Set up BigCommerce with Dotdigital

Learn step-by-step how to connect your BigCommerce store to Dotdigital.

Overview

Integrate your BigCommerce store with Dotdigital using our installation wizard. The process is detailed step-by-step for you below.

Before you start

Things you need to know:

• Make sure the Require Consent option (Store Setup > Store Settings > Miscellaneous > Email Settings) is enabled in your store to prevent customers from being automatically opted-in at account creation.
• If you have an existing store that is connected to another environment, such as a staging environment, and want to connect it to production, you must disconnect your existing store and connect the live store using the steps in this article.

Step 1: Get the Dotdigital app

To install our BigCommerce connector:

1. Go to the Dotdigital BigCommerce marketplace page.
2. Select GET THIS APP.
3. Choose to Log in to your existing store, or Sign up for a new BigCommerce store.
4. Select Install.
5. The installation wizard will now guide you through configuring the connection between your BigCommerce store and your Dotdigital account.

Step 2: Create your transactional email design

First, you can customise the design of your transactional emails, as well as your Welcome and Abandoned Cart email campaigns. You can ensure that these emails align with your brand by setting your colour theme, logo and email footer.On the right hand side you can see a live preview of how your emails will look, using real products from your store.

Email creation

The following emails are automatically created for you inside your Dotdigital account. They‘re ready to go, but you’re free to edit them if you need to make any changes:

• Abandoned cart
• Welcome
• Shipping update
• Shipping confirmation
• Order refunded
• Order cancelled
• New order confirmation
• New account confirmation

To find these emails, go to Automation > Triggered campaign content .The campaigns will be stored in a folder with the same name as your BigCommerce store.

If you do want to make changes to your transactional email templates, check out the Variables for transactional email templates in BigCommerce article.

Step 3: Configure your Chat widget

In the next step, you’re be give the option to install the Dotdigital chat widget. You can choose to do this now, or return to it later.

If you choose to install chat later, you can check out the Get started with Chat article when you’re ready to go.

If you opt to install chat now, you can customise your chat widget by choosing your colours and animation type.

A live preview shows you what the chat widget will look like to your site visitors.

To learn more about setting up the Chat feature, check out the Chat section of our Help centre.

Step 4: Install the code

The last step is to have the wizard automatically install all the code you need to get up and running. You can install the code manually if you prefer, but if you choose to install now, then we apply the following scripts to your store:

• Web behavior tracking
• Abandoned cart
• Chat (if you opted to install chat now)

If you select Install code automatically a pop-up window opens which asks if you would like the Chat widget to be active immediately upon the installation completing. This means that your customers will be able to engage with you using the Chat tool straight away. If you’re not quite ready, just select No, I’ll activate it later in the Chat Settings section.

If you chose to install the code manually, you can find details on how to do this in the following articles:

• Abandoned cart with BigCommerce
• Add the chat widget to a website

Once the installation is complete, you can select See my store settings to return to Dotdigital and make any other edits to your store that you like.

Programs

Once you complete the set-up of the connector and return to your Store Settings area, there is an option to map program enrolments for certain contact actions.

The installation wizard creates two programs automatically that you can map:

• A welcome program
• An abandoned cart program
  

View and edit your new programs

The two new programs will be created in a folder with the same name as your BigCommerce store. You can access this folder by going to Automation > All programs and then selecting the folder from the left.

To view or edit a program, select the program name.

The campaign nodes within these programs will be configured to send the Welcome or Abandoned cart campaign created by the installation wizard during the set up process. You can make changes to the campaigns sent, or any other aspect of the program that you want.

To learn more about working with programs, check out the Program builder section of our Help Centre.

To make a program available to map in your Store settings, you must activate the program. To do this, select Activate in the top right of the program builder screen.

Map program enrolments

To map enrolments to your Welcome program:

1. Go to Settings > BigCommerce, then the Store tab.
2. Under Automation, expand the drop-down menu for Enrol new subscribers to and select the Welcome program.
   
3. Select SAVE.

To map enrolments to your Abandoned cart program:

1. Go to Settings > BigCommerce, then the Store tab.
2. Under Abandoned cart, expand the Enrol abandoned carts to drop-down menu and select your Abandoned cart program.
   

   You can also set how long the system waits once a contact abandons a cart before enrolling them to the program using the Enrol abandoned carts after drop-down menu.
   

3. Select SAVE.

Once you have set up and saved the enrolment mappings, contacts begin to enrol in your programs.

BigCommerce Field mapping

As well as setting you up with ready-to-go email templates and installing necessary scripts, the wizard also maps your BigCommerce Customer Fields to Dotdigital contact data fields. The mapped fields are: