Shopify is a leading e-commerce platform that supports post-purchase upselling and offers various tools and features to help businesses implement this strategy. However, to fully understand the impact of post-purchase upselling on revenue, businesses need to track their upsell performance.
But by implementing relevant and updated strategies, businesses can gain insights into their post-purchase upsell performance and optimize their strategy to maximize revenue potential.
In this blog, we will outline how to set up Shopify post-purchase upsell tracking.
What is Post Purchase Upsell?
Post-purchase upsell is a sales strategy that involves offering customers additional or complementary products or services after they have already made a purchase. The goal of post-purchase upselling is to increase the customer's overall purchase value and maximize the revenue generated from the transaction.
This strategy is often used by e-commerce retailers, but can also be used by businesses that sell products or services in person. After a customer has completed a purchase, the seller will offer additional items or upgrades that complement or enhance the product or service that the customer just purchased.
Post Purchase Upsell in Shopify can quickly increase your average order value, and the platform includes numerous built-in tools and apps that allow merchants to implement this strategy effectively.
Post-purchase upselling can be an effective way to increase revenue and build customer loyalty, as customers are often receptive to additional offers when they have already made a buying decision.
However, it's important to strike a balance between providing value to the customer and not appearing too pushy or aggressive in attempting to sell additional products.
Examples of Post Purchase Upselling
Here are some real-world examples of post-purchase upselling and how businesses have successfully implemented this strategy to drive revenue growth and customer retention.
- Amazon: After customers make a purchase, Amazon uses post-purchase upselling to recommend additional products that are similar or complementary to their purchase. For example, if a customer purchases a camera, Amazon may recommend additional lenses or camera accessories.
- McDonald's: McDonald's uses post-purchase upselling by offering customers the option to "supersize" their meals for an additional fee. This encourages customers to spend more money and increases the average order value.
- Sephora: After customers make a purchase, Sephora uses post-purchase upselling to recommend additional beauty products that are similar or complementary to their purchase. This helps to drive repeat purchases and increases customer loyalty.
- Airbnb: After customers book a stay on Airbnb, the platform uses post-purchase upselling to recommend additional experiences or activities that the customer may be interested in. This helps to enhance the customer's overall travel experience and increases revenue for Airbnb.
- Best Buy: After customers make a purchase, Best Buy uses post-purchase upselling to recommend additional products or services, such as warranties or installation services. This helps to increase revenue and build customer loyalty by providing customers with a seamless shopping experience.
Benefits Of Post-Purchase Upsell
Here are the benefits of post-purchase upsell in more detail, outlining how it can be a cost-effective way to improve inventory management, build customer loyalty, and generate more revenue without incurring additional marketing or acquisition costs.
- Increased revenue:
Post-purchase upselling can lead to an increase in revenue as it encourages customers to spend more money on related or complementary products. It's a great way to maximize the value of a transaction and generate more revenue without incurring additional marketing or acquisition costs.
- Higher average order value:
By suggesting additional products or services to customers, businesses can increase the average order value, which is the average amount spent per transaction. This can be a key performance indicator for businesses and is an important metric to track to ensure long-term profitability.
- Increased customer satisfaction:
Offering relevant and complementary products can enhance the customer's overall shopping experience, which can lead to increased satisfaction and loyalty. By providing personalized and relevant recommendations, businesses can improve the customer experience and build long-term relationships with customers.
- Cost-effective marketing:
Post-purchase upselling is a cost-effective marketing strategy as it targets customers who have already made a purchase and are more likely to make another purchase. This can reduce acquisition costs and improve the return on investment for marketing efforts.
- Improved inventory management:
By suggesting related or complementary products, businesses can move inventory that might otherwise go unsold, reducing waste and increasing profitability. This can help businesses manage their inventory more efficiently and ensure that they have the right products in stock to meet customer demand.
6. Establish customer loyalty:
Post-purchase upsells will also help to establish customer loyalty between you and your customers. This will help to ensure that customers are more likely to purchase from you in the future and stay loyal to your brand.
How to Implement Post-Purchase Upsell on Shopify?
To fully leverage the potential of post-purchase upsell on Shopify, businesses need to know how to implement it effectively on Shopify.
Here are several ways by which businesses can implement post-purchase upsell for Shopify products.
- Post-purchase emails: After a customer has made a purchase, sending them a personalized email with product recommendations can be an effective way to encourage them to make additional purchases. These emails can be triggered by the customer's purchase history, browsing behavior, or other factors that indicate their interests.
- Post-purchase SMS: Similar to post-purchase emails, businesses can also send personalized SMS messages to customers after they have made a purchase. SMS messages have a higher open rate than emails and can be an effective way to drive engagement and sales.
- Loyalty rewards: Offering customers loyalty rewards, such as points or discounts, for making additional purchases can be a powerful incentive to drive post-purchase upsells. These rewards can be earned based on purchase history, frequency of purchases, or other factors.
- Pop-ups for checkout intent: Pop-ups that appear when a customer is about to check out can be used to suggest additional products or services that complement their purchase. These pop-ups should be relevant and non-intrusive, and should not interfere with the checkout process.
- Post-purchase retargeting ads: Retargeting ads that are shown to customers after they have made a purchase can be used to encourage them to make additional purchases. These ads should be personalized and relevant, based on the customer's purchase history and browsing behavior.
- Replenishment reminders: For products that need to be replenished regularly, sending customers reminders to reorder can be an effective way to drive post-purchase upsells. These reminders can be sent via email, SMS, or other channels, and should be timed based on the customer's purchase history and behavior.
Implementing these post-purchase upsell strategies can help businesses increase revenue and build customer loyalty. However, it is important to use these strategies in a way that is relevant and personalized to the customer, and that does not interfere with the overall customer experience.
Steps To Post-Purchase Tracking in Shopify.
Here are the steps to set up post-purchase tracking in Shopify:
- Install a BiteSpeed app in your Shopify store.
- Choose the upsell offers you want to display to customers after they complete their purchase.
- Set up tracking and analytics for your post-purchase upsell offers using the app's built-in tools or by integrating with Google Analytics or another tracking platform.
- Create and customize your post-purchase upsell campaigns to ensure they are optimized for conversions.
- Test your post-purchase upsell campaigns to ensure they are working properly and achieving your desired results.
- Analyze the results of your post-purchase upsell campaigns and adjust your strategy as needed to optimize performance and maximize revenue.
How To Configure Post-Purchase Upsell Tracking on Shopify
Here are the steps to configure post-purchase upsell tracking on Shopify.
Step 1: Add Code to Post-Purchase Settings
The code below handles the scenarios where:
- User views upsell offer page // we push a dl_purchase event
- User takes an upsell or down-sell offer // we push a dl_upsell_purchase event
Copy the script below into your Shopify post-purchase page checkout settings (shown in the previous image above). Be sure to update the GTM-xxxxx at the bottom of the script with your Web Container ID.
Step 2: Update Code in Thank You Page Settings
There is a feature that Shopify makes available to try and prevent duplicate tracking.
It’s an “unless post-purchase page accessed” flag similar to below.
If you are on Shopify Plus then your “thank you” page data layer (from Elevar) is set in your checkout.liquid template.
Otherwise, the Bitespeed data layer is copied into your thank you page Checkout settings for non-plus stores.
You’ll want to wrap all of your tracking code in this if you don’t want the code to fire if it was already triggered during an upsell funnel.
The way this works is this:
- If the user already viewed an upsell offer (which triggered the dl_purchase event), then don’t execute this code.
- Otherwise, if the user did not view an upsell offer and was sent right to the thank you page, then execute this code.
This guide assumes that you are utilizing Elevar’s server-side integrations for Facebook and Google Analytics which handles sending 100% of your main purchase events without having to modify any code.
But you need to account for:
- Sending upsell revenue and events to GA and Facebook
- Sending primary (and upsell) purchase events to your non-GA & Facebook channels.
It’s also important to note that this first-time access logic that Shopify provides has been shown not to work in checkout.liquid template. We believe it’s a bug – so be sure to test for yourself.
Step 3: Import Pre-Built Container(s)
First, let’s configure upsell revenue and events for GA and Facebook.
Download our Upsell Purchases pre-built container from your Elevar dashboard that ultimately looks like this inside of GTM:
In the default setup, we attach a Facebook Upsell Purchase tag to the dl_upsell_purchase event. This sends a custom conversion event so we don’t inflate FB Purchase conversions.
We also attach a custom GA event to the upsell that hyphenates the original order id (for ex. order 1234-US1). This lets you create a view in GA that filters out upsells and prevents inflated conversion rates.
To filter upsell orders in GA create a filter and exclude transactions ending with a hyphen + US + digits (for ex. 1234-US1). Use a filter on Transaction ID.
You can make 3 views based on your preferences.
- Orders without upsells (prevents conversion rate inflation).
- All orders (no filter)
- Upsell orders (include filter)
Conclusion
Post-purchase upselling is a valuable strategy for businesses looking to increase revenue and build customer loyalty. While Shopify provides businesses with various tools and features to implement post-purchase upselling, tracking performance is equally important.
By setting up post-purchase upsell tracking on Shopify, businesses can gain insights into their upsell performance and optimize their strategy for better results.
Whether through Shopify's built-in analytics tools, third-party tracking apps, or custom reports, tracking post-purchase upsell performance is essential for businesses looking to maximize their revenue potential. With the right tracking strategy in place, businesses can unlock the full potential of post-purchase upselling on Shopify and grow their e-commerce business.
Increase sales and loyalty with BiteSpeed's upsell and cross-sell. Sync Shopify to build a recommendation engine and boost repeat purchases, cross-sell more products 2 weeks after purchase to raise LTV, and upsell with similar products at checkout and raise order value.
