Why Aetrex Uses Polar Analytics to Cut Reporting Time by 63% and Unlock Deeper Customer Insights
connected
per month
About Aetrex
Aetrex, Inc. is a global leader in foot scanning technology, orthotics, and comfort footwear. With over 12,000 scanners worldwide and 50 million scans performed, Aetrex uses its data to design anatomically driven footwear and orthotics. Its technology is featured at major retailers like DSW, Tradehome, and Bauer hockey stores, and is leveraged by brands such as Nike and BOA to enhance product design.
Losing Confidence in Data and Visibility Across Channels
For Rui Kojima, Senior Director of Ecommerce at Aetrex, the challenge began when Google Analytics Universal was deprecated. GA4 felt incomplete. They were moving from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify to modernize their stack, but data visibility was slipping.
On their previous data platform, reporting was slow and unreliable. Dashboards broke frequently, integrations lagged, and load times stretched into hours. Building reports in GA could take an entire day, often followed by manual reconciliation in Google Sheets just to piece the data together. Rui recalled,
“We were working out of Google Sheets just to fill the gaps. We were almost running blind in certain times. GA was only able to tell part of the story.”
The cost of these blind spots was steep. Nearly 20% of transactions went unattributed, leaving Rui’s team with only a partial view of the customer journey. With only last-click attribution, they couldn’t see how customers engaged across Amazon, Target, and their DTC site.
Aetrex needed unified, trustworthy data that could explain why performance shifted and steer retention and growth strategies with confidence.
Rebuilding the Analytics Foundation with Server-side Tracking and Enriched Personas
When the team migrated to Shopify, they took the opportunity to rebuild their analytics foundation from the ground up. Polar became the centerpiece of that strategy.
After connecting their ecommerce stack to Polar, they implemented the Polar Pixel to capture every touchpoint in the customer journey. The server-side Pixel closed the attribution gaps left behind by GA, giving the team a clear view of how campaigns worked together to drive conversions rather than relying on last-click data.
With complete tracking in place, Aetrex began layering in Polar Demographic Enrichment. By combining purchase data with more than 1,500 real-world traits such as income, lifestyle, and household size, the team uncovered personas that challenged old assumptions. These segments synced directly into Klaviyo, enabling personalization rooted in how customers engaged with the brand.
Recovering Customer Journeys and Reducing Reporting Time by 63%
The improvements were immediate. Daily reporting shrank from two hours to just minutes, saving roughly 10 hours each week. Custom reports that once took three full days now take just one, freeing another 16 hours. In total, Polar gives Rui’s team back more than 25 hours every week, time they can now spend on insights instead of maintenance. Rui explained,
“Polar was able to enrich our data and create this all-in-one reporting system that made reporting easier compared to GA4. And we actually trusted the data too.”
With the Polar Pixel, attribution accuracy rose from 80% to 99%, giving Rui’s team confidence to act decisively. With Polar Order Journeys, the team saw the full customer path, applying models like U-shaped and linear to connect actions to conversions. Rui said,
“Polar helped us stitch the whole story together. Now we know not only what’s happening, but why.”
Enhanced tracking also uncovered surprising halo effects. Orthotics campaigns often drove footwear sales, and vice versa. Insights like these now guide how the team approaches creative strategy and media planning.
At the same time, Polar Demographic Enrichment reshaped Aetrex’s understanding of its customers. Rui discovered that their ‘younger’ segment was actually five to ten years older than assumed. By syncing enriched personas into Klaviyo, Aetrex now runs personalized welcome flows and sharper product recommendations. Within just five months, these refinements directly lifted repeat purchase rates by 17% compared to the same period last year, while strengthening customer lifetime value. Rui noted,
“We always had these customer personas in our minds. It was interesting to see how what we thought were younger online customers weren’t as young as we thought.”
Equally important was how quickly the team could adapt reporting to their evolving needs. Polar’s custom capabilities, supported by its Sales Engineer and Customer Success Manager, enabled Aetrex to create new reports, introduce unique metrics, and expand dimensions, often in less than a day. For Aetrex, this level of customer support was important. The days of waiting on broken Looker dashboards or patching GSheets were over. As Lavanya said:
“They’ve been really helpful for me in creating all the dimensions and the software engineering team as well. They have been contributing to every request that I put in. And if I show up, any problems, they generally resolve them in one day."
What’s Next for Aetrex
For Aetrex, Polar has become a launchpad for deeper exploration. The team is now focused on building increasingly granular dashboards, breaking campaigns down to product-level performance, and layering in new personalization strategies across acquisition and lifestyle campaigns. Rui shared,
"I feel like we’ve only reached the tip of the iceberg. The more questions we ask, the more Polar helps us dig into the why, like how A/B testing never ends. That’s how we’ll keep growing. ”
Looking ahead, Rui plans to deepen Aetrex’s partnership with Polar, ensuring their data strategy scales with the business.
“You know, working with our Customer Success Managers and Sales Engineers, they've just been very responsive and very helpful throughout the process. It's been a pleasure working with the team, and I hope that it's a very long-lasting partnership and you guys continue to keep building a great product.”
- Rui Kojima, Senior Director of Ecommerce | Aetrex
Special Offer: To celebrate our partnership with Aetrex, use code POLAR at checkout. Offer valid until October 8.
What where your goals ?
What are your marketing challenges ?
For Rui Kojima, Senior Director of Ecommerce at Aetrex, the challenge began when Google Analytics Universal was deprecated. GA4 felt incomplete. They were moving from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Shopify to modernize their stack, but data visibility was slipping.
On their previous data platform, reporting was slow and unreliable. Dashboards broke frequently, integrations lagged, and load times stretched into hours. Building reports in GA could take an entire day, often followed by manual reconciliation in Google Sheets just to piece the data together. Rui recalled,
“We were working out of Google Sheets just to fill the gaps. We were almost running blind in certain times. GA was only able to tell part of the story.”
The cost of these blind spots was steep. Nearly 20% of transactions went unattributed, leaving Rui’s team with only a partial view of the customer journey. With only last-click attribution, they couldn’t see how customers engaged across Amazon, Target, and their DTC site.
Aetrex needed unified, trustworthy data that could explain why performance shifted and steer retention and growth strategies with confidence.
How did you monitor growth before Polar Analytics ?
When the team migrated to Shopify, they took the opportunity to rebuild their analytics foundation from the ground up. Polar became the centerpiece of that strategy.
After connecting their ecommerce stack to Polar, they implemented the Polar Pixel to capture every touchpoint in the customer journey. The server-side Pixel closed the attribution gaps left behind by GA, giving the team a clear view of how campaigns worked together to drive conversions rather than relying on last-click data.
With complete tracking in place, Aetrex began layering in Polar Demographic Enrichment. By combining purchase data with more than 1,500 real-world traits such as income, lifestyle, and household size, the team uncovered personas that challenged old assumptions. These segments synced directly into Klaviyo, enabling personalization rooted in how customers engaged with the brand.
Recovering Customer Journeys and Reducing Reporting Time by 63%
The improvements were immediate. Daily reporting shrank from two hours to just minutes, saving roughly 10 hours each week. Custom reports that once took three full days now take just one, freeing another 16 hours. In total, Polar gives Rui’s team back more than 25 hours every week, time they can now spend on insights instead of maintenance. Rui explained,
“Polar was able to enrich our data and create this all-in-one reporting system that made reporting easier compared to GA4. And we actually trusted the data too.”
With the Polar Pixel, attribution accuracy rose from 80% to 99%, giving Rui’s team confidence to act decisively. With Polar Order Journeys, the team saw the full customer path, applying models like U-shaped and linear to connect actions to conversions. Rui said,
“Polar helped us stitch the whole story together. Now we know not only what’s happening, but why.”
Enhanced tracking also uncovered surprising halo effects. Orthotics campaigns often drove footwear sales, and vice versa. Insights like these now guide how the team approaches creative strategy and media planning.
At the same time, Polar Demographic Enrichment reshaped Aetrex’s understanding of its customers. Rui discovered that their ‘younger’ segment was actually five to ten years older than assumed. By syncing enriched personas into Klaviyo, Aetrex now runs personalized welcome flows and sharper product recommendations. Within just five months, these refinements directly lifted repeat purchase rates by 17% compared to the same period last year, while strengthening customer lifetime value. Rui noted,
“We always had these customer personas in our minds. It was interesting to see how what we thought were younger online customers weren’t as young as we thought.”
Equally important was how quickly the team could adapt reporting to their evolving needs. Polar’s custom capabilities, supported by its Sales Engineer and Customer Success Manager, enabled Aetrex to create new reports, introduce unique metrics, and expand dimensions, often in less than a day. For Aetrex, this level of customer support was important. The days of waiting on broken Looker dashboards or patching GSheets were over. As Lavanya said:
“They’ve been really helpful for me in creating all the dimensions and the software engineering team as well. They have been contributing to every request that I put in. And if I show up, any problems, they generally resolve them in one day."
What were your needs ?
What’s Next for Aetrex
For Aetrex, Polar has become a launchpad for deeper exploration. The team is now focused on building increasingly granular dashboards, breaking campaigns down to product-level performance, and layering in new personalization strategies across acquisition and lifestyle campaigns. Rui shared,
"I feel like we’ve only reached the tip of the iceberg. The more questions we ask, the more Polar helps us dig into the why, like how A/B testing never ends. That’s how we’ll keep growing. ”
Looking ahead, Rui plans to deepen Aetrex’s partnership with Polar, ensuring their data strategy scales with the business.
“You know, working with our Customer Success Managers and Sales Engineers, they've just been very responsive and very helpful throughout the process. It's been a pleasure working with the team, and I hope that it's a very long-lasting partnership and you guys continue to keep building a great product.”
- Rui Kojima, Senior Director of Ecommerce | Aetrex
Special Offer: To celebrate our partnership with Aetrex, use code POLAR at checkout. Offer valid until October 8.
The fastest growing Shopify brands use Polar Analytics
