FAQ: Recharge connection

Get answers to frequently asked questions regarding our Recharge integration for Shopify merchants.

Littledata's Recharge connection is an advanced Google Analytics integration for tracking subscription ecommerce behavior. Here are Frequently Asked Questions to help you understand and get started using the integration.

What do I get with the Recharge integration?

• End-to-end Google Analytics) tracking for the subscriber journey

• Marketing attribution for subscription revenue

• Custom dimensions to calculate lifetime value and create custom audiences for retargeting

• Ability to segment performance in Google Analytics by payment source, subscription plan type, and product category

• Recharge susbcription lifecycle events

How does this improve on Shopify’s native reporting?

• Fix your ecommerce tracking in Google Analytics

• Send data to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Facebook Conversions API (CAPI)

• Attribute recurring payments to marketing campaigns

Check out the complete list of what you can track to see the full scope of reporting.

Can’t I just use Recharge’s basic Google Analytics integration?

As the name states, that's just a basic integration. That means your data collection will be limited and have incomplete marketing attribution for subscription sales, plus there is no tracking for GA4 or Facebook CAPI.

Littledata's Recharge connection is an advanced Google Analytics integration for Recharge stores. We've worked closely with the Recharge team to make Littledata the most powerful and flexible analytics integration for Recharge — and we continue to update the connection based on the latest product updates from both Shopify and Recharge.

I get UTM parameters from the Recharge Subscription API. Do I still need Littledata?

Since the release of Recharge v3.2, the UTM parameters as captured by Shopify on the store landing page are passed to the checkout then stored on the subscription or customer record. They are available in the analytics_data.utm_params field.

This is helpful, but it misses a few key parts of what Littledata does:

1. Shopify's own UTM tracking is far from perfect on most stores, and the same mistakes get copied into Recharge's UTM params.

2. The UTM parameters only capture the 'last click' attribution of the subscription; with Littledata + Google Analytics you can look at the contribution from all marketing channels.

3. If you also have one-time orders processed through Shopify's checkout, you need Littledata's Shopify tracking to compare like-for-like attribution across the two checkouts.

4. In Google Analytics you can look at the interaction between the campaign and other user attributes. For example, you can ask "Do Facebook ads perform especially well in the US, or globally?" Or "are affiliates driving more subscriptions on mobile only?"

5. Tracking Recharge customer lifecycle events allows you to split post-purchase behavior like cancellations and payment failures as well as edit customer details by the marketing channel that brought them to subscribe.

What's the difference between Recharge Analytics and Littledata's integration?

Recharge's Analytics offers easy ways to visualize your Recharge data in the app, while Littledata fixes sales and marketing tracking and sends that data to Segment or Google Analytics.

The chart below breaks down the differences between what Recharge Enhanced Analytics offers and what Littledata's Plus offerings for Google Analytics and Segment offer.

What you can do	Recharge Enhanced Analytics	Littledata + Google Analytics	Littledata + Segment
Look at trends in subscription signups and cancellations	✔	✔	✔
Analyze churn rate by cohort or product	✔	✔ *	✔ *
Visualize cohort retention	✔
Analyze multichannel marketing contributions to subscription sales	✔	✔	✔
Attribute recurring orders back to marketing campaigns	✔	✔	✔
Analyze Customer Lifetime Value including non-Recharge spend		✔	✔
Track charge failures by any customer attribute		✔	✔
Track subscription cancellations or upgrades by any customer attribute		✔	✔
Track customer updates by any customer attribute		✔	✔
Track usage of the customer portal on your site by any customer attribute		✔	✔
See how any Recharge customer event connects to the pre-checkout behavior of the user		✔	✔
Look at cancellation rate by marketing channel	✔	✔	✔
Trigger transactional emails based on changes to subscriptions **			✔
Retarget segments of your Recharge audience in common marketing destinations			✔

* Requires additional analysis in a spreadsheet ** In Segment destinations such as Iterable

How do I know if the integration is working?

• Check out this guide to see if the Recharge connection is functioning properly.

• Contact our team if you have additional questions.

Do you alter my historic data?

• No, it's not possible for our app to mess with your historic data (nor would we want it to).

• Littledata's improved tracking script only helps with data from the time you install it going forward.

How do I uninstall the Recharge connection?

If you need to uninstall the Recharge connection, follow the steps in the Recharge uninstall guide. But don't forget that you can always contact support if you have any questions!