Collecting customer contact information

You can use email and SMS marketing to grow your business and build relationships with your customers. Sending newsletters to customers who sign up for your mailing list is a great way to let them know about new products and upcoming sales.

You can learn more about how to grow your business with email marketing on the Shopify blog.

Note

For more information about how Shopify collects, uses, and stores personal information, refer to our Privacy Policy.

Collect contact information from customers

For legal and privacy reasons, make sure that you send promotional content only to customers who have agreed to receive marketing from your online store. Customers can subscribe to marketing content by adding their contact information to a newsletter sign-up on your online store, or by checking a checkbox in the checkout. You can then have them receive a confirmation message for subscription by modifying your checkout settings for email or checkout settings for SMS.

If your shop is set up to send abandoned cart reminders, then you need to change the information that displays next to the consent checkbox. You can change the information for the email and SMS marketing opt-in in your theme's language editor.

Note

If your store is located in Germany and your SMS and email marketing setup require you to send confirmation messages to your customers, then your customers must respond to these messages to be included in any marketing that you send. Enabling double opt-in can help you to meet GDPR compliance requirements, and to create a list of engaged subscribers.

After a customer accepts marketing from your online store, their email address or phone number is displayed on the Customers page of your Shopify admin. To list only the customers who agreed to receive promotional content through email, you can click the default Email subscribers segment, or you can create a new customer segment to list specific types of customers who accepted email marketing.

Collect customer emails from the checkout

If you enable this option, then for the customer's subscription preference to be saved, the customer needs to complete the checkout.

Note

If your store is located in Germany, then you need to add additional customer subscription status information.

Steps:

PC£º

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Checkout.

1. To add a sign-up checkbox to your checkout, in the Email marketing section, check Show an option to subscribe at checkout.

2. Optional: Check Preselect the option to check the email marketing sign-up check box at the checkout by default for customers without an account or customers who are on your email subscription list. The email marketing sign-up check box isn't checked for customers who have opted out of email marketing or who aren't on your email subscription list.

3. Click Save.

iPhone£º

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.

2. Under Store settings, tap Checkout.

1. To add a sign-up checkbox to your checkout, in the Email marketing section, check Show an option to subscribe at checkout.

2. Optional: Check Preselect the option to check the email marketing sign-up check box at the checkout by default for customers without an account or customers who are on your email subscription list. The email marketing sign-up check box isn't checked for customers who have opted out of email marketing or who aren't on your email subscription list.

3. Click Save.

Android£º

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.

2. Under Store settings, tap Checkout.

1. To add a sign-up checkbox to your checkout, in the Email marketing section, check Show an option to subscribe at checkout.

2. Optional: Check Preselect the option to check the email marketing sign-up check box at the checkout by default for customers without an account or customers who are on your email subscription list. The email marketing sign-up check box isn't checked for customers who have opted out of email marketing or who aren't on your email subscription list.

3. Click Save.

Collect customer phone numbers from the checkout

To collect customer phone numbers from the checkout, you need to make sure you have the SMS checkout option enabled in your Settings. Refer to Set up your customer's SMS notifications for detailed instructions.

Note

If your store is located in Germany, then you need to add additional customer subscription status information.

Steps:

PC£º

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Checkout.

1. To add a sign-up checkbox to your checkout, in the SMS marketing section, check Show an option to subscribe at checkout.

2. Select whether it should be optional or required to add a phone number at checkout. If your payment provider or shipping carrier requires that the customer provides a phone number to complete the checkout, then set the phone number to Required.

3. Click Save.

Note

For the customer's SMS marketing subscription preference to be saved, the customer needs to complete the checkout.

iPhone£º

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.

2. Under Store settings, tap Checkout.

1. To add a sign-up checkbox to your checkout, in the SMS marketing section, check Show an option to subscribe at checkout.

2. Select whether it should be optional or required to add a phone number at checkout. If your payment provider or shipping carrier requires that the customer provides a phone number to complete the checkout, then set the phone number to Required.

3. Click Save.

Note

For the customer's SMS marketing subscription preference to be saved, the customer needs to complete the checkout.

Android£º

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.

2. Under Store settings, tap Checkout.

1. To add a sign-up checkbox to your checkout, in the SMS marketing section, check Show an option to subscribe at checkout.

2. Select whether it should be optional or required to add a phone number at checkout. If your payment provider or shipping carrier requires that the customer provides a phone number to complete the checkout, then set the phone number to Required.

3. Click Save.

Note

For the customer's SMS marketing subscription preference to be saved, the customer needs to complete the checkout.

Collect customer emails in Germany

If your store is located in Germany, then there is an additional Require customers to confirm their subscription check box on the Email marketing section of the Notifications settings page. Letting customers opt in to receive marketing emails helps you create a more engaged subscriber list by preventing uninterested or incorrect email addresses from being added to your subscriber's list.