Website integrations allow your site to communicate with other software, sending information to tools that expand your site’s functionality. They can turn your website into a dynamic platform that allows for real-time interactions with your audience, while simultaneously streamlining business operations. Read on to discover some of the main types of website integrations. Plus, learn how to implement them effectively.
What is a website integration?
A website integration is a connection between your website and an app, software, or another website. It allows data to be transferred between your site and another tool, opening up new functionality.
Integrations for an ecommerce site might include a third-party payment processor, a tool like Shopify Messaging that connects your product catalogue to marketing emails, or a social media tool that shows a feed of your posts at the bottom of your homepage. For example, the HubSpot integration for Shopify lets you use the customer data from your Shopify store to develop personalized marketing campaigns in HubSpot’s CRM.
Top website integration opportunities
Website integrations make much of today’s ecommerce possible. For any business selling goods through its website, processing orders, launching targeted ad campaigns, or measuring website traffic, integrations are more than just helpful—they’re essential.
Here are four primary website integration categories:
1. Ecommerce data integrations
Ecommerce integrations help you enhance the online ordering process, start to finish. For example, behind the scenes, customer relationship management and customer data platform apps manage customer information. Integrations like these allow you to leverage customers’ purchase history or demographics, so you can recommend relevant products and tailor their experience on your site. When all customer data from your ecommerce site is organized via a CRM integration, you can improve efficiency and reduce data inconsistencies.
The Shopify App Store provides access to a large collection of easy-to-install ecommerce integration apps.
2. Marketing integrations
Marketing integrations connect your business’s storefront and CRM to your outreach and advertising campaigns, helping you develop marketing strategies that draw on order histories, customer data, and analytics. For example, the Klavio integration on Shopify helps you build marketing campaigns and reach your customer base.
Marketing automation tools sync advertising across online ads, email, SMS, and social media by using data from customer databases to identify target audiences and improve click-through rates. They also automate events like sales and promotion codes, timing ad strategies, A/B tests, email campaigns, and other incentives to drive customers to your website.
3. Analytics integrations
Analytics integrations like Shopify Analytics and Google Analytics help you measure and track how customers engage with your website. These integrations piece together the user’s journey, tracking how and when your customers bought your products, or at what stage they decided against a purchase.
User behavior analytics also reveal performance issues and even security vulnerabilities, which help keep your website’s functionality and reputation strong.
4. Chatbot integrations
Chatbot integrations bring live chat functionality to your website, allowing customers to directly engage with your brand and get questions answered fast. With access to back-end data, chatbots can quickly answer some of your customers’ most common questions, like “What’s the status of my order?”
Best practices for website integration
Adding multiple integrations to your tech stack can fundamentally impact how customers engage with your site. The right integrations allow you to automate faster deliveries, respond directly to customers, and professionalize your storefront. Here are three tips to help you plan and install new website integrations:
Set your objectives
What slows down day-to-day business operations? What feedback have you received from your customers or your team? It’s good to establish your priorities early on before you commit to any major integrations or improvements. Then, focus on changes that positively impact the customer journey. For example, if you want to reach a curious audience where they naturally turn for answers, a ChatGPT integration could allow you to sell directly within the popular AI chatbot.
Test before you launch
Do thorough testing to make sure integrations work as expected. Perform customer journey runs by making test purchases on desktop and mobile devices, and verify that purchases go through with the correct confirmation emails. Throughout the testing phase, it’s good practice to verify that your website and integrations meet basic security standards, so your customers’ sensitive information is protected.
Center the user experience
Good integrations succeed when they enhance the user experience, rather than add friction. To optimize your website, prioritize integrations that simplify, speed up, or improve the user journey.
For example, if most of your customers use phones to access your website, then prioritize the mobile customer experience. You might use a customer service integration that chats with customers via text rather than a chatbox on the website itself. This removes the clunky UX of a chat in their browser, taking the conversation to a platform where they’re at home.
Website integration FAQ
What is a website integration?
Website integrations are apps that connect your website to the tools and services that run your business. They allow multiple systems to interact with each other, facilitating data exchange and operational efficiency while keeping your different systems in sync.
How do you integrate two websites?
There are many ways to integrate a second website into your website’s existing systems. To sync data between two ecommerce storefronts and external tools such as ERP and CRM databases, you can use website integrations to keep inventory and customer data accurate and updated.
What are the different types of web integration?
Different types of website integrations include ecommerce data integrations, social media integrations, marketing and communicationtools, analytics tools, and chatbots. You can find a wide variety of curated website integrations in the Shopify App Store
