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What is the Subscription Upsell campaign type?

When a shopper adds a selected product to their cart as a one-time purchase, Subscription Upsell shows a popup inviting them to subscribe instead. In early testing, this campaign type drove roughly a 20% increase in subscription take rate.

Written by Rob D

Note: To use Subscription Upsell, you'll need a subscription app on your Shopify store that creates selling plans." Alia uses those existing selling plans when offering subscription options in the popup. Alia doesn't create subscription plans itself. Refer to Shopify Subscriptions for more information. This campaign type is available for Shopify stores only, since Alia pulls your subscription products directly from Shopify.

How it works

  • When a shopper adds one of your selected products to their cart as a one-time purchase, the campaign shows a popup inviting them to switch to the subscription version.

  • Every popup you create in a Subscription Upsell campaign defaults to the trigger "When product(s) are added to cart."

  • When you add the Subscribe & Save button from the preset library, it automatically comes by default with the actions it needs (tracking the click, updating the cart to the subscription selling plan, and closing the popup). You don't need to configure these manually.

Setting up Subscription Upsell

  1. Create a new campaign and select Subscription Upsell as the type.

Selecting subscription upsell in the Campaign type screen

2. Choose the product(s) you want to upsell to a subscription. Also choose the

associated selling plan. You create new selling plans in your subscription app.


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Image of the UI Choosing the products you want to upsell and their selling plane

3. Build your popup and add the Subscribe & Save preset button as your CTA.
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Showing the subscribe and save element button

Actual merchant example of subscribe now button being used

4. Publish.

Note: Like other campaign types, after you create a Subscription Upsell campaign, you can't change its type. To use a different type, duplicate the campaign and choose the new type on the duplicate.

Measure the impact with an A/B test

To see how much your popup increases subscriptions, run an A/B test against a variant that doesn't show the popup. Alia compares the two, and you'll see the lift for each metric below its value. Hover over the lift icon for details.

FAQ

Which products will trigger the popup?

The popup appears when a shopper adds one of the products you selected during setup to their cart as a one-time purchase. If they add the subscription version instead, the popup won't show. To be selectable, a product needs a selling plan set up in Shopify through a subscription app such as Recharge or Shopify Subscriptions. Alia uses those selling plans to offer the subscription in the popup.

Will Subscription Upsell work with any subscription platform (e.g., Recharge)?

Yes. Subscription Upsell should work with any subscription app that creates selling plans in Shopify.

Why isn't my product showing up when I set up the campaign?

You can only upsell products that have a selling plan. If a product is missing, check that your subscription app has a plan set up for it.

Can I choose which subscription plan shoppers are offered?

Yes. When you select each product during setup, you also choose the selling plan to offer, such as "Deliver every month, 20% off." The plans come from your subscription app, so any plan assigned to that product will appear as an option.

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