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SHOPIFY
All you need to know about Shopify’s latest API updates
You can be a techie marketer who codes for fun or someone who doesn’t even know API stands for Application Programming Interface… Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, Shopify’s latest API improvements are something you should know about.
They are largely aimed at developers who have their own Shopify apps, but that doesn’t mean regular users shouldn’t be aware of them. Here’s what’s new for the July 2020 update:
- AWS EventBridge support. You can now use Amazon EventBridge to receive webhook events from a shop and forward it to SQS or Lambda for processing. Check out the video tutorial here or the full documentation page here.
- Annual charges with the GraphQL Billing API. Previously, if you wanted to offer annual billing you had to use workarounds, but that’s not the case anymore. Apps can now have annual subscriptions directly within the Billing API. The full documentation is available here.
- Customize information you collect based on location. Different countries require different information to be collected at checkout, and with localization extensions you will be able to do that without workarounds. You can read the documentation here.
- Improved access errors in GraphQL. Access errors now return information about why your request failed rather than just “access denied”, including links to the necessary documentation. The best news for the developers out there, eh?
That’s all we have for now. If you have a Shopify app, make sure to give this a thorough read and get those updates rolling.
This is a Facebook marketer’s new nightmare
The California Consumer Privacy Act came into full effect, and it affected marketers’ stats. Especially when it comes to Facebook.
More than a week ago, the social network released the Limited Data Use feature to help businesses adapt to the CCPA and, in some cases, Facebook will enable it automatically.
What does this feature do?
“When Limited Data Use is enabled, businesses may notice an impact to campaign performance and effectiveness, and retargeting and measurement capabilities will be limited.”
So, what we got is: The Limited Data Use feature will make your business compliant with the CCPA. Therefore, data that refers to Californian users won’t show up. Once your business is compliant with the CCPA, you can turn it off and you’ll be able to see the stats again.
However, the situation is pretty confusing and the general mood around seems to be “What the heck should we do?”
This post should give you some guidelines about the CCPA, although we highly suggest getting professional advice.
BUSINESS
A real 4-hour workweek case study
We rarely trust these types of stories, but the case study Wilson Hung shared would make even the most skeptical entrepreneur sit up and take notice. Here’s the story.
The company Wilson built is getARPU, a service that helps stores sell more products and reduce churn rate by leveraging the high open rates of shipping notification emails.
How did he build a hands-off business?
+ Identify the category. If you want to build a passive business, it must reflect some characteristics: organic acquisition, high margin, and low starting costs.
+ Find technical partners. To keep costs low, Wilson wanted to find developers willing to collaborate in exchange for equity. But, before creating a proposal, he fixed some pain points in order to make the offer more appetizing:
- Establish the acquisition strategy: Since the Shopify app store is rather overcrowded, he opted for the ReCharge app store. Less competitive but still used by 10k merchants.
- Quantify the business potential: He calculated different scenarios for getARPU.
- Provide a clear direction: Wilson’s goal was to make it easy for a potential co-founder to understand the product roadmap.
This helped him to find an experienced developer recommended by ReCharge itself.
It was all ready to launch.
After just a month on the market, getARPU made $2k/month in MRR (monthly recurring revenue).
Don’t be fooled… It took Wilson a whole year while working full time to create this.
You can find detailed breakdowns in Wilson’s original tweets if you head over here.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- SEO: Google appears to be testing a new suggestions category in SERPs according to marketer and SEO specialist Brian Freiesleben.
- TWITTER: As Twitter continues to expand the functionality of its new stories feature, Fleets, Matt Navarra reports that “co-fleets” are on the way. These will allow you to get creative as you discover the new Fleets system!
- GOOGLE: Local business owners beware because Google is now testing ads within local business profiles, and they’re not letting those business owners change or remove them.
- FACEBOOK: The company pulls the plug on Lasso, the app designed to compete with TikTok, and instead pours its effort into Instagram Reels.
- GOOGLE MY BUSINESS: A new carousel-style feature has shown up for some users in Google Maps searches.
- CHROME: Attention developers! The Google DevTools team just added a Chrome shortcut to make capturing a node screenshot easier than ever.
BRAIN TEASER
I cause death yet make your day. I am your friend, but also your enemy. I am the beginning and end. What am I?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
There’s a glove that can translate sign language with 99% accuracy
We wanted to end the week with some sweet news, even if it’s not even remotely related to marketing.
Researchers at UCLA have developed a high-tech glove that can translate sign language, both into written form and spoken, with the help of a smartphone.
The app connected to the glove works in real time and can translate up to 60 words per minute.
While this undeniably sounds great and incredibly promising, this is just a prototype for now. It’s not available in stores, and it’s also only for American Sign Language for the time being.
You can check out the glove in action in this short video on YouTube.