Digital Marketing for E-Commerce​

E-Commerce marketing has evolved and grown so much in recent times and today’s digital landscape is vastly different from that of 10 years ago. In today’s entry, we are going to look at some of the tools and techniques that we have used for our clients when marketing their online e-commerce store.

PPC – pay per click has been the backbone of many digital marketing campaigns and there is a good reason for this, it simply works. Paid search does increase your website traffic and especially so for an e-commerce store. The ability to really target your audience based solely on specific keywords is a great way of increasing quality website traffic to your site. There are, however, a number of things to consider with this, such as the budgets required to compete for certain keywords and also the expertise needed to create PPC campaigns that will continue to offer you an ongoing ROI.

Social Media Marketing – Paid advertising on social media is not new anymore, however, 10 years ago this was what industry experts where predicting. Fast forward to today and it’s hard to imagine an e-commerce store not using social media in some way to advertise their products. Facebook and Instagram ads lead the way for many businesses and for e-commerce companies that sell physical products, it is easy to see why. Facebook Ads Manager gives marketers a variety of different options to choose from when creating ads. This includes creating brand awareness ads, traffic ads and also remarketing ads. One of the best features within ads manager is the custom/lookalike audience that can be created. When this is used alongside other metrics such as age, gender and interests it really helps improve the delivery and success of your ads.

Content Marketing – Content is important on your website, however, it really needs to add value to the end user. This can be in the form of advice, sharing of knowledge or maybe a detailed review of product/s. It also needs to be new and fresh and for e-commerce advertisers who are selling products, it is easier to do if you create new articles or pages on your website for your new products. A good example of this is that many manufacturers provide detailed descriptions of their products, but if you want to add real value then why not rewrite this content from the perspective of the customer, having my tried/tested the product? This way it shows both search engines and your end users that genuinely care about the information that you are publishing.

Email Marketing – There is a saying in email marketing that goes ‘The money is in the list’ and whilst there is some truth to this, the way we now communicate via email with customers has changed, mainly due to GDPR legislation that came into effect last year. That being said, email marketing is still the most cost effective way of marketing to your customers. Email marketing providers such as MailChimp offer a number of solutions to marketers and businesses that enable quality segmentation of your email list, allowing you to target specific customers with tailored offers for example.

Another high-quality feature offered by MailChimp is the customisable data capture forms that you can create that will appear on your website (we currently use one on this site) and link directly back your MailChimp account. This is an excellent way of increasing your email subscribers lists and you can even incentivise potential customers by offering promo codes in exchange for their email. One important point here, always use the double opt-in method where by customers have to confirm thier email address.

Video Production – Video carries a lot of weight now within marketing and its easy to see why. From a users perspective, video is so much easier to digest information from. Video offers a great way to transfer a lot of valuable information in a short amount of time. When you use videos on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn they always get more views and interaction that standard text posts or images. Crucially, good video content can also be shared across all your social channels and it can also be used on your own website.

Conversion Rate Optimisation – CRO is valuable for nearly all websites, but especially so for e-commerce sites. There is a cost associated with getting potential customers to your website, so it makes real commercial sense to try and convert existing website visitors into customers.

SEO – Search engine optimisation is really important for all businesses who have an online presence. It is especially important for e-commerce websites as traffic generated via organic search, generally speaking, converts better than any other form of traffic. This means that website visitors who find you in Google natural SERPs are typically more engaged and are searching with the internet to make a purchase or contact you. This is why ranking highly for your chosen keywords is so important and why many businesses place such an importance on SEO.

For e-commerce business with large product ranges, you will often find that you rank for long tail keywords – for example ‘cerise duchess satin’ is quite a specific longer tail keyword compared to ranking for ‘duchess satin’. It is worth remembering, however, that if people visit your website via long tail keywords and don’t buy, then you can always reengage them with remarketing ads on Google’s display network or via social media remarketing ads on Facebook/Instagram. These ads are created and configured within Google Ads and Facebook Ads manager respectively.

I hope this article has been of some use and that you are able to take something from it. As always, if you have any ideas, thoughts or suggestions for our future blogs, artlices or podcasts then please do leave a comment in the box below.