Starter plan & up

Connecting PostHog

How to connect PostHog so the custom events you've defined there surface inside Ordinary alongside commerce data.

Ordinary Written by The Ordinary Team · Updated

Connecting PostHog

PostHog integration requires Starter or higher.

Connecting PostHog surfaces the custom events and cohorts you’ve defined in PostHog inside Ordinary — the product-usage and behavioural signals you’ve invested in capturing there sit alongside Ordinary’s commerce data.

What the PostHog integration does NOT do: it does not replace or supplement Ordinary’s session and traffic numbers. Our first-party pixel is the single source of truth for sessions, devices, funnel steps, and attribution. PostHog sessions will usually differ from Ordinary (different session definitions, bot filtering, SDK capture rules) and that’s expected — we never composite the two.

Before you start

  • You’re on Starter or higher.
  • You already have PostHog installed on your Shopify storefront (or your post-purchase flow).
  • You have a PostHog personal API key with project:read scope.

Why connect PostHog

Ordinary’s first-party pixel covers Shopify storefront events well. PostHog typically covers:

  • Pre-checkout product usage (content interactions, video plays).
  • Post-purchase app/account activity, if you have a customer account.
  • Cross-device identity via their identify() graph.

Merging them gives you a longer session trail for attribution and better funnel fidelity.

Step 1 — get a PostHog personal API key

  1. In PostHog, click your avatar → Settings → Personal API keys.
  2. Click Create personal API key.
  3. Label it “Ordinary integration”.
  4. Scope: Read on project is sufficient.
  5. Copy the key (starts with phx_).

Step 2 — paste into Ordinary

  1. Settings → Integrations → PostHog → Connect.
  2. Paste the API key.
  3. Paste your PostHog project ID (find it in PostHog → Settings → Project → Project ID).
  4. Paste your PostHog host URL (usually https://us.i.posthog.com or https://eu.i.posthog.com; self-hosted uses your own domain).
  5. Click Save and test.

Ordinary verifies the key by pulling a single recent event. If it fails, you’ll see an error — typically wrong project ID or insufficient scope.

Step 3 — map events

Once connected, you’ll see an event mapping screen. Decide which PostHog events map to Ordinary’s funnel stages:

  • Product viewed ← PostHog $pageview where URL matches /products/*.
  • Added to cart ← PostHog product added to cart.
  • Checkout started ← PostHog checkout started (or auto-detected from Shopify’s own events).
  • Order completed ← always Shopify’s orders/create webhook, not PostHog.

Defaults are auto-populated from common naming conventions. Override per-event as needed.

What flows in

  • Event counts by day, broken out by event type.
  • Identified-user linking — PostHog identify() events help us connect an anonymous Shopify session to the known customer after login.
  • Autocapture events (if enabled) for clickmaps and session-level context.

Refresh cadence

  • Hourly pull of the last 6 hours of events, deduplicated against what we’ve already ingested.
  • Full 30-day backfill on initial connection.

Disconnecting

Settings → Integrations → PostHog → Disconnect. Revokes the API key from Ordinary’s side (you can also rotate it in PostHog itself for extra hygiene).

Troubleshooting

  • “Invalid API key” — key may have expired or been revoked. Create a new one in PostHog and paste it.
  • “Project not found” — your project ID is wrong. Copy it exactly from PostHog’s Settings page (it’s a numeric value).
  • No events showing up — make sure the PostHog project is actively receiving events. Check PostHog’s Live Events view first.

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