AlpacaRelay + Shopify: Quality-Scored Emails, Connected

Visit alpacarelay.com and sign up with your email address. No credit card required. Your account activates instantly, and you gain access to the Integrations dashboard. This is where you'll authorize and manage all platform connections. During onboarding, AlpacaRelay walks you through a brief preference survey (industry, email volume, primary use case) to pre-configure your Email Quality Scoring framework. Your account is ready to connect to Shopify within seconds of signup completion.

Log into your AlpacaRelay dashboard. Click Settings in the left navigation menu, then select Integrations. You'll see a marketplace of connected platforms. Find Shopify in the ecommerce category and click Connect. AlpacaRelay displays the OAuth authorization screen. This screen explains exactly what data permissions AlpacaRelay requests: read access to products, orders, customers, and cart data. No write access to your store is requested—AlpacaRelay only reads your Shopify data to power email quality scoring and campaign creation. Click Authorize to proceed.

You are redirected to your Shopify admin login. Sign in with your Shopify store credentials. Shopify displays a permission confirmation screen listing the specific scopes AlpacaRelay requires: products read, orders read, customers read, and checkout data read. These permissions allow AlpacaRelay to import your product catalog, order history, customer contact details, and cart abandonment events in real time. Review the scopes and click Install App. Authorization completes instantly. Data begins syncing to AlpacaRelay within 2 minutes. You return to your AlpacaRelay dashboard where a green confirmation badge confirms the connection is active.

AlpacaRelay auto-detects your Shopify store structure and pre-maps standard fields: customer email, first name, last name, product names, order totals, and cart contents. You can customize field mappings if your store uses custom product attributes or metadata. Once mapping is confirmed, click Create Campaign. AlpacaRelay displays a template library pre-filtered for your store type. Select an abandoned cart email template (the most common first campaign). The AI editor opens, populated with your actual product data and customer segments from Shopify. You can edit the subject line, body copy, and CTA. The template is fully customizable—no restrictions on brand voice or messaging.

Before sending, AlpacaRelay scans your email against the 8-Dimension Email Quality Framework (EQF). This framework evaluates Deliverability, Mobile Render, CTA Clarity, Personalization Depth, Visual Hierarchy, Copy Effectiveness, Brand Consistency, and Structural Compliance. Your email receives an Email Quality Score (EQS) out of 10. Emails scoring 8+/10 recover 14-18% of abandoned carts versus the 5-11% industry average. If your score is below 8, AlpacaRelay suggests specific improvements (e.g., stronger CTA, mobile optimization, personalization enhancements). You approve or edit, and once you're satisfied with the score, click Schedule or Send Now. Your first campaign is live within 15 minutes of connecting Shopify. Subsequent campaigns auto-activate: abandoned cart flows trigger 1 hour after cart abandonment, browse abandonment emails trigger on category page exits, and post-purchase sequences trigger immediately after order completion.