Tons of platforms, tons of promotional channels.
When you’re a Shopify merchant, promoting a Shopify store is a necessity. But jumping into a new acquisition channel is equivalent to driving full speed ahead on a foggy day.
But what if a new acquisition method just came out that’s literally low-risk, high-reward for any Shopify merchant?
Meet Shop Cash (Shopify Shop App Ads)—the Shopify’s Shop app solution that can be an effective new customer acquisition tool for your Shopify store and a rewarding experience for your customers.
And as a Shopify marketing agency, we’ve already dipped our toes into the water. So let’s dip one more time together…
What Is Shop Cash?
Shop Cash is Shopify’s new incentive-based program that allows customers on the Shop App to redeem cash rewards for their purchases.
💡Customers can earn 3% in Shop Cash when they use Shop Pay for eligible orders in both the Shop app and your store.
It’s basically Shopify’s way of saying “We get your brand in front of tens of millions of engaged customers and you incentivize them to shop using our payment platform.”
That way it’s a win-win situation—you streamline your acquisition, and Shopify streamlines its checkout process with customers never leaving the platform. Not too shabby, right?
If you’re not sure what Shop Pay is, here’s a little explainer:
What are Shop Cash Campaigns?
Shop Cash campaigns are a rewards program that offers you a pay-per-sale opportunity.
Shopify provides you with the tools to target new customers in the Shop App with exclusive offers that multiply the value of customers’ Shop Cash—so they’re incentivized to buy.
And if you use Shop Cash campaigns, you get a new customer, but only when you acquire it.
Once you do, the customer’s first-party data stays which you can later use in your other marketing strategies. Cool!
How do Shop Cash Campaigns Work?
Now that you understand what Shop Cash Campaigns are, let’s see how Shop Cash campaigns actually work.
You already know that your customers earn Shop Cash on eligible Shop Pay purchases on the Shop App or the online store. Here’s how Shop Cash Campaigns help:
- You can set up campaigns in your Shopify admin dashboard where you can increase the value of your shoppers’ Shop Cash with exclusive offers.
- You can use these campaigns for free marketing strategies, leveraging push notifications, email campaigns, or other promotions through Shop App.
- You can customize campaigns by setting CPA thresholds, timeframes, and budget parameters.
- Buyers will see your offers—and offers from other merchants—across the app and home feed, on the product pages, as well as push notifications and email.
- You’re only charged when a buyer makes a purchase. So when you acquire a new customer.
- You can track each campaign performance separately or combined in your Shop channel and tweak your campaigns whenever you see fit.
And that’s it. A simple, mutually beneficial strategy.
What are the Requirements For Shop Cash Campaigns?
If you want to run Shop Cash campaigns, there’s only three requirements you need to fill:
- Your store needs to be on a Shopify Plus plan.
- You need to have US Shopify Payments USD account and Shop Pay activated.
- Your store needs to meet Shop’s merchant eligibility requirements.
If you tick the three boxes, you’re ready to get started.
What are the Benefits of Shop Cash Campaigns?
Shop Cash campaigns have a bunch of benefits and new ones will probably emerge as they get more established. But here are some of the first signs you may want to test them…
You Only Pay For New Customers
Sounds impossible huh? Well, with the Shop Cash campaign system, you’ll only spend money when the acquisition happens—in other words, when you acquire a new buyer.
You can also set the cost cap per acquisition so Shopify will never charge you more and you’ll avoid any unpleasant surprises.
Meaning you take the wheel of your customer acquisition and make it scalable and sustainable.
Hit High-Intent Audience
Quantity is one thing, but acquiring quality customers is something else.
With Shop Cash, you get the tools to reach a 100M+ audience of engaged shoppers with tailored offers—and, the tools to retain those same customers in the long run.
According to Shopify, almost half of the orders in Shop are coming from repeat buyers, meaning Shop Cash campaigns could prove to be an important cog in your retention machine.
Super Simple, Smooth Launch
The best thing about Shop Cash campaigns is that you don’t need to worry about having huge first-party audience lists or having to invest a high amount of money with no returns.
Shop Cash campaigns already have their highly-engaged customer lists and only provide you with the tools you’ll need to make these lists profitable.
Long story short, all your campaigns can be set up quickly without any new assets, lists, or prior investments—you’ll just pay after you’ve acquired your customer.
So it’s quite easy to test out the waters, right?
How to Create a Shop Cash Campaign?
If all above got you interested in starting your Shop Cash campaigns, here’s what you need to do.
- Go to your Shopify admin. Click Settings>Apps and go to Apps and sales channels.
- From the Apps and sales channels, click Shop.
- Select Open sales channel.
- Choose Marketing and then click Create Campaign at the top right of the screen.
- Pick a name for your Shop Cash campaign.
- Enter the start time and date for your future campaign under the Schedule section. You can also choose the finish date by ticking the Set end time checkbox.
- Input the Daily budged and Maximum cost per acquisition in the Budget section.
A brief time after your campaign goes live, you can see performance data start filling up in the Marketing section of the Shop channel.
The results will be aggregated across campaigns and you can see individual insights by clicking on the campaign name… Nice!
Shop Cash Best Practices
Shop Cash campaigns are relatively new, but we’ve already started implementing them to promote our client’s Shopify stores.
Bear in mind that while it may not work all the time, these are the current best practices for Shop Cash Campaigns:
- Set a daily budget: Set your daily spending threshold so you can control and manage your acquisition costs in full and make sure you don’t run out of juice.
- Set a competitive CPA: The bigger the CPA, the bigger is the multiplier your buyer will see on the platform, equaling the bigger incentive to buy. Pro tip: don’t go under $20.
- Track and measure everything: Your budget, your performance, your schedule… Monitor it all—and at all times. This will help you adjust your campaign accordingly.
- Test and switch: Just like in your regular ad campaigns, the more variations you test the better results will be based on your specific goals. Do you want higher returns, more customers, lower costs per acquisition, or something else? Adjust your campaigns accordingly.
You can also try and customize your Shop store—your brand’s online presence on the Shop app—and it’s the best way for buyers to get introduced to your brand.
Shopify’s new additions to the Shop store allow you to customize it with your branding, add custom collections and best sellers, and more. Jump on it!
Cha-Ching! Time For Shop Cash Out
Shop Cash campaigns may not always be the golden ticket to e-commerce success, but it is definitely something that can significantly improve your conversion and retention rates.
The predictability and the simplicity of setting one up is what makes it a no-brainer if you own a US-based Shopify store and you’re in the US.
Also, if you need help implementing Shop Cash campaigns or have any other questions regarding the new feature—feel free to hit us up. We’re happy to help!
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