rc_purchase Event

​

Overview

The rc_purchase (Returning Customer Purchase) event is generated when Upstack detects a purchase from a customer who has ordered before. This event fires alongside the standard purchase event, enabling you to measure retention and optimize campaigns for repeat purchases.

​

How It Works

Upstack classifies every purchase event it processes:

1. Customer lookup. Upstack looks for a customer record under the buyer’s Upstack identity and under each email address on the event.
2. Classification. If there is one, Upstack generates rc_purchase. If there’s no record, it generates nc_purchase instead.
3. Record update. Upstack adds the order to the buyer’s customer records.
4. Forwarding. The new event goes to your destinations, as shown below.

The customer records are Upstack’s own, built from the orders and purchase events it has received for your store. Upstack doesn’t look up the customer’s history in Shopify. A purchase event with no Upstack identity gets neither rc_purchase nor nc_purchase. This check is separate from the customer type that splits order reports into new and returning, which matches orders on the Shopify customer ID. The two counts can differ.

​

Properties

This event includes all properties from the original purchase event: The event is the purchase event under a different name. Upstack also adds a customer segmentation value, which Meta receives as customer_segmentation (see the table below).

​

Destination Mapping

Meta needs each custom event approved before you can optimize on it. See How to approve Meta custom events.

​

Related Events

• purchase — The base purchase event for all orders
• nc_purchase — New customer purchases
• all_purchase — All purchases (combines NC + RC)
• lapsed_purchase — Purchases from lapsed customers who returned