Data Analytics

by Greg Oprendek

Why and how should online businesses leverage data? 

Good data is the backbone of good business decisions. No matter the size of your e-commerce organization, every team can benefit from using accurate data.

Reliable data is of course necessary for calculating the “big ticket” metrics for every retailer: things like revenue, return on ad spend, and customer lifetime value. These determine where you place valuable resources and directly impact future success.

But data means much more than that. It’s one of the most valuable tools you can wield to make improvements or changes as you grow your business. 

Leveraging accurate data helps your business succeed in important activities like:

  • Finding and attracting new customers
  • Assessing the value of current customers
  • Increasing customer retention
  • Increasing conversion rates 
  • Optimizing marketing spend
  • Predicting sales trends
  • Optimizing product offerings
  • Optimizing online store design for better conversions

How to best leverage your store’s data depends somewhat on the specific goals you have and the current growth stage of your business.

While completing your full data picture gives you almost endless possibilities for improvement, there are a few basics you should make sure you have down.

First, segment customers into rules-based audiences. This greatly improves data reporting, bolsters remarketing and targeting efforts, and supports customer enrichment activities.

Rule-based audiences can help you increase customer retention and increase your product’s visibility — a key step in standing out from your competitors. Once you’ve segmented your customer base according to well-defined rulesets, you can create campaigns targeting each customer type that is more likely to win business.

Another easy win you can accomplish in your data journey is calculating the lifetime value (LTV) of your customers. This helps determine which campaigns on which channels bring the most loyal customers. Not every buyer brings the same amount of revenue to your store — their purchasing recency and frequency will dictate how much value they bring when compared to the cost you paid to acquire them (customer acquisition cost.)

Collecting data about your buyer’s personas, behavior, and interests helps you tighten the slack while also lifting your business to greater heights via a truly enhanced e-commerce experience.

How to use Littledata’s features to compete with e-commerce giants?

Shopify enables e-commerce store owners to completely control their storefront design and data stacks. When combined with their fulfillment network built to compete head-to-head with Amazon and a developer-first attitude, Shopify shines as the clear choice platform for DTC brands looking to compete with the e-commerce goliaths.

As brands have moved to Shopify, their core data needs have skyrocketed. Shopify’s own analytics aren’t enough, as 12 orders still go missing in Google Analytics for every 100 orders in Shopify. Littledata’s connector fixes this tracking and supercharges it by offering connections that give stores a full picture of their data. 

A big advantage of using our data connectors is that we use server-side tracking to ensure all events are tracked in the data destination with the correct attributes, meaning that we can guarantee 100% throughput for all events and transactions, with 100% accuracy. And best of all, we keep all connections you’ve added with Littledata up to date on your Shopify store, without you having to allocate any developer resources for maintenance. Our connections now also support headless Shopify setups and subscriptions in the Shopify checkout — without any additional coding needed on your store’s website.

All Littledata Plus plans also include essentials like in-depth data audits, managed onboarding, and dedicated account management. 

Recent updates to our Plus plans include:

  • Advanced headless setup support
  • Solution engineering
  • Historic data import for Segment users

 Put it all together, and you’ve got the most powerful analytics tool built to unlock customer data and unleash your e-commerce store’s full revenue potential.

Use Cases of Littledata Connections

How Wild built an industry-leading DTC brand in two years

In the two years since their launch, Wild has become the biggest brand in the UK natural deodorant market, adding more than 140,000 customers and counting. Wild became a Littledata customer early on to supercharge their growth.

As a subscription service, Wild relies heavily on Littledata’s ReCharge tracking integration to leverage insights and retain customers. Wild co-founder Charlie Bowes-Lyon claims it’s “vital” to see accurate data in Google Analytics for their store. 

“Myself and the marketing team use GA for top-line statistics and data on different marketing campaigns and so on,” Charlie says.

“It’s also hooked into our analytics platform, so a lot of the data that they gather obviously comes from GA as well. That’s being used for things like measuring LTV, but also looking at the operations side of the business and working out different cogs and margins on products we’re selling. 

Littledata definitely connects that bridge between Shopify and ReCharge for us, which when it’s off everything goes completely wrong and doesn’t work. So it has been quite important for us.”

Leading Shopify Plus stores and the Littledata connections that fuel their success

Littledata is proud to have many successful DTC stores as clients, and even more proud to see that our app integrations have helped ignite their success.

Below are just a few examples of how DTC brands can harness the power of Littledata’s app along with data stack connections that nail down key metrics for their business:

  1. Rothy’s captures valuable data on each customer touchpoint in their store using Littledata’s Segment data destination. The connection unifies customer touchpoints while giving Rothy’s full visibility of customer behavior through 100% accurate server-side tracking.

Rothy’s can use the add-on to identify behavior trends, pinpoint which products grab the most clicks, then use that data to make real-time product recommendations. Segment also features a propensity modeling tool that optimizes offers by predicting the likelihood of customers buying. They can even see customer activity during checkout, find common dropoff points, and fine-tune the process to optimize their conversion rate.

  1. Sheertex uses both Littedata’s Segment and Google Analytics connections in their data stack. They use Segment to personalize the customer experience, from emails to ads, and Google Analytics to analyze marketing data and make data-driven decisions. Littledata’s own research has shown Shopify Analytics can miss 12 out of every 100 orders — a data gap with big financial implications. Using Littledata’s Google Analytics connector and its 100% accurate server-side tracking, Sheertex can track every order, account for each marketing dollar spent, calculate true marketing attribution, and then use that data to improve their promotion methods and drive revenue.
  1. Athletic Brewing uses Littledata’s Google Optimize connection on their Shopify Plus store. This connection gives them accurate results from A/B tests, plus the ability to segment tests by-products viewed, adds to cart, and other key metrics. Because Athletic Brewing can trust the data in their tests are 100% accurate thanks to Littledata, they can make changes to their store and customer experience with confidence. The result is a fully optimized store crafted to drive sales and earn customers.