How it Works: Shopify source for Segment

Littledata's Shopify to Segment connection uses a combination of client-side (browser) and server-side tracking to ensure 100% accurate data about your Shopify store in Segment. Littledata automatically integrates with Shopify and Shopify Plus sites to capture every customer touchpoint, including sales, marketing, customer and product performance data. You can send this data to a connected data warehouse like Snowflake; email and customer communications tools like Klaviyo, Iterable and Braze; analytics destinations such as Mixpanel and Kissmetrics; and many more destinations.

Client-side (device mode) tracking

During the installation process:

• Segment's analytics.js V2 library is loaded on all pages, except for the checkout
• Includes a LittledataLayer data layer for all pages
• Loads a minified tracking script, hosted on a content delivery network (CDN)
• Enables sending of device-mode ecommerce events to all Segment destinations
• Segment's anonymous ID and Google Analytics' client ID is passed to our servers to ensure consistent user journey tracking

Server-side (cloud mode) tracking

During the Segment connection setup, Littledata also adds a set of webhooks to your Shopify store. When a customer interacts with your store these changes are relayed server-side from Shopify to Littledata to Segment. The advantages to this approach are:

• 100% event capture for adds to cart, checkout steps, sales and refunds/returns
• Customer data (e.g. email) securely relayed server-side
• No extra scripts on the sensitive and secure checkout pages
• Accurate marketing attribution, even when customers use ad-blockers or cookie opt-outs
• Supports cloud-mode destinations such as Facebook Conversions API

note:

Using a headless Shopify setup? Follow the setup steps for headless Shopify tracking with Littledata.

What can you track

These are the events that Littledata sends from Shopify to Segment. These events will show up as tables in your warehouse, and as regular events in your other Segment destinations.

tip:

Looking for complete property and event details? Don't miss the complete tracking schema in Google Sheets. Note: this can be uploaded directly into Segment Protocols.

Device-mode events

Below is a table of events that Littledata sends to Segment through the analytics.js library. These events will show up as tables in your warehouse, and as regular events in your other device-mode Destinations.

Event Name	Description
Cart Viewed	User has viewed the /cart page
Page Viewed	User has viewed a page
Product List Viewed	User has viewed a product as they scroll down the collection page
Product Clicked	User has clicked a product within a product list
Product Viewed	User has viewed a product page
Product Image Clicked	User has clicked a product image
Product Shared	User has shared a product via social links
Products Searched	User has searched for products (with search query)
Registration Viewed	User has viewed the /account/register page
Thankyou Page Viewed	User has viewed the thank you page after completing an order *

* This is less reliable than the de-duplicated Order Completed event sent from Littledata's servers, but you can use it in device-mode destinations to trigger a conversion. payment_method and shipping_method properties are not available with this event.

You can opt out of device-mode pageviews or events in the data pipeline settings.

The source also respects GDPR-compliant cookie consent via a cookie banner, or popular consent management platforms such as OneTrust and TrustArc.

Server-side events

Server-side events are tracked by Littledata servers from Shopify and passed onto any destination in cloud mode.

Event Name	Description
Product Added	User has added a product to the cart, and left it in the cart for more than 10 seconds
Product Removed	User has removed a product from the cart
Checkout Started	User has started checkout
Checkout Step Viewed	User has viewed a step in the checkout
Checkout Step Completed	User has completed a step in the checkout
Customer Created	User added as a customer
Payment Info Entered	User has entered payment info
Coupon Applied	Sent with Checkout Step Completed or Order Completed when user has applied a coupon
Order Completed	Customer has completed an web order (excluding iOS, Android, POS and draft orders). May be delayed by up to 40 seconds to wait for tags applied after the order was created.
Post Purchase Upsell	Customer accepts the upsell. Will contain only the newly added products.
Order Cancelled	Admin has cancelled an order (including the cancel_reason)
POS Order Placed	User has placed an order via Shopify POS
Payment Failure	User completed checkout step 3 but the payment method failed (i.e. the card details were valid but the charge did not succeed)
Customer Enabled	User has confirmed their email address and created a Shopify customer account with verified_email set as true
Fulfillment Created	Order fulfillment is created (including status, tracking_numbers and tracking_urls where the shipping integration allows)
Fulfillment Updated	Order fulfillment status has changed (including status, tracking_numbers and tracking_urls where the shipping integration allows)

User identity

In Littledata's app you can choose which of the following fields you want to send as the userId for known customers:

• Shopify customer ID (default) - Recommended if you have a simple Shopify setup with minimal integrations.
• Hashed email - The MD5 email hash is useful if you have other marketing platforms sending traffic where you know the email of the visitor (e.g. email marketing like Bronto or Marketo), but not their Shopify customer ID. We use an unsalted MD5 hash (createHash method) to match your other sources.
• Email - The email identifier is recommended when other platforms use the email and can’t hash it, and you are comfortable with the privacy implications.
• None (no identifier) - Choose “none” if user identity is already handled by your Segment implementation and you only need the extra events powered by Littledata's Shopify source.

For Segment Personas we also send shopify_customer_id as an externalID for advanced matching.

Identify calls

For every event where there is an identifiable Shopify customer (from both the client and the server) we also send an Identify call to trigger updates in CRM systems connected to Segment. This happens when the customer logs into the storefront, on the last step of the checkout, with the order, and also after purchase with any customer update in Shopify admin.

This is especially helpful for identity resolution in common destinations such as Klaviyo and Braze.

Littledata includes the following traits with an Identify call:

Property Name	Description	Property Type
userId	Chosen user identifier, defaulting to Shopify Customer ID	Double
createdAt	Date customer record was created	Date
customerLifetimeValue	Total spend of customer on the Shopify store	Double
default_address.street	The customer's default street address	String
default.address.postalCode	The customer's ZIP / post code	String
default_address.state	The customer's state address	String
default_address.country	The customer's country	String
description	Customer notes	String
email	Customer's email address	String
firstName	Customer's first name	String
lastName	Customer's last name	String
marketingOptIn	marketing_opt_in field from Shopify customer	String
phone	Customer's phone number	String
purchaseCount	Number of orders by this customer	Integer
state	Shopify customer state - enabled, disabled, invited to create an account or customer declined	String
tags	Custom tags applied to the customer	String
verified_email	Whether the customer has verified their email	Boolean

Support for email marketing destinations

Email marketing platforms such as Klaviyo, Iterable and Hubspot require an email property with any server-side event in order to associate then with a customer (they cannot use an anonymous ID). Littledata's adds that email property whenever an email address is set in the user traits() object (in device-mode) or from the Shopify customer record (in cloud-mode).

Alias calls

To support seamless customer tracking in analytics destinations such as Mixpanel, Vero and Kissmetrics, Littledata ensures the pre-checkout anonymousId is added as an alias of the userId (used from checkout step 2 onwards).

Event properties

These are the properties which may be included in the events listed above. See the Track (eCommerce) tab of the event schema for exactly which properties are sent with which events.

Property	Description	Property Type
affiliation	A comma-separated list of order tags. Untagged orders use `Shopify`	String
cart_id	The ID of the Shopify cart	String
checkout_id	The ID of the checkout session	String
context['Google Analytics'].clientId	The user's Google Analytics Client ID	String
context['Google Analytics'].geoid	The user's location	String
context.ip	The user's IP address	String
coupon	Comma-separated string of discount coupons used, if applicable	String
currency	The currency of the order	String
discount	The discounted amount	Float
email	Shopify email address (after checkout step 2), or email submitted on a storefront form	String
order_id	The ID of the order is by default the Shopify order name	String
payment_method	The payment method chosen for checkout	String
presentment_currency	The user's local currency	String
presentment_total	The order total in local currency	String
products	A list of all the product at that step of the funnel	Array
revenue	Product revenue (excluding discounts, shipping and tax) *	Float
sent_from	Unique property to identify events sent by Littledata	String
shipping	Shipping cost	Float
shipping_method	Shipping method chosen for checkout	String
source_name	The source of the order (e.g. `web`, `android`, `pos`)	String
step	Checkout step	Integer
subscription_revenue	The revenue associated with a Subscription Event	Float
subtotal	Total after discounts but before taxes and shipping	Float
tax	The amount of tax on the order	Float
total	Total value of the order	Float
userId	Chosen user identifier, defaulting to Shopify Customer ID	String

* revenue is available only with the Order Completed event, and only if the store opts in via the Littledata application. Revenue is a reserved property in many Segment destinations. Opting in will override the total property sent to Google Analytics.

Product properties

Each product in the products array, or Product Viewed and Product Added events, will have the following properties

Property	Description	Property Type
brand	The brand of the product (Shopify vendor)	String
category	The category of the product (defaults to all)	String
compare_at_price	The product price before any discount	String
coupon	Coupon code associated with the product	String
image_url	The URL of the first product image	String
list_id	The ID of the product collection (for List Views and Clicks)	String
list_position	The product position in the collection (for List Views and Clicks)	Integer
name	Product name	String
price	The product price	Float
product_id	Shopify product ID	String
quantity	The quantity of this product	Integer
shopify_product_id	Also Shopify product ID	String
shopify_variant_id	The Shopify variant ID	String
sku	The product SKU	String
url	The URL of the product page	String
variant	The product variant name	String

Subscription Events

All recurring orders in the Shopify checkout, from any subscription app, are tracked as Order Completed events.

Additional subscription lifecycle events via Littledata's Recharge connection are available in cloud mode destinations. See the Track (custom) tab of the event schema.

Event Name	Description
Subscription Created	A customer has created a subscription (with status, order_interval_frequency and order_interval_unit)
Subscription Updated	A customer has updated a subscription (with status, order_interval_frequency and order_interval_unit)
Subscription Cancelled	A customer has cancelled a subscription (with cancellation_reason and cancellation_reason_comments)
Order Processed	A recurring order in processed
Charge Failed	A recurring charge failed (with error_type)
Charge Max Tries Reached	Maximum tries to charge customer has been reached
Payment Method Updated	Customer has updated the payment method

Advanced settings

You can customize Littledata's Shopify source from the data pipeline settings in the Littledata admin. The general settings affect how we handle details such as orders, products and pageviews. The more advanced settings include:

cookiesToTrack

Any cookie set on a landing page (e.g. a session identifier or marketing campaign name) can be sent on to Segment with an identify call.

CDNForAnalyticsJS

If you have a proxy CDN setup  to load Segment's AnalyticsJS library from your own domain you can specify it here.

View all available data pipeline settings >>>