc) with GTM. If you want to save time and money while still having confidence in the accuracy of your GA4 data, Littledata is the perfect solution for you. Our proven app is used by over 1500+ brands and can help you track your ecommerce conversions with ease, giving you the reliable data you need to make informed decisions about your business. Littledata’s data layer uses a unique combination of client-side and server-side tracking to ensure accurate, complete ecommerce data in GA4 and any connected data warehouse or reporting destination. Littledata captures complete ecommerce data automatically in GA4 for Shopify and BigCommerce stores. We can break down those events into seven general categories: Marketing channels Browsing behavior Checkout steps Conversions Revenue Recurring orders Upsells Of course, each reporting category has useful data, but brands that really want to scale link it all together to look at revenue and LTV by channel, splitting out first-time purchases from repeat purchases or recurring orders (subscription analytics). As I mentioned earlier, Acquisition reports are some of the most valuable sets of data GA4 offers. They show which of your team’s marketing efforts bring the most results, from traffic through engagement and conversions. The difference between having accurate or questionable ROI data in these reports rests on how the purchase event is tracked. It is useful to have the engagement metrics grouped by channel, but the difference between having accurate or questionable ROI data in these reports rests on how the purchase event is tracked.  Get started with Littledata today so you will have the data you need to scale faster the smart way. We recommend tracking in UA and GA4 “in parallel” as soon as possible.