HubSpot Native Shopify Integration 101: Setting up the integration

[#1]

Hello,

My name is Jack and I am a Technical Success Consultant working on the EMEA Professional Services team at HubSpot. My role involves working with a variety of customers across different industries that are facing technical challenges and considering integration options.

One segment I am particularly passionate about is eCommerce. I've helped customers integrate their stores using our eCommerce Bridge APIs. I've also helped customers connect Hubspot to Shopify using our Native Shopify Integration. 

Over the course of this series I will be posting several "how to" videos each week relating to our Native Shopify Integration. The videos are intended to help you setup the integration correctly and ensure you're set up for success moving forward.

So with the introductions done lets dive right in...

This first video is focused on setting up the integration and making sure you're aware of how to do it and what to expect after it's completed. Check it out below:

Some key features you'll see in the portal after the integration is installed are explained in more detail below:

1) eCommerce Pipeline: The pipeline is where all of your ecommerce transactions will reside in the form of HubSpot Deals. As orders are processed on your Shopify site they’ll be created as deals and shown in the pipeline. You’ll notice a number of pre-defined stages in this pipeline. The order will move from stage to stage depending on it’s status in Shopify. Any orders in the “checkout pending” stage will move into the “checkout abandoned stage” after a period of 24 hours. 

2) eCommerce Reporting Dashboard: The dashboard provided gives you an overview of the source of your customers and the orders they’re placing. It can be customized to meet your needs and is helpful in giving you insights into where to best focus your efforts to drive more revenue to your business.

3) eCommerce Workflows: There are a number of included workflows that are created as part of the installation. Namely: Cart abandoned, Customer re-engagment and New Customers. These workflows are heavily reliant on the eCommerce data coming into HubSpot. It’s important to note that without Sales Professional you will be unable to leverage the Checkout abandoned workflows as these rely on access to our Deals workflows feature. 

Based on calls I've had with customers using the integration there are a number of useful things to be aware of when you setup the connection between the two systems:

• One way sync: The integration is unidirectional. That means that any changes made in Shopify will sync to HubSpot. However any changes made to data in HubSpot will not sync back to Shopify. The logic behind this is that your eCommerce system is the master source of truth and the data contained within there shouldn't really change once a transaction is completed.
• Supported Properties: The integration does not support custom shopify properties. At the moment there is a pre-defined list of properties that we sync with. Anything that is not included on this list is not available to sync and will not show in HubSpot.
• Third Party Integrations: Whilst it's possible to use the native integration with other third party connectors be mindful that it may cause issues. Particularly with duplicate deals being created.
• Shopify Default Checkout Flow: The integration is intended to work wtih the default Shopify checkout process. If you've altered your checkout flow in any way it can result in deals not being associated to contacts correctly.
• Tracking Code: This is added automatically when you install the integration
• Tracking Contacts: Any contacts created when you first install the integration will not be cookied. Any contacts created moving forward as they purchase on your site will be cookied.
• Deal Workflows: The Shopify integration relies heavily on this feature which is a part of our Sales Professional plan. Without it you will be unable to leverage the new customer and cart abandoned workflows. 

With the Shopify Integration successfully installed you can now begin to use the eCommerce data being fed into HubSpot to enhance your marketing efforts and get creative with your campaigns! More information on the integration can be found here.

I hope you found this post useful. Next weeks post will focus on how the data syncs between the two systems. If you’ve any questions please do not hesitate to post them in the thread. I’d be more than happy to answer.

Happy HubSpotting!

[#2]

Very nice work, @jackcoldrick,

At some point, it would be helpful to include a bit about cleaning up the unidentified abandoned cart deal stage records for those 'non-contacts' in HubSpot.

Again, nice work. Thanks for that.

[#3]

Hi @MFrankJohnson ,

Thanks for the feedback and taking the time to comment. I'm glad you found the content useful. If I understand you correctly you're referring to a way to delete deals that have moved into the "Checkout Abandoned" stage without an association contact. Is that correct? 

This can happen if someone proceeds to the checkout stage on the Shopify side and does not enter any credentials.  Typically what I would recommend you do is to mark these deals using a custom property so we can easily identify and delete in bulk. The approach would look something like this:

1) Create a deal workflow

This worklfow will enroll any deals that are in the deal stage "Checkout Abandoned" and have "Number of contacts" set to 0. Once enrolled we set a checkbox property called "Delete deal" to "yes". An example of my enrollment criteria can be found below:

2) Delete the deals in bulk

Navigate to your deals in HubSpot. Enable the "list" view and add a filter to segment the deals that should be deleted. You can then delete in bulk. See below:

There is no delete deal action in workflows so the process is somewhat manual. However I believe it's something that could be done every 1 - 2 weeks and would help to keep the data clean. 

Another more technical approach would be to trigger a webhook when a deal is enrolled into the workflow. The webhook would consume the Deal ID and you could make a call to the Delete deal endpoint. This way would be a much more automated option but would take some resources to develop. 

[#4]

If anyone is interested in the second video of the series I posted it on the community today. It focuses on how data syncs between the two systems (Shopify and HubSpot). Feel free to check it out here: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/Marketing-Integrations/HubSpot-Native-Shopify-Integration-101-How-d...

[#5]

UPDATE: To anyone reading this the integration now has BETA support for bidirectional/two way sync for Customers (Shopify) and Contacts (HubSpot). More info here: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/integrations/use-two-way-contact-sync-with-shopify-beta