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New in REC+: Google Shopping Automated Discounts, Free samples and more.

Spotlight

Google Shopping Automated Discounts / 'Dynamic Re-pricing'   
Major new feature for ecommerce stores advertising on Google

Google has launched a major new feature to help improve online product sales by dynamically lowering the price of your products shown via Google Ads compared to your competitors. The new product price is displayed on Google's Search Engine Results Pages and once the ad is clicked the price is then automatically lowered on the website product page to match. The amount of discount given can be set as a percentage across all products, or with specific prices on a per product basis. The price offered by Google is honoured for 48 hours only.

The discount given is stored in Coupon Manager > Google Shopping Auto Discount tab for all resulting visits, not just successful sales. The side benefit is being able to see the level of discount that has been offered by Google which indicates how over-priced it considers your products to be on a given date.  You can cross-reference this to views and conversion rates in the Top Products Report to adjust your price position further in the market, since you may be losing out on visits not coming via Google Ads. 

This feature is available to our marketing clients. Requires cost data to be set up on product/variation records and Google Ads Tracking to be enabled (see 3645 below). Contact us for details.

Setup documents are available on Drive to support staff only: Google Shopping Automated Discounts.
3596, 3646

Free samples
Secure more sales by offering free samples to prospective customers as trials, matching up products etc. Mark a product as a free sample with free delivery and as an addon so it doesn't show up in latest products etc. Free samples are ignored in the minimum order value checks at checkout when ordered without other products. However, if you then add a £10 item to cart, that item triggers the minimum value check and prevents the checkout from allowing the order to go through until the minimum order level has been reached.
Admin > Product Manager > Add/Edit products > Is this a free sample? (under 'Is addon')
3635

You can also set the maximum number of free samples you allow per customer order via:
Admin > Site Settings > Prices & VAT > Free Samples > Max free samples
3636

Ecommerce & Tracking

Back in stock alerts for backorder items
Users buying backorder items can now be opted into alerts to find out when it'll be back in stock.
Contact us to enable this new feature. 
3376

CMS & Admin

Modernised page urls
You can now set Page Manager pages to no longer add .html by default and ensure the urls are lower case in line with current practice by large sites.
Please note this currently only applies to Page Manager pages.
Admin > Site Settings > General > Miscellaneous > More modern page URLs.
3621
You will typically also want to have the previous .html URLS auto redirect to the new ones with this new setting:
Admin > Site Settings > General > Miscellaneous > Auto redirect to the modern URLs.
3624

Email notifications now warn if you have duplicates. 
Email notifications work based on a single rule & group combination. If you have any duplicates here, the system will prompt you to resolve this so that the system knows which to use to send the notifications.
3609

Email Manager warning about slow SMTP
We allow sending via SMTP instead of our default mail server. However SMTP emails are slower which means when sending larger email campaigns it may result in the email not fully sending due to slowness. We now show a warning about this. We recommend using Mailgun to send these emails instead, or contact us and we can help set up an API for faster email sending through most other mail providers.
3631

Integrations

Google Ads conversion code  *Required for the Google Shopping Automated Discounts feature
Increased integration with Google Ads you using Google ads conversion code complete with cart data for the thanks page via this new connect setting.
Admin > Connect > SEO > Google Ads Tracking > Tick: Enable Ads Conversion tracking on the thanks page?
Enter the "send_to" part of the code provided by Google in: Ads Conversion Tracking ID / "send_to"
3645

Unleashed order status updates now mark as "via Unleashed"
To help tell the difference between updates made by admins and those made by the system, we now append "via Unleashed" to these audits.
3604

The Orders API resource per item now contains the "extra_data" field to pass additional custom data to 3rd party integrations.
Such as for use with free samples to pass the name of the free sample item as this extra custom data.
3633

Retirement of old Universal Analytics integrations.
Google has now shut down the old UA analytics in favour of GA4. Read more here
Removed Setting: Connect > SEO > Analytics > Reporting Method
3627

Designer

Added Tiktok, Snapchat, Whatsapp & Vimeo social icons for site footers.
Admin > Connect > Social > find the new Tiktok, Snapchat, Whatsapp & Vimeo URL fields.
You may need to upgrade your site's footer/social-icons template to add these icons in. 
3644

jQuery 3.7.1 upgrade
Minor upgrade to sites using the 3.x version of jquery to keep it up to date with latest security fixes.
Please note, many sites still use 1.x versions of jquery for customisations on pages and this should be upgraded. We have a site setting to enable 3.x in a preview for testing through your web pages and processes and then you can fully enable it if no issues are found or the issues found are resolved.
3625

Modules > you can now select fields to show in the "all" table to make the screen more useful.
Enable via Admin > modules > edit > fields
3614

Thumbnails showing "Image Unavailable" now properly send a 404 HTTP header.
This is to help ensure they can be easily found and not detected as any other sort of issue.
3620


Important Announcement: Google Universal Analytics Retirement & Your Website

This bulletin applies to REC+ users who use Google Analytics to track their website metrics and have not upgraded to GA4. If you do not use Google Analytics or you are already using GA4 then you do not need to take any action.
 

Google officially retired its Universal Analytics (UA) platform in July 2023 and will be stopping all reporting & API access as of July 2024. 

This means that any remaining reporting connections between your websites and UA will cease to function. If you haven't already transitioned to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), it's crucial to do so now to ensure uninterrupted tracking and analysis of your website data.
 

Why the Change?

Google Analytics 4 represents a significant shift in how website data is collected and analysed. It's designed to be more privacy-focused, adaptable to future changes in technology, and better equipped to provide insights into the complex customer journeys that span multiple devices and platforms.
 

What Does This Mean for You?

If you've already moved to GA4: No action is required. Your website analytics will continue as normal.

If you're still using Universal Analytics: You'll lose access to your website data. It's essential to migrate to GA4 as soon as possible.
 

We're Here to Help!

We understand that migrating to GA4 can seem daunting. That's why we offer comprehensive support and services to make the transition smooth and seamless for your website. 

We have put together an in-depth article to guide you through making the changes.

Read how to migrate to GA4

Or if you prefer us to set this up please click Request Assistance to log a support call. Our charge for this is £95+VAT. You will need to be able to access your Google Analytics account for any changes to be made.
 

Get in Touch

Contact us today to discuss your GA4 migration needs and let us help you unlock the full potential of your website data.
 

Further Information

You can read more about this change directly on Google's support site here.


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