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Can you pull historical customer data (i.e. backsearch)?

Yes! OuterSignal can process historical customer data from before your account activation. This is valuable for:

  • Understanding your existing customer base immediately

  • Segmenting past customers for re-engagement campaigns

  • Analyzing customer demographic trends over time

What happens automatically

To unlock the ability to import historical orders, you need to upgrade to the Pro Plan. This feature is available exclusively to Pro Plan users.

When you activate a pro plan, OuterSignal automatically runs a 7-day backsearch — no action needed. You'll see your last 7 days of orders begin enriching immediately.

If you want more than 7 days of history, follow the steps below to pull additional historical data. For most brands, a 6–12 month backsearch gives your personas enough signal to be genuinely useful.

Running a Backsearch

How to pull historical data

If you're a Pro Plan user, you can do this yourself right from your dashboard:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Data Sources in your OuterSignal account.

  2. Select the data source you want to backfill (e.g., Shopify) and click Edit.

  3. Specify the import start date to determine how far back the system will pull data.

  4. Save your changes and authorize the charge to begin backfilling orders from the specified date onward.

Not on Shopify? Historical data for WooCommerce, Magento, or another platform is pulled via CSV upload or API. For CSV uploads, your file must include at minimum name, email, and zip code for each customer. Reach out to your rep to get this set up. See our article “Can I import data via a CSV upload?” for more information.

How much does it cost?

Backsearches are charged at $0.03 per unique customer in your selected date range.

A few things to know:

  • You're charged per unique customer, not per order — a customer with 5 orders counts as $0.03

  • If a customer has already been enriched through your 7-day auto-backsearch or ongoing processing, you won't be charged again for that profile

  • We only enrich customers in supported regions (US & Australia). Customers outside those regions aren't enriched and aren't charged

Note: For enterprise customers, please reach out to your OuterSignal Representative for pricing.
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Estimating your cost. Not sure how many customers you have in your target date range? In Shopify admin, go to Customers and filter by Last order date — set the date range to match your intended backsearch window (e.g. last 12 months). The resulting customer count is your estimate for the backsearch charge.
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For example: if you're planning to backsearch 12 months and Shopify shows 18,000 customers in that window, your estimated cost is 18,000 × $0.03 = $540.
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A note on large backsearches and Shopify's billing cap. Charges for the backsearch are billed through your Shopify subscription, which has a monthly spending cap set by Shopify. A large backsearch can hit that cap and pause new order processing until the cap resets or is raised — if you see a "new orders not processing" banner after kicking off a big pull, that's why. You can raise your cap in your Shopify admin under Settings → Billing, or reach out and we'll help.

How long does it take?

  • Up to 5,000 customers: typically 24 hours

  • 5,000–20,000 customers: typically 1–2 days

  • 20,000+ customers: 2–3+ business days

Data appears progressively as it's processed — you'll start seeing profiles and early persona signals before the backsearch is fully complete.

To check progress: Settings → Data Sources → Backfill Progress bar (see below for an example).

If progress hasn't moved in 24 hours — reach out via chat or email and we'll take a look.
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What to do while you wait

Watch for Personas to unlock. Brand Personas become available once you've processed 1,000+ customers, so going beyond the 7-day default is the most common way brands reach that threshold

Need help? Contact your rep or our team at support@outersignal.com

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