Privacy Policy

Marginal (“we”, “us”) provides an analytics app for Shopify merchants at usemarginal.com. This policy explains what data Marginal collects when a merchant installs the app, why, and how it's handled.

When a merchant connects Marginal, we access and store:

• From Shopify: order records (totals, discounts, tax, shipping, line items), the Shopify customer ID tied to each order (used only to tell first-time and repeat customers apart -- we don't store customer names or email addresses), and product/variant cost-per-item, via the scopes the merchant grants during installation.
• From connected ad platforms (Meta, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, and Pinterest Ads): the ad account ID and daily campaign-level spend, impressions, and clicks. We don't receive or store any personal data about the merchant's customers from these platforms -- only aggregate campaign performance.
• OAuth access tokens for Shopify and each connected ad platform, needed to keep pulling data on the merchant's behalf.

We only request the minimum data needed to compute the analytics Marginal displays -- revenue, orders, blended ad spend/ROAS/CAC, and gross margin. We don't collect payment card numbers, passwords, or government ID information, and we never sell or share this data with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Data is used to compute the metrics and insight cards shown in the app, and to answer questions asked through Ask Analyst. When Marginal generates written explanations (the “why” behind a change in the numbers, or an answer in Ask Analyst), it sends only the relevant computed, aggregate figures -- not raw order or customer records -- to Anthropic's Claude API to generate that text.

Data is stored in a Postgres database hosted by Supabase, and the app itself runs on Vercel. OAuth access tokens are encrypted at rest. All traffic to and from Marginal is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Google Ads campaign-level spend, impressions, and clicks are sent to Marginal by a read-only script the merchant installs in their own Google Ads account (older connections may still use Windsor.ai). Meta, TikTok, and Pinterest Ads campaign-level spend, impressions, and clicks are retrieved through Windsor.ai, a data connector we use in place of a direct integration with each platform. None of these carry any personal customer data.

We keep a merchant's data for as long as the app stays connected -- this is what lets Marginal compare a period against prior periods, which the analytics themselves depend on. When a merchant uninstalls Marginal from their Shopify admin, or clicks “Disconnect store” inside the app, we permanently delete their store's data -- orders, customers, line items, product costs, ad account connections, and synced metrics -- from our database. This happens automatically; there's no separate request needed.

Encrypted database backups are kept on a rolling 14-day window and age out automatically -- a backup is never older than 14 days, and once a merchant's live data is deleted, it ages out of backups within that same window.

If you leave your email on our landing page before installing the app, we keep it only until you install Marginal or ask us to remove it -- contact us below at any time to opt out.

To request deletion sooner, or to ask what data we hold, contact us at the email below.

Depending on where a merchant or their customers are located, applicable law (such as GDPR or CCPA) may give rights to access, correct, or delete personal data, or to object to certain processing. To exercise any of these, contact us and we'll respond directly -- Marginal is currently a small, single-operator app, so requests are handled personally rather than through an automated self-service system.

Marginal sets one cookie: a signed session cookie identifying which connected store you're logged in as. We don't use tracking or advertising cookies.

If this policy changes materially, we'll update the date at the top of this page.

Questions, data requests, or anything else: support@usemarginal.com. See also our Data Processing Agreement, which covers how we process data on a merchant's behalf.