HubSpot is a powerful CRM and marketing tool that integrates seamlessly with Shopify, whether you are a niche merchant or a large retailer.
Here’s the step-by-step tutorial on how to successfully connect HubSpot to Shopify, sync data points correctly, and make the most of both platforms, along with common do's and don'ts.
Why connect HubSpot to Shopify?
HubSpot can be your all-in-one marketing tool needed for Shopify, or fulfil all or any of the following business needs.
- Email marketing and automation (welcome flows, abandoned-cart recovery, post-purchase follow-ups)
- Customer segmentation based on orders, spend, or behaviour.
- Reporting and analytics to track revenue, conversion, and ROI
- Ad management across Google, Facebook, and Instagram
- CRM and customer lifecycle tracking
While there are alternatives available in the App Store and other platforms for all of the above, the convenience of having everything in one place, combined with data suggesting that 72% of service leaders observe increased customer lifetime value with HubSpot, makes it a compelling choice.
What you need to connect Shopify to HubSpot
To get started, all you need are the following
- A basic Shopify plan (not a trial) will be enough.
- In Shopify, you must be an Owner or have permission to “Manage and install apps.”
- Any HubSpot plan will help get started.
- In HubSpot, you need a Super Admin or App Marketplace Access permissions enabled to install apps and manage integrations.
The premium plans (Operations Hub/Starter+) offer additional features, such as bidirectional sync or custom field mappings, which we’ll discuss later.
Step 1 - Install the syncing app
You can take two paths to connect HubSpot to Shopify. You either download the Shopify app from HubSpot’s Marketplace (recommended) or the HubSpot app from Shopify App Store.
We will follow the first option as it is by far the most recommended.
In HubSpot, click Marketplace> App Marketplace, search for “Shopify,” and download the official app as shown in the screenshots below.
You will see that there are alternatives to the official app with higher ratings and more default data integrations. While you could be tempted to go for the unofficial, we will follow the official app for this tutorial for three reasons:
- It’s free and has no extra subscription fee
- You can custom-map data points that are missing by default
- Most of the low ratings stem from confusion in the app's dashboard between ‘orders’ and ‘deals’, for which a workaround is available.
Now, enter your Shopify URL when prompted, and the setup will direct you to your Shopify and HubSpot dashboards, as shown in the screenshots below.
Congratulations, both apps are connected. Not to the critical part where most integrations go wrong or never reach their full potential - data syncing.
Step 2 - Turn on sync and choose objects
Data syncing is where HubSpot integration needs particular attention.
After completing the installation, you will be automatically directed to the syncing screen. However, you can at any time manually go to Settings >Integrations > Connected apps > Shopify > Set up your sync.
For each object in the list, you can pick whether to sync data both ways or one way,
- One-way (Shopify → HubSpot): Shopify is the source of truth. Creates/updates in Shopify flow into HubSpot. Edits in HubSpot do not push back to Shopify. This is the safest and most logical option when you want HubSpot to serve as your CRM that serves Shopify.
- Two-way (Shopify ⇄ HubSpot): Both systems can create/update the same record types. Changes in either system sync to the other. You must be careful about conflicts and which fields are allowed to overwrite.
The table below will explain what you would want to pick and when
| One-way (Shopify → HubSpot) | Two-way (⇄) | Typical use (recommended) | Key risks/notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contacts (Customers) | Customers created/updated in Shopify sync into HubSpot contacts; HubSpot edits don’t change Shopify. | Edits in either system sync to the other (mapped fields only). | One-way if Shopify is the customer source; Two-way if Sales/Support updates must reflect in Shopify. | Two-way can overwrite fields unintentionally; always enable “only sync contacts with an email.” |
| Companies (B2B accounts) | Shopify company/account info appears in HubSpot; HubSpot edits stay in HubSpot. | Company updates flow both ways. | One-way for light B2B; Two-way (recommended) for true account management in HubSpot. | Align critical fields (domain, billing address) to avoid conflicts. |
| Products | Catalog (title, SKU, price, URL, image) syncs into HubSpot for emails/personalization/reporting; HubSpot edits don’t touch Shopify. | HubSpot edits could push back to Shopify (if mapped/supported). | One-way for almost all stores. Two-way only if your team edits a few harmless fields in HubSpot (not price, inventory, or images), and you need those edits to update in Shopify. | Two-way is risky: accidental overwrites of live catalog data. |
| Orders | Orders flow into HubSpot (eCommerce objects/deals) for reporting, lists, and automation triggers. | Not supported natively. | One-way (standard). | Treat Shopify as the order system; HubSpot is read-only for order facts. |
| Carts / Abandoned checkouts | Abandoned checkout signals/properties flow into HubSpot for segmentation and workflows (on paid tiers). | Not supported natively. | One-way (standard). | Timing/fields come from Shopify; HubSpot doesn’t control cart state. |
If we consider the typical use case for a D2C store, our syncing would resemble the screenshot below.
Step 3 - Contact syncing
The following steps lead us to the contact syncing page, where we specify how to sync contacts and the various fields.
Besides the default mapping or the custom mapping available as a drop-down, you can add properties that don’t exist by default, as shown in the image below, where we want to use order value totals in Shopify to identify top customers in HubSpot.
HubSpot provides a detailed guide on adding filter scopes if you want to go deeper into custom mapping.
Step 4 - Set limits
The only thing to watch out for here is ensuring that you have ‘Only sync contact with an email address’ enabled to avoid duplicates.
You can also customise syncing to include only customers that meet a specific criterion. For example, in the screenshot below, we want to target only repeat customers; therefore, we set the order count value to be greater than 1.
The final step for initial syncing is to review the data and hit the sync button. You can alternatively run a test sync to assure you are following the Shopify Integration best practices.
If you have a few customers, syncing will be quick and often without errors. If you have many, it can take up to a few hours, and failed imports are not uncommon.
Once data is synced, all contact will have their own dashboard with as many details as the stage of the sales funnel they are at, sales, tickets, etc.
Step 5 - eCommerce dashboards and segmentation
Now that your data is synced, Shopify orders will appear as HubSpot orders.
eCommerce pipeline and dashboards
Go to Reports > Dashboards > Create dashboard, and either choose a template or create your own custom report. A good start is the starter eCommerce template to auto-add revenue, orders, and AOV widgets.
Segmentation (Lists)
Segmentation is crucial for leveraging HubSpot to its full potential for Shopify. In fact, not using this feature would considerably undermine your marketing efforts.
Head to Segments (lists) and follow the steps outlined in the image below. Let's create a simple segment based on the location of our contacts.
Here's an example of how this segment and the list of segments would look for a B2B merchant.
Common Sync Errors and Fixes: Deals vs orders confusion
Deals are HubSpot’s sales opportunities object. In other words, a potential sale is tracked through various stages of development. This is how, when you open a contact, you see which part of the funnel they are at. For example, "Deals in stage = Negotiation.”
You’d segment deals if your team sells via quotes/CRM, not checkout. Examples: “Open deals over $500,” “Deals closed last quarter.“
Orders are the eCommerce 'Orders' object created by the Shopify Data Sync. It’s a factual record of Shopify checkouts tied directly to your eCommerce engine.
Merchants expect their Shopify orders to appear in HubSpot as 'Deals' to utilize the existing pipeline, reports, and automation. But the integration will create 'Orders' object and doesn’t automatically create Deals for each order, even though they are a much more powerful tool.
The workaround is creating a custom workflow using HubSpot, and in some cases, another custom integration. It might also be more logical for your business to use Orders exclusively, rather than Deals. Our team can help you understand the issue by booking a complimentary call.
Should you integrate more? How to know when it's enough?
HubSpot is powerful. Now that you can integrate with Shopify, the question is whether you can rely solely on HubSpot for all your marketing automation needs, what level of integration is required, and if there are any other third-party options worth considering.
Assessing what you need and when to add a new integration or stop and focus on growing your brand is a tough decision that requires data and often a helping hand from an experienced team. For us, what has worked for one client has not worked for another; therefore, a one-to-one analysis has been the most practical approach.
