Cause marketing sounds great — but how do you go from wanting to give back to killing it with an actually successful cause marketing campaign? Glad you asked 
We’ve got some tricks up our sleeve, from widget placement to education and promoting your effort thoughtfully so your audience not only knows what you’re up to, but also can be stoked about contributing (which is the best part!).
If you’re wondering how …
- You can make your Shop for Good widgets more prominent in your store
- To help make sure your customers are aware of your giving or how they can give back through your store
- To inform shoppers they can choose a charity
Then keep reading! We’ve got actionable recommendations for you on how to get the most out of Shop for Good to run successful and profitable cause marketing campaigns on your Shopify store 
Best Practices for a Successful Cause Marketing Campaign
Placement
The Round-Up widget automatically goes in the cart (or you can place it at checkout instead if you’re a Shopify Plus user!).
But what about the widgets for the other give-back campaigns? Most campaign widgets can go pretty much anywhere!
Check out the table below for details on all your options:
| Campaign widget | Product Page (PDP) | Cart | Checkout (Shopify Plus) |
| Round-Up (both versions) | No | Yes (automatic – will round up subtotal) | Yes (manual – will round up total) |
| Donate for Discount | Yes (automatic) | Yes (manual) | No |
| Donation Tiers | Yes | Yes | Yes (manual) |
| Portion of Sales | Yes | Yes (manual) | Yes (manual) |
| Custom Amount Donation | Yes | Yes | Yes (manual) |
“Automatic” and “manual” in the table above refer to the placement settings in your Shop for Good dashboard:
While our cause marketing widgets can go almost anywhere, we do recommend the following placements:
- Portion of Sales: PDP, although some people also place it on the homepage and even the cart
- Donate for Discount: PDP
- Donation Tiers: PDP, cart, or checkout
- Round-Up: cart or checkout (this campaign widget cannot be placed at PDP level)
- Custom Amount: anywhere!
Header notifications
You may want to let people know about your giving efforts in your header so they know what to expect — no matter what page they land on when they first get to your website.
Check out how Krimson Klover promotes its Donate for Discount offer in the header for all customers to see right away:
And here’s how Kind Healthy Life lets shoppers know every one of their purchases makes a difference to a cause they care about:
Announcing your give-back offer in the header is one of the best ways to ensure your shoppers know to look for it as they shop and can take advantage of it!
Hero image
Many stores will include a hero image with information talking about their chosen cause(s) or the give-back offer involved. If you’re enabling our Shopper’s Choice feature, you can also let shoppers know here that they can choose their favorite charity from the ones you’re supporting.
See how Hedley & Bennett are spotlighting their support of Baby2Baby in their slideshow at the top of their homepage:
Even lower down on the homepage is great real estate where you can mention your giving. Ivory Ella has a section right below their hero image where they discuss donating 10% of net profits to their favorite cause:
Product Pages
To highlight your giving straight on the product page, you can tweak your product images like our brand partner Super Smalls:
This is especially helpful for shoppers if, say, you’re tying only certain product variants to a nonprofit (e.g., only your blue and yellow sweaters but not the red ones).
Landing Pages
Landing pages are a wonderful place to highlight your impact (hey, we have an impact widget for that!), discuss your brand’s core values, and talk about the nonprofits you’re supporting. This is also a stellar place to mention that shoppers can choose their favorite charity from the ones you’re supporting (if you’re enabling our Shopper’s Choice feature).
You can go all out or keep it simple — what’s important is to share what you’re doing with your audience.
This is how some of our brand partners are showcasing the charities they’re supporting on their website:
Impact
Remember that you can show how much you’ve raised so far by turning on this ability in the confirmation screen of your pop-ups. Here’s an example from social good flag store Flags for Good:
And if you’ve been giving for a while and have some data to showcase, connect the impact widget from Shop for Good! Most brand partners are opting to display it on their landing/mission page. Check out how our brand partners are showing off their giving with the impact widget:
- Harney Teas
- Marisa in Motion is raising funds for Breast Cancer Awareness, Education and Research and displaying their impact on their homepage
Promoting Your Campaign
There you have it! Our best practices for displaying your Shop for Good widgets on your Shopify store for an ever-successful cause marketing campaign. Be sure to also, of course, promote your giving beyond your website through channels including through:
- Social media
- Paid ads
- Influencer marketing
- And so on
This will help you get more eyes on your website which is important for your business, always, but also because given similar price and quality of products, 91% of consumers said they would likely switch to purchasing to a brand that supports a cause they believe in, according to a Cone/Echo Global CSR Study.
This is huge! Let potential customers know you give back and they will be more likely to shop at your store. It’s a win-win-win (for you, your customers, and the charities that benefit)!
Transparency
Finally, we recommend full transparency around your giving.
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) does recommend transparency in cause marketing. In other words, they recommend disclosing how much you’re donating, especially when running a Portion of Sales campaign. You can read about that here under Standard 19.
This will help the nonprofits you’re supporting feel good and also give more peace of mind to your customers. It’s a win-win.
