Analytics FAQs

I just started an experiment. How long does it take to see results in the analytics dashboard?

Data will arrive in nearly real-time, but there may be occasional delays. You should see data on visitors within about 30-60 seconds of their entrance into the experiment. Data on orders may take a little bit longer — generally they should appear within about 1 minute of the order being placed.

If you're not seeing data yet and have just started an experiment, the reason may be exclusions. Visitors who started their browsing session before an experiment started (i.e., they were "mid-session" when the experiment started) are excluded from analytics, as are visitors who have opened the experiment in Intelligems' preview mode. See more about these default filters here.

Why doesn't the data align with Shopify or Google Analytics?

There are a few reasons why the data won't align perfectly with Shopify or GA in a given moment in time:

• Intelligems shows data in nearly real-time, while Shopify and Google analytics typically have a lag of up to 1 day

• Intelligems tracks conversion based on visitors instead of sessions. See more here

• By default, Intelligems filters out "outlier" orders (more than 3 standard deviations from the mean) to prevent rare, anomalously large orders skewing experiment results. See more here under "Z-Score"

• Intelligems includes only orders that are placed by visitors who were exposed to an experiment. This typically excludes orders outside of the "Online Store" sales channel (e.g. draft orders, subscription refills, app orders like Tapcart, etc.)

• Intelligems cannot track orders through some quick checkout buttons, e.g., "Buy with Prime" — see the FAQ below this for more information on this

• The dashboard may be filtered to "orders with target products" (i.e., orders with at least one product targeted by the experiment). See more here under "Filter Orders by Product"

• If your test uses audience or page targeting, only users who passed the targeting rules would have entered the test, and therefore the results. This includes targeting based on currency or location, UTMs, device types, whether they are new or returning, or whether they have hit a page you are targeting in the test. See more here

• For Split URL and template tests, which are naturally focused on a specific set of pages, visitors enter the experiment only once they have visited one of the origin pages (typically, this is the control page). Visitors who did not reach one of these pages would not be included in analytics. See more here

• For Split URL tests specifically, you may notice a discrepancy between Intelligems and Shopify's "Landing Page" reporting. When a visitor lands on an origin page and redirects them to one of the test pages, that redirect executes client-side. Shopify may register the origin page as the landing page for these visitors, even though they are immediately redirected to a test page. This makes the landing page reporting unreliable during the duration of the experiment, and there it cannot be compared to Intelligems' test group reporting. We strongly recommend relying on Intelligems' reporting, rather than Shopify's, to analyze these experiments in particular

If you still think the numbers don't align, please send a few screenshots of what you're seeing in Shopify or another analytics app, and what test results you are looking at, and we can help look into it.

How does Intelligems track conversion rate?

Intelligems tracks our conversion rates based off of visitors instead of sessions.

Here's the difference between the two: In Shopify, sessions are the total number of interaction periods a user has with a store, while visitors are the total number of unique people who access the website:

Sessions: A session is counted each time a user interacts with the store, such as by searching or entering the store's URL directly. A session can also be initiated when a user logs in to the website. However, a single user can have multiple sessions if they leave and return to the store, or if they use different devices to interact with the store. A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity or at midnight UTC. Because of this, the number of sessions is usually higher than the number of visitors.

Visitors: Visitors are the total number of people who access the website, regardless of how many times they visit.

Learn more about Intelligems' metric definitions here.

Can I export the data from an Intelligems test?

Yes! We support data exports of orders and line item sales. See more information on what’s included in those exports and how to get them here.

Can Intelligems send data to my data warehouse via API?

Yes! We integrate with a wide variety of data lakes and warehouses. This requires reaching out to us to setup

Does data from post-purchase upsells get counted in the analytics dashboard?

In most cases yes, the order will be updated with the upsell and we will count it. See more about order accounting here. If you have any questions about this, contact our support team with information about the app you're using for post-purchase upsells, and include an example Shopify order number if possible.

Note that we cannot track purchases that were created as draft orders.

How does Intelligems determine New vs Returning visitors?

We assign every visitor an Intelligems ID when they first visit your store (and Intelligems' is live on the site). If a visitor has already been assigned an ID when they start their session, they are considered returning. If Intelligems is assigning them an ID on that visit, they are new.

The experiments we have run using Intelligems resulted in uplifts, but we have not seen our performance improve in Shopify since implementing the changes that we tested. Why might that happen?

The short answer is that Intelligems tests are measuring incrementality. For example, the data may confirm that experience B converted better than experience A while the test was running, but there are still a number of exogenous factors that go into overall conversion rate and site performance.

For example, consider site performance for most industries in January. Many brands see lower conversion rates that time of year due due to post-holiday demand. If you were to run a test and find a statistically significant result, and then implement the change in January, you may see site performance decline on a week-over-week basis, but this is because of exogenous seasonal factors, not necessarily because the change had a different effect than what was measured in the test.

Similarly, it's possible that your ad campaigns are generating different types of customers who have fundamentally different likelihoods to convert. It still is incrementally better, but that natural conversion rate can vary quite a bit.

These are all great reasons to continually test your site! Frequent testing will help to solve for seasonal changes and increase confidence in test results.

How does Intelligems calculate metrics when customers purchase in different currencies?

In our analytics dashboard, we only use your store's default currency. For example if your store's default currency is in USD and a customer makes a purchase in EUR, Shopify converts this to USD, and Intelligems analytics reflects the USD figure.

What time zone is used in analytics?

Analytics in Intelligems are based on the timezone in your Shopify store's settings when you installed the app. If you would like to change the timezone, contact to our support team here.