Help & docs

Last updated: June 29, 2026

Everything you need to set up Datacrow and confirm it’s working. If you don’t find what you need here, email us at support@datacrow.app and we’ll help.

How Datacrow works

When someone shops your store, the events that matter (page views, add to carts, checkouts, purchases) need to reach your ad and analytics platforms so they can target the right shoppers and give your ads credit. The traditional way to send them is a browser pixel, but pixels miss a lot of events now because of ad blockers, Apple’s privacy changes, and cookie limits.

Datacrow sends those events from our servers straight to each platform’s servers. There’s no pixel to block and nothing for shoppers to opt out of. You connect a destination once, and from then on your purchases and other events flow through automatically.

Getting started: the setup wizard

When you first open Datacrow, a short wizard walks you through getting your store connected. The goal is to have real sales flowing to at least one platform in a few minutes.

Connect Meta and GA4 first. These are the two most stores start with, so the wizard puts them up front. Meta gives your Facebook and Instagram ads the full picture of who’s buying, and GA4 makes your Google Analytics reports show complete sales numbers. You only need one to finish, but doing both is a strong start.
Paste in your credentials. Each platform asks for one or two values you copy from your own account. The guides below show exactly where to find them and where they go in Datacrow.
Add more destinations whenever you like. Google Ads, Klaviyo, TikTok, and Pinterest can all be added later from your dashboard. You don’t have to set everything up at once. Connect as many or as few as you run ads on.

Once a destination is connected, place a quick test order on your store and watch it appear in the activity feed (more on that below). That confirms the whole path is working before you rely on it.

Connecting Meta (Conversions API)

What you get: Meta and Advantage+ see the full picture of who’s buying, even the purchases the browser pixel misses, so your targeting and your reported return on ad spend get more accurate.

You’ll copy two things from your own Meta account and paste them into the Meta card in Datacrow.

Go to Meta Events Manager and open Data sources. Select the dataset (sometimes shown as your pixel) that represents your store.
Find your Dataset ID (also called the Pixel ID). It’s the long number shown for that dataset. Copy it.
Open Settings for that dataset, scroll to the Conversions API section, and click “Generate access token.” Copy the token it creates.
Back in Datacrow, open the Meta card, paste in the Dataset ID and the access token, and save.

If you’d like to confirm a test event before going live, grab a Test Event code from the Test Events tab in Events Manager and paste that in as well. We’ll route your test there instead of to your live data so you can watch it arrive in real time. Remove the code when you’re done (see below).

One note: you generate the token yourself inside your own Events Manager, so the permissions stay with you. We never ask for your Facebook login.

Connecting your other destinations

The process is the same idea for each one. You copy a value or two from the platform and paste them into that destination’s card in Datacrow, and the setup form tells you which fields it needs. Connect as many or as few as you want. Most stores start with Meta and GA4, then add the others over time. Here is exactly where to find each credential.

Google Analytics 4

What you get: your GA4 reports show complete sales numbers, including the purchases the browser tag misses, so the figures you make decisions on actually match what your store sold.

In Google Analytics, open Admin and go to Data Streams. Click your store’s web stream.
Copy the Measurement ID at the top. It looks like G-XXXXXXX.
On the same stream, open Measurement Protocol API secrets and click Create. Give it a name (for example, Datacrow) and copy the secret value it generates.
In Datacrow, open the Google Analytics 4 card, paste in the Measurement ID and the API secret, and save.

Google Ads

What you get: every sale is counted, so your reported return on ad spend in Google Ads is finally accurate and Smart Bidding has better data to work with.

Google Ads is the easiest one. There’s no key to copy and paste.

In Datacrow, open the Google Ads card and click Connect Google.
Sign in with the Google account that has access to your ads and approve the connection.
Choose the Google Ads account you want your sales to count toward, and save.

Because you approve the connection through Google directly, your login stays with you. You can disconnect it any time from the same card.

Klaviyo

What you get: your Klaviyo flows fire on real purchases and checkouts, even the ones the browser misses, so your emails and texts reach the right people at the right time.

In Klaviyo, open Settings and go to API keys.
Click Create private key, give it a name (for example, Datacrow), and copy the key it generates.
In Datacrow, open the Klaviyo card, paste in the private API key, and save.

TikTok (Events API)

What you get: TikTok can track and credit your sales even when its pixel can’t, so your campaigns stay measurable and TikTok can find more buyers like the ones you already have.

In TikTok Ads Manager, open Assets and go to Events. Under Web Events, find your pixel and click Manage.
Copy the Pixel code (your pixel’s ID).
In the same pixel’s settings, generate an Events API access token and copy it.
In Datacrow, open the TikTok card, paste in the Pixel code and the access token, and save.

Important: generate the access token for that exact pixel. If you create a token for a different pixel (or a general one) and pair it with this Pixel code, TikTok rejects the events with a “no permission to operate event source id” error. If you see that, go back and make sure the token was generated from the same pixel whose code you pasted in.

Pinterest (Conversions API)

What you get: your Pinterest campaigns stay measurable after Apple’s privacy changes, so you can see which pins drive sales and keep optimizing them.

In Pinterest Ads Manager, open the Conversions area and go to Conversions API.
Click Generate token and copy the access token.
Note your ad account ID (Pinterest shows it in your account details and in the URL while you’re in Ads Manager).
In Datacrow, open the Pinterest card, paste in the access token and the ad account ID, and save.

Reading your dashboard

Your dashboard is the at-a-glance view of whether Datacrow is doing its job. Three things to look at.

Sales sent to your ad platforms. This is the real dollar value of purchases we’ve forwarded to your destinations in the last 30 days. If it’s climbing, value is reaching your platforms. It’s the simplest sign that everything is flowing.
Tracking reliability. A plain health summary that tells you, without digging, whether your destinations are connected and delivering. If something needs attention (a credential expired, say), this is where it shows up first.
Match quality. When you send a purchase to a platform, it tries to match it to a real account so your ads can target the right shoppers and get proper credit. The better the customer information you send (email, phone, address), the more shoppers the platform can match. We show this as a plain verdict (needs work, getting there, good, excellent), with the platform’s underlying score behind it if you want the detail. If it’s on the low end, the fix is almost always the same: collect more customer data at checkout. Adding phone and address is the single most effective change.

The activity feed

The activity feed is the clearest confirmation that things are working. It lists your recent events with the data we captured and shows, for each one, a green check next to every destination we delivered it to. Because these events are sent from our servers, they don’t show up in your browser’s developer tools, so this feed is the place to actually watch them happen.

To confirm it yourself, place a test order on your store (Shopify’s Bogus Gateway works well for this). It should appear in the feed within a minute or two, with a check next to each destination you’ve connected. If a destination shows a problem instead of a check, open that destination’s card and re-check its credentials (see Troubleshooting).

Billing and plans

Datacrow bills through Shopify, so your subscription appears on your normal Shopify invoice alongside your other apps. There’s nothing separate to set up and no card to enter with us.

Plans scale with how much you send. Your plan is based on the volume of events flowing through Datacrow, so a smaller store pays less than a high-volume one. You can see your current plan and your usage for the period right in the app.
Changing or cancelling. You can change your plan or cancel from the billing area at any time. Cancelling stops events from being sent going forward.

If you have a question about a charge or which plan fits your store, email support@datacrow.app and we’ll sort it out with you.

Troubleshooting and common questions

I connected Meta but I don’t see my events yet

This is one of the most common questions. Meta has two different places to look, and they behave differently.

Test Events shows up in real time. If you set a test code, your events appear here within seconds.
The Overview (the main dataset view) is delayed. Meta batches and processes events, so it can take around 30 minutes (sometimes a bit longer for a brand new dataset) before they show here.

If Test Events is showing your events, they’re flowing correctly. The Overview simply hasn’t caught up yet. Give it about half an hour and check again. One more thing: once you’re done testing, remove the test code. If you leave it in place, your real events will keep routing to Test Events instead of your live data.

Do I need Datacrow if the platforms already have free integrations?

Sometimes no, and we would rather tell you that up front. If you advertise on one platform only, the free integration for that platform may be enough, and Meta’s in particular is good.

Datacrow starts to matter when any of these are true:

You advertise on more than one platform. Each free integration is a separate app with its own setup and its own gaps. Datacrow sends the same clean order stream to all six from one install.
You care about GA4, Google Ads, TikTok, or Pinterest. Their free Shopify integrations track from the shopper’s browser. When a browser blocks the tag (about 1 in 4 shoppers), that sale never reports. Datacrow also sends every order from our servers, where blockers cannot reach.
You want to see it working. Datacrow shows every sale, which platforms received it, and how well each platform could match it to a real person. When a number is weak, we show you that too, with the fix.

Datacrow also deduplicates against your existing pixels automatically, so adding it never double-counts a sale. You do not need to remove anything to try it.

Does Datacrow replace my attribution tool?

No. Triple Whale, Northbeam, and similar tools report on your marketing. Datacrow feeds the platforms underneath them cleaner, more complete data. Run both.

How do I know it’s actually working?

There are two places to look.

Your dashboard. The “sales sent to your ad platforms”number is the real dollar value of purchases we’ve forwarded in the last 30 days. If it’s climbing, value is reaching your platforms, and tracking reliability tells you at a glance whether everything is healthy.
The activity feed. This is the clearest confirmation. It lists your recent events with a green check for every platform we delivered to. Place a test order and watch it land there within a minute or two.

A destination isn’t delivering

A few things to check first.

Is the destination still connected? Open its card and confirm the credentials are saved and it’s showing as active.
Did the credentials save cleanly? Tokens can expire, or get pasted with an extra space at the end. Re-paste if you’re unsure.
For TikTok, make sure the access token was generated for the same pixel whose code you entered (see Connecting TikTok).
For Meta specifically, give the Overview about 30 minutes, and use Test Events for the real-time view.

If you’re still stuck, email support@datacrow.app with your store URL and the destination that isn’t working. We can see delivery logs on our side, so we can usually identify exactly what’s happening and get it fixed quickly.