It is officially “AFTER” launch of the Shopify Checkout Extensibility system, which went live for all merchants on August 13, 2024. Now that everyone is converted (we hope) over to the new Shopify Checkout, we felt it was a good idea to explain a bit about what has occurred with tracking in the Shopify ecosystem.
The Good-Ole Days
In a bygone era, websites tracked visits and visitors using an incredibly simple system: tracking pixels. Literal “pixels” of an image. Typically, you would generate a 1x1 transparent image (1 pixel) that is invisible to the human eye, that would then send all your browser details back to the server in charge of generating the image. The server would track that data into a dataset and report it back. It was crude and to the point, but it worked for a long time for basic needs.
Version 2.0 of a Pixel
After a while, we marketing folks wanted more data and details and with websites becoming more interactive than the original Web1.0 of the world, we couldn’t just use an image as our tracking system. We needed an upgrade → Enter JavaScript Pixels.
No longer using an actual image, instead a small snippet of code is loaded that works by sending “events” and items to a tracking server. Google has their GTM (Google Tag Manager) system to help facilitate the data between users and the analytics system. There are also pay providers like Segment that help move data quickly between datasets.
This new system is still very much the most popular method of tracking customers on your website.
What changed with Shopify?
Now that we have a little history in our minds, let's look at the new stuff that Shopify did and maybe a reason for that change.
Starting earlier this year, Shopify introduced what they dubbed Web Pixels. These components were part of a new range of announcements surrounding the upgraded checkout experience (including one-page checkout, FINALLY!).
Shopify saw that when a merchant wanted to add tracking to their store, it would typically involve pulling a piece of code from that service and manually adding it to the theme--which is great, until you realize you can’t just add code to your Checkout pages. So, now we had a small black hole of data we could not easily track of the customers journey, until they got to the final THANK YOU page, where you could inject code again. Some applications, like Google Analytics were enabled by Shopify directly so you didn’t lose that data, but there are thousands of tracking services out there and Shopify couldn’t make a workaround for them all.
Enter a Shopify Web Pixel, this piece of code can be added via a Shopify App, so all a merchant would have to do is install the app related to their tracking service and boom, you are tracking data EVERYWHERE on your store–including checkout.
If your vendor doesn’t have a Shopify app, you can actually create your own Web Pixel using the Shopify Customer Events area of your admin panel. While this is more complex than just copying and pasting your code from the third-party system, it works great and has the added benefit of now being in your checkout flow.
Please Note: If you need help handling your tracking pixels and code, let our team know using our flat rate Customer Events service (Purchase our Flat Rate here) that will allow your team to quickly get up and running with all the required tracking pixels you may need.
If you want to setup Google Tag Manager with Shopify’s new Web Pixel, the team at Shopify has provided a good rundown here - https://help.shopify.com/en/en/manual/promoting-marketing/pixels/custom-pixels/gtm-tutorial.
Shopify’s Web Pixel approach is in keeping with Shopify’s general approach . . . solve problems for the merchant while preserving or enhancing the buyer experience.
You might be interested in some other reasons Shopify did this update:
- Protects each tracking pixel from the others, as they are all run in a sandbox independent of each other, they can cause issues with each other
- Standardizes the events a consumer may emit to a tracking/analytics service, providing developers a great way to manage each point of tracking
- Evil-ish one:Shopify actually used to allow you to add custom tracking code to your checkout on all Shopify plans, but they found people were using the code section to alter and change the look/feel of the checkout without being on their Shopify Plus platform, so they killed this option around 4 years ago. Not pure evil (!) but evil-ish
Here’s to the good ole days AND to the new days and ways of tracking!