Get in Touch

Unlocking the Power of Personalization

What is Zero-Party Data?

Zero-party data is data that is voluntarily provided by customers, and is collected directly from them. This type of data could be information such as a customer’s preferences, lifestyle, life stages, opinions, and values. It is different from other types of data, such as first-party data, where we’re indirectly learning about the customer through website analytics, social channels, and other sources.

Why Do We Need it?

We’ll tackle this question two fold: 

  1. Because third-party cookies and new privacy changes to iOS, retailers across the board are facing difficulties in data collection. Brands will need to draw from reliable data more in the face of stricter (and more consumer-aware) privacy rules, and this is most succinctly achieved through zero-party collection methods. 
  2. Learning more about your customers on an individual level provides opportunities to create personalized flows, honed retargeting strategies, and custom shopping experiences. For example, personalized emails have a 26% higher likelihood of being opened, and a 760% increase in revenue from these segmented flows. 

Ultimately, collecting zero-party data will be a requisite for success for all merchants across B2B and B2C because it provides companies with more direct and valuable insights into their consumers.

How to Collect Zero-Party Data

This all sounds well and good in a brick and mortar business, but how do you collect data directly from your customers in a digital environment? Here are a few methods of collection to get in touch with the customer on your site as an e-Commerce brand:

  • Whether it be through a subscription, membership, or loyalty program, allow customers to create an account through your site, saving their preferences while signing up. Customers who receive offers and recommendations that are customized to them are more inclined to purchase from brands, according to 91% of consumers.
  • Build a survey/questionnaire into your customer journey. Quizzes are such an engaging way to interact with your customers, and our brilliant partners over at Okendo have tackled this and more.
  • Create an email preference center where customers can specify the kind of content (and product categories) they would like to receive from you.
  • Conduct a drawing or contest using a landing page form, gathering more information with embedded forms on your website than just an email address.

The Power of Personalization

To a consumer, privacy is power, and it is ever slipping through the cracks in a digital world. With consent at the core of its concept, zero-party data is quickly becoming a hot topic among marketers and merchants alike, and for good reason. In the future, companies will need to create a balance between providing customers with personalized experiences while respecting their privacy. This means that companies will need to be more transparent about how they’re using their customers’ data, and provide customers with better control over their data.

If there’s improvement to be had with your business strategy, submit an inquiry today, and let’s talk. Our initial conversations are always free, and informal, so let’s sit down for a chat.

Rebuy: 5 Questions with Ambaum

Recently, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Miles Shattuck, Rebuy’s Senior Content Marketing Manager for a think tank of Shopify Plus solutions. Our Founder, Chad Fisher, and our COO, David Stober, hashed out legacy D2C brand potential, professional recommendations for online store improvement, and exciting projects on the horizon. Check out the full article through Rebuy here, and a TL;DR 10 minute video below.

Key Takeaways

  • Ambaum provides Shopify Plus users with the resources they need to grow their businesses, integrating into unique templates to raise performance indicators.
  • Every three to four years, revitalize the template for your Shopify store to stay current with software updates and improve performance metrics.
  • Although top-of-funnel awareness can be generated from social selling on sites like Facebook or Instagram, Shopify businesses are best benefited by driving traffic to their online store.
  • Future ecommerce tech stacks must be adaptable and agile, able to react swiftly to shifting trends.

Whether you are an entrepreneur with an idea on a napkin, a bootstrapped startup, an SMB re-platforming, or a high-flying CPG brand, we help accelerate your growth through world-class strategy, design, and development. Get the most out of your Shopify Plus store, and schedule your complimentary consultation today.

Let’s Get Ship Done

The order is not really complete until the customer has the product in their hands, but getting from point A to point B can be arduous and time consuming. There is so much involved such as packaging to planning, to strategy. In this article, we’ll dive into why we suggest ShipStation as our top pick for “getting ship done”.

Seamless and Fast Connection

For Shopify merchants ShipStation can connect in seconds and offers extensive customer onboarding and support along the way. ShipStation can integrate with marketplaces, shopping carts, carriers, fulfillment centers, ERP and inventory management platforms, and more. This allows the service to grow with your business, ensuring scalable success.

Shipping Carriers

ShipStation works with the most widely utilized shipping companies such as FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, and more, across the globe. ShipStation also holds their finger on the pulse of updates on these shipping carriers, and can offer premier discounted rates from select carriers. This can be extremely beneficial as these discounted rates do not typically have any volume requirements. Alternatively, ShipStation allows the merchant to connect to any existing negotiated rates, as well as the ability to compare prices and delivery times in-app and in real-time.

Bulk Processes

Whether fulfilling orders through your e-commerce site or other sales channels, manually processing these orders can quickly become extremely overwhelming. With ShipStation’s cloud-based assisted software, bulk order processing and multi-channel fulfillment creates a superiority over other shipping solutions. ShipStation allows the merchant to print shipping labels in batches, up to 500 orders at one time. The UI allows the merchant to set up their shipping settings easily so these batches can be processed successfully every time. This is a huge advantage for merchants wanting to create a one-stop shop for streamlined and organized fulfillment.  

Fulfillment Operations

In that vein, being able to customize internal operations toward the specific needs of the business is integral to streamlined and scalable growth. ShipStation allows the merchant to take out the guesswork of processes by fully customizable merchant UI, so with a bit of work the process can be as simple as a click of a button. ShipStation works if the business has multi-channel fulfillment, so creating those standard operations becomes a possibility.

Integrations

ShipStation has created and connected a vast number of APIs, making the process of setting up ShipStation on a Shopify store incredibly simple. Additionally, ShipStation will connect other third-party tools that are already integrated into a business model such as:

This ability to connect to the marketplace, selling channel, and other business integrations makes ShipStation’s fit right at home into the success of an e-commerce store.

And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg; there are many additional advantages to using this industry standard. In short, ShipStation’s flexibility allows the system to grow with the business, becoming as robust as one might need.

Excited to get started? We’ve got a special partner deal where, after starting a 30 day free trial, ShipStation is offering an additional 30 days for merchants coming from Ambaum. So, start a free trial today to get ShipStation in the toolbelt. Questions for us on how to optimize with ShipStation or our other Shopify tech partners? Drop us a line.

Your Need-to-Know for Shopify Online Store 2.0

What’s new in 2.0, and should your brand upgrade now?

The summer of 2021 saw some significant changes from Shopify with the launch of Online Store 2.0. As a partner that is ever-listening to their customers, and optimizing their service, this upgrade offers streamlined solutions for developers and merchants alike.

But, when has anyone ever accepted transition without a modicum of hesitation? We’re here with our expertise and services to help. Let’s dive into some of the major updates.

  • Themes and Editor Update

On earlier versions of the online store, we were limited in the number of blocks we could include in the store, with a wide range of templates for products. Now, usability is improved with adding sections to each page (not just the home page). As opposed to needing Liquid code for templates, we can now use templates with JSON files to get even more granular with the UI both frontend and backend. With the updates to the app extension and app blocks, apps can also integrate with the themes for greater consistency across multiple themes. This means a development team can greatly improve the site for faster and easier functionality.

Before 2.0, the only fully customizable drag-and-drop sections was the homepage. Now, you can get  all that flexibility on every page of the site; no hacky duplications or workarounds with blocks to mimic the homepage sections. - Bree Therkildsen, Lead Developer at Ambaum
  • Metafields

Although integration to external apps is easier, Shopify’s Online Store 2.0 has implemented user-friendly metafields that can be edited directly from the admin view, making those apps or special urls obsolete. This is a major change, as the merchant is now able to modify metafields, as well as add content to product pages (i.e. lists and size charts). This update makes metafields more flexible and simpler for developers to keep the UI for merchants clean across market verticals.

supporting screenshot showcasing the new metafields

The metafields can simply be linked on the frontend through a field already in a section’s settings so now supported PDF files and images can be directly integrated without needing to hard code into the theme. Last, the theme editor now showcases a side view, with movable sections to allow frontend arrangement of those sections. 

  • Developer Tools

Previously development teams needed to create complex systems in order to deploy updates. Now, the Shopify GitHub integration provides streamlined use of the Shopify CLI tool and theme check for a more direct experience on deploying changes. 

supporting image showcasing the Shopify GitHub integration.

Another fantastic update is the functionality to scan the theme for errors with Theme Check. This scan highlights the possible errors of the platform and Liquid language, providing best practices before implementing. These tools enable developers to test their work, improving overall processes in Sandbox. The Shopify GetHub integration into the themes allows the developer greater collaboration in deployment before pushing updates live, with the new CLI tool giving developers a more exact view of the final customizations.

  • Do I need to update now?

At this moment, Shopify does not plan on disintegrating any older versions, but the advancements in the Online Store 2.0 deployment are hard to deny. In some examples of the clients we helped migrate, we saw a significant jump in pagespeed. Previously, even the most optimized Shopify stores would score in the mid 50’s, but our clients are now seeing 98 – 100 Google pagespeed scores with the switch to Shopify Online Store 2.0.

Example of one of our current clients on Shopify 2.0.

With the Online Store 2.0, new and expansive opportunities are available for developers and merchants alike, making the Shopify experience easier than ever before. Having more extensive sections means we’re able to reuse templates rather than repeatingly building out new ones, and simple content updates no longer require lengthy development recycles. 
Shopify has detailed the process of migrating to Online Store 2.0, and we’d love to help. Questions? Drop us a line.