Skip to main content

Activate Dotdigital App Embeds in Shopify

Add Dotdigital functionality to your Shopify store using App Embeds.

Gareth Burroughes avatar
Written by Gareth Burroughes
Updated today

App embeds are elements provided by apps that don't have a UI component, or that appear as overlays or floating features in your Shopify theme. We have three app embeds you can activate in your Shopify store: Chat, Back in stock, and Tracking.

Once activated, these app embeds work across any theme version and can be customised through the Shopify theme editor.


Before you start

Things you need to know:

  • You need access to your Shopify admin to activate app embeds.

  • You must have the Dotdigital app installed in your Shopify store.

  • You can turn App embeds on or off at any time without affecting your theme.

  • App embeds work with modern Shopify themes (2.0 or later). If you're using a vintage theme (pre-2.0), see Using a vintage theme below.


Dotdigital app embeds

Dotdigital provides three app embeds for Shopify:

  • Chat
    Adds the Dotdigital chat widget to your store, letting visitors start conversations with your team.

  • Back in stock
    Enables customers to subscribe to alerts when out-of-stock products become available again.

  • Tracking
    Adds the Dotdigital Tag to your store to capture visitor behaviour and engagement data.


Activate an app embed

The process is the same for all three Dotdigital app embeds.

  1. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.

  2. Find the theme you want to edit, then select Customize.

  3. On the sidebar, select the App embeds icon.

  4. Find the Dotdigital app embed you want to activate, for example, Dotdigital Chat, then select the toggle to activate it.

  5. Expand the Dotdigital account region drop-down menu and choose the region of your account.

  6. Select Save.

  7. Preview your store to view the app embed live.

Your app embed is now active on your Shopify store.


Deactivate an app embed

If you need to turn off an app embed:

  1. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.

  2. Find the theme you want to edit, then select Customize.

  3. On the sidebar, select the App embeds icon.

  4. Find the app embed you want to deactivate, then select the toggle to turn it off.

  5. Select Save.

The app embed is now deactivated and no longer appears on your store.


Using a vintage theme

If you're using a vintage Shopify theme (pre-2.0), app embeds aren't supported. To use product notifications, such as back-in-stock alerts, you need to manually add the Dotdigital tracking script to your theme code.

Get your tracking script

To create your tracking script, you need two pieces of information:

  1. Your Dotdigital account region.
    This determines your base URL:

    Region 1: https://r1.dotdigital-pages.com/
    Region 2: https://r2.dotdigital-pages.com/
    Region 3: https://r3.dotdigital-pages.com/

  2. Your Shopify store URL.
    For example, https://exampleshop.myshopify.com/

Combine these to create your tracking script:

<script type="text/javascript" async="" src="https://r1.dotdigital-pages.com/ddsbis.js?shop=exampleshop.myshopify.com"></script>

Replace r1.dotdigital-pages.com with your region's URL and exampleshop.myshopify.com with your store URL.

Add the script to your theme

Add this script to the <head> section of your theme's code by editing your theme file in the Shopify theme editor.


Useful links

Did this answer your question?