Shirofune, the leading digital advertising automation management tool, announced the addition of Google Analytics 4’s “Data-Driven Attribution Model” to their Shopify integration. With the new feature, Shirofune now allows for automatic optimization of advertising campaigns based on lifetime value (LTV) and cost per order (CPO) after evaluating an ecommerce website’s order data.
Prior to this new addition, while Shopify’s order data and UTM parameter information were evaluated using Shopify’s first/last-click attribution model and could be automatically optimized based on LTV/CPO, two challenges were identified:
- The desire to utilize attribution models other than Shopify’s.
- Cases where UTM parameters were not present on Shopify, such as when using automatic tag linkage with Google Ads.
Merely retrieving data from Shopify was insufficient to realize LTV/CPO operations optimization. With this development, linking media and campaign evaluations as conversion sources from GA4’s “Data-Driven Attribution” with Shopify’s order data allows for the utilization of GA4’s “Attribution Model” and enables automatic optimization based on LTV/CPO without concerns about missing parameters.
When optimizing advertising operations based on cost per acquisition (CPA) and return on ad spend (ROAS), evaluation is conducted without considering the proportion of new and existing customers within the revenue or how much revenue new customers contribute subsequently. By utilizing the LTV/CPO criteria, advertisers can overcome the limitations of CPA/ROAS criteria, as lifetime ROAS reveals how much of the advertising expenditure is truly recovered, providing valuable insights for determining changes in advertising expenditure.
This new functionality is able to operate with measurement tools other than GA4 and Shopify — such as Adobe Analytics — and e-commerce platforms — BigCommerce/Magento — through our Conversion Connector. Establishing a similar environment to automate daily advertising campaigns requires a substantial and impractical amount of effort. Shirofune achieves this seamlessly, allowing advertisers to maximize their ROAS quickly.
“As we continue to evolve Shirofune’s capabilities, we are excited to integrate Google Analytics 4’s ‘Data-Driven Attribution Model’ into our Shopify integration to help advertisers and marketing professionals overcome the limitations of CPA/ROAS criteria,” said Mitsunaga Kikuchi, Founder and CEO of Shirofune. “By bridging the gap between GA4’s advanced attribution and Shopify’s order data, we are leveraging a more robust attribution model and providing marketers with powerful insights and tools to maximize ROI and streamline their advertising operations.”
[Differences between CPA/ROAS Criteria and LTV/CPO Criteria]
CPA/ROAS Criteria → Evaluating ad platform A
- Ad platform A: Advertising cost = $10K, sales = $20K, ROAS = 200%
- Ad platform B: Advertising cost = $10K, sales = $15K, ROAS = 150%
Platform A evaluation is conducted without considering the proportion of existing/new customers within revenue or how much revenue new customers contribute subsequently.
LTV/CPO Criteria → Evaluating ad platform B
- Ad platform A: Advertising cost = $10K, sales = $20K, ROAS = 200%
New user sales = $10K, New user ROAS = 100%, LTV= $30K, Lifetime ROAS = 300%
- Ad platform B: Advertising cost = $10K, sales = $15K, ROAS = 150%
New user sales = $13K, New user ROAS = 130%, LTV=$40K, Lifetime ROAS = 400%
Platform B clears up the bottlenecks in the CPA/ROA standard. Viewing Lifetime ROAS reveals how much of the advertising expenditure is truly recovered, providing valuable insights for determining changes in advertising expenditure.