Contacts Sync with Shopify

Learn what, when and how the information about your contacts is exchanged between Omnisend and Shopify

Ira avatar
Written by Ira
Updated yesterday

Omnisend has a two-way integration for your contacts exchange with Shopify. In this article, we will look into different aspects of this process, list synced data, and review the details about the timing.

Contents

Contacts synchronization to Shopify

Starting from 2019.05.09, Omnisend is pushing contacts subscribing to your Omnisend signup forms to Shopify.

Contacts that were uploaded manually only to the Omnisend app (and not to Shopify) will not be synchronized, as well as contacts that are collected via 3rd party apps outside of Shopify, i.e., Google Forms, Zapier, etc. If you wish to add those contacts, you will need to upload them manually or try integrating the third-party solution with Shopify as well.

What contact data is transferred to Shopify?

Email
Phone number
Email Subscribed status
Subscription date
First name
Last name

Please note that the SMS subscription status is not passed from Omnisend to Shopify.

When is contact data synchronized?

  • When the contact has filled Omnisend form;

  • When the contact subscription status has changed.

If you connected your Shopify store with Omnisend before 2019.05.09 and want to synchronize your historical data back to Shopify, please email [email protected] with your account name and Shopify store URL. We will perform chronological data synchronization to Shopify for you.

Please note, according to Shopify settings, if a customer was previously subscribed to marketing in the Shopify admin, but the email marketing consent option is not selected at checkout, they will be automatically unsubscribed from email marketing.

Their unsubscribed status will be synced and updated in Omnisend during regular sync.

Contacts synchronization to Omnisend

When you connect your store to Omnisend, we start syncing all of your contacts, orders, and products. The process should be completed within an hour but may take a little longer, depending on the number of contacts you have.

After the initial sync is over, we will keep uploading your contacts but within different time frames:

Eventually, all of your contacts in Shopify will be added to your Omnisend account, but the time frame might differ. Commonly, it should take at most 1 hour.

Note! If you update some pieces of information other than the identifier (email address or phone number) in your contacts' profiles on Shopify, it will be updated in your Omnisend account as well. Also, if you unsubscribe a contact in Shopify, it will be unsubscribed in Omnisend.

What data is synced to Omnisend?

Profile data:

Email 
First name
Last name
Subscription status for the Email channel
Phone number
Subscription status for the SMS channel

We also sync the date when the contact was added to your store and assign it to the external_created field in your customers' profiles.

Address:

Country
City
Address
Postal code

If you have two lines for the Address, they will be added to a single vector field separated by commas. When both, Shipping and Billing addresses are available, priority is given to the Billing one.

Tags:

source: shopify
any_other_tag

All contacts imported from Shopify get the source tag assigned automatically. Apart from this tag, we also sync any other tags you have in your store.

Note! If you remove the tags in Shopify, they won't be removed in Omnisend. If you want tag(s) removed in Omnisend, you need to do it as explained in this article.

Also, read the next section to learn how the Shopify contact deletion is handled on Omnisend's end.

GDPR Compliance

To comply with the GDPR requirements, Omnisend uses Shopify webhooks to deliver proper handling of your store and customers' data. There are three webhooks triggered in Shopify:

Check this tutorial to learn more about each of these requests.

Note! Thanks to the customers/redact webhook, we're able to delete contacts in your Omnisend audience when they're deleted in Shopify. So, keep that in mind when you're deleting contacts in Shopify.

Subscription statuses mapping

Subscribed status

Anyone subscribing to your Shopify store will be added to Omnisend with equal status.

To see the list of the Subscribed contacts, add the Email subscription status as a Subscribed filter to your customers' list.

To see the same list, but in Omnisend, you need to create a Segment of Subscribed customers.

There are two primary sources where your customers may subscribe to your store:

  • Captured signup form;

  • Allow marketing checkbox at the checkout page.

If your customer submits any of these options, he will be added to your Shopify list with subscribed status and synced to Omnisend with the same one.

Not subscribed or Non-subscribed status

Anybody who provides his contact details in your store while placing the order, abandoning a cart, creating an account, etc., but doesn't explicitly consent to receive your marketing is added to Omnisend with non-subscribed status.

SMS channel subscription

Apart from the Email channel opt-ins, Omnisend also lets you collect opt-ins for SMS channel marketing. With the default settings, the customer's phone number is synced to Omnisend but with a non-subscribed to SMS channel status.

There are many options where your customers may leave their email addresses. In the following list, you may see the priority of their assignment:

  1. Primary contact input at the checkout page. If the contact registered or checked out using the phone number only.

  2. Checkout with SMS opt-in. If the contacts provided the email addresses to the primary field, phone number to the Shipping details, added a checkmark at the checkout, and you have SMS opt-in collection enabled, they will be added to your Omnisend account with subscribed to both channels status.

  3. Billing information. If the phone number is unavailable in the first two scenarios, we sync it from the billing section but always with non-subscribed status.

FAQ

Can Welcome automation be triggered for the customers subscribing to the checkout page? The default Welcome automation won't be triggered since this customer should always submit an action in your store, triggering a different type of workflow, such as an Abandoned Cart or Order Confirmation email. You may still define unique characteristics for these contacts and trigger Segment-based automation.

What happens if I delete contacts from Omnisend? Will they be automatically synced back from Shopify?
If you delete a contact from Omnisend, it will only be re-synchronized from Shopify if there is an update made in Shopify. Any update, such as an order, a new tag, a change in subscription status, or an update to any contact property (like changing the first name from John to Josh or adding a new property such as a phone number), will trigger the synchronization.

To avoid contact recreation, it is recommended that any cleanup for contacts or orders should be done in Shopify first. This way, all updates related to contacts are received, and irrelevant contacts can then be safely deleted from Omnisend.

If you have any questions or need any assistance, do not hesitate to contact our support team at [email protected].

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