Add your own message to the top of the tracking page, shown only on the shipments it applies to.
Introduction
Your tracking page tells customers where their parcel is. Sometimes you need it to tell them something else as well: that a carrier is running late this week, that a cross-border parcel has a customs step, that orders placed after a certain date arrive in January.
A custom tracking message is a message you write yourself that OGOship adds to the tracking page. You choose which shipments it appears on, and at which point in the delivery journey. Every customer whose shipment matches sees it. Nobody else does.
1. What a custom tracking message is
A custom tracking message appears at the top of the tracking history, above the most recent carrier event. It has a title and a short description, and it is shown without a date, because it is a notice rather than something that happened to the parcel at a particular moment.
Two things are worth being clear about from the start.
- A custom tracking message is not a widget. Widgets are the cards around the tracking page: your promotional banner, your links, your editable text block. A custom tracking message goes inside the tracking history itself, in the same column as the carrier events, which is where customers actually look. Widgets are covered in the OGOship Tracking Guide for Merchants.
- No email or SMS is sent. The message exists on the tracking page only. A customer sees it when they open the page. Do not use a custom tracking message for anything that needs to reach the customer straight away, or for anything that asks them to take action by a deadline.
2. Availability and how to get one set up
Custom tracking messages are included from the 3PL plan upwards, because the branded tracking page itself is a 3PL plan feature. There is no extra charge and no limit on how many messages you can have.
At the moment, custom tracking messages are configured by OGOship, not in your own myOGO settings. Self-service configuration is planned but not yet available. To request one, email service@ogoship.com with:
- the message title and description, in every language your tracking page uses
- which shipments it should appear on: carrier, warehouse, destination country, or all of them
- when in the delivery journey it should appear and disappear
- the dates it should run between, if it is temporary
The rest of this guide explains every setting, so you know what you can ask for and what is possible.
3. The settings, one by one
Channel
Which of your sales channels the message applies to. If you sell through more than one channel, the message is set per channel, so you can show a different message to customers of different storefronts.
OGOship can also apply a message across all merchants at once. This is used for genuinely platform-wide notices, such as a carrier strike affecting every shipment on a route.
Title and description
The text of the message. The title is the line the customer reads first, and the description is the explanation underneath.
Both are entered per language. Add an entry for every language your tracking page is enabled for, so that no customer sees the message in a language they do not read. Languages are added one at a time in the configuration.
Keep both short. The tracking history is a narrow column and customers scan it rather than read it.
Conditions: which shipments the message appears on
These three settings decide which of your shipments show the message. Each can be left as "any", and messages only appear on shipments that match every condition you set.
- Delivery type — limits the message to a specific carrier or delivery method. Use this when the reason for the message applies to one carrier and not the others, which is usually the case with delays.
- Warehouse — limits the message to shipments leaving a particular warehouse. Use this for anything caused by conditions at one location.
- Target country — limits the message to shipments going to a particular destination country. Use this for customs, duties, or country-specific delivery practices.
There is also a Tracking provider setting. This refers to the technical provider of the tracking data rather than the carrier that delivers the parcel, it has no practical use for merchants, and it is expected to be removed. Ignore it.
Conditions: when in the journey the message is shown
These two settings decide the stretch of the delivery journey the message is visible for.
- Show after tracking status — the message only starts appearing once the shipment reaches this status. Leave it unset if the message should be visible from the very beginning.
- Hide from tracking status — the message stops appearing once the shipment reaches this status. Set it to "Never hidden" if the message should stay visible all the way through delivery.
An example. Set Show after to "In transit" and Hide from to "Delivered", and the customer sees the message only while the parcel is on its way. They do not see it while the order is still being picked, and it disappears the moment the parcel is delivered.
This matters more than it first appears. A message explaining a delivery delay is reassuring while the customer is waiting and irritating after the parcel has arrived.
Active period
Active from and Active until set the dates the message runs between. Outside those dates it does not appear, and neither field has to be filled in.
Use this for anything tied to a known period: a peak season, a public holiday, a carrier disruption with an expected end date.
Enabled
Switches the message on and off without deleting it. A message you use every December can stay configured all year and be switched on when you need it.
4. Examples
- A delay with one carrier. A carrier is running two days behind in one country during a busy week. Set the delivery type to that carrier, show the message after "In transit", hide it at "Delivered", and set the active period to that week. Customers waiting on a parcel with that carrier see the explanation. Everyone else sees nothing, and the message stops on its own when the week ends.
- A customs step on cross-border orders. Orders to one country pass through a customs stage that adds a few days and produces a quiet period in tracking. Set the target country, leave the message visible from the start, and hide it at "Delivered". Customers now have an explanation for the pause instead of a reason to contact you.
- A seasonal cut-off. Orders placed after 20 December will not arrive before the holidays. Leave all conditions open so it applies to everything, and set the active period to run from 20 to 31 December. The message appears on every tracking page for those dates and switches itself off afterwards.
5. Good practice
- Write for every customer who will see it. The same message goes to everyone whose shipment matches, so it cannot contain anything specific to one order or one person.
- Set an Active until date whenever you can. It is the difference between a message that solves a problem and one that is still apologising for a delay six months later.
- Say what happens next. The most useful messages explain the situation and tell the customer what to expect, rather than only apologising.
- Use the conditions. A message shown to every customer when it only applies to some of them creates more contacts than it prevents.
- Remember there is no notification. If something genuinely needs to reach the customer, use it alongside an email rather than instead of one.