Top Marketing Channels for eCommerce, the Best Ways to Drive Revenue

Regarding eCommerce marketing, there are so many options that it may be hard to know where to start. But, there are a few marketing channels that you should be paying attention to because they’ve proven their effectiveness in driving revenue online. To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, here are some vital statistics to keep in mind:

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•         Around 17% of digital marketing spending is used on email, contributing 24% of revenue. (Forrester Research, 2015)
•          The average revenue per abandoned cart email is $5.64, compared to $0.18 per welcome email and $0.02 per promotional email. (Sleeknote, 2018)
•         Instagram’s mobile ad revenue for 2018 hit $9 billion. (eMarketer, 2019)
•         Facebook Ad’s average return on investment in eCommerce is 152%. (Adweek)

This is the tip of the iceberg regarding the top eCommerce marketing channels for boosting conversions and skyrocketing profits. For every marketing channel, there’s a right way to utilize it to get your money’s worth. Keep reading to find out what the best marketing channels are that you need to look into for your online business.

Best Marketing Channels for eCommerce

SEO & Content Marketing

SEO, or search engine optimization, is one of the most popular and effective channels for eCommerce marketing. To optimize your online store for search engines, you utilize keywords and meta tags to get your site’s pages ranked high on search results.

Content marketing refers to creating content in the form of blogs, articles, videos, product listings, images, and more to create content for your audience and market your site’s pages. This goes hand-in-hand with SEO because content on your site is an excellent opportunity to utilize a wider variety of keywords and get those pages ranked high on search engines.

How to do it right:

Optimize your keywords

Ensure that your content utilizes long-tail, LSI (latent semantic indexing), and question-based keywords relevant to your content. Do keyword research into what specific keywords you should be using on your site.

Optimize your meta tags and descriptions

These refer to the bits of information that search engines look at to understand what your page is about. By using title tags and descriptions with emotional, powerful keywords and including figures and facts, you’ll be able to boost your search engine ranking and drive revenue through conversions.

Optimize your content

Make sure the content on your site is easy to read, concise, engaging, and error-free. When using keywords in your content, use them organically and sensibly; keyword stuffing can be penalized.

Utilize responsive design

Your website should be compatible across all platforms, including mobile. Be sure that your site maintains a quality user experience and a fast page speed so that search engines will continue to index your site. A website theme can help with something like this because they tend to come responsive-ready.

Outsource when necessary

One thing to remember is that if you don’t have all the resources to do this yourself. It’s okay to outsource some of these efforts to an agency. Try to hire someone that is specifically an e-commerce SEO agency. This may cost slightly more upfront but will save you much money in trial and error.

PPC & Paid Social

PPC, or pay-per-click, is an online marketing model used to drive website traffic through ads placed on websites and search engine result pages. It gets its namesake from the model because you only pay every time someone clicks on your ad. One of the most popular tools for PPC is Google AdWords, which is Google’s proprietary advertising platform.

Paid social is a form of PPC, similar in that you only pay for the ad every time it’s clicked. Most popular social media platforms offer paid advertising, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. However, this marketing channel is integrated into social media platforms themselves, where your ads will show up on users’ feeds depending on how you’ve set them up to be targeted.

How to do it right:

Use dynamic keywords

This feature of AdWords lets you customize your ad to include any relevant keyword that’s been used in a search query, taking a lot of the hassle out of figuring out which keywords to use in your ad.

Start retargeting

This refers to marketing specifically to users who have already visited your site, working to capture those who bounced off without converting and encouraging repeat customers.

Use location targeting

Suppose your product or industry is typically limited to a specific geographical location, or you only want to sell to a particular area. In that case, you can select exactly where your ad campaign will focus. This can save money on marketing to customers you can’t sell to.

Blend your ads in with organic content

This is especially important for paid social ads because users will be turned off if your ad is highly blatant and annoying on their social media feed. By making your ads look just like your organic posts, users will be more inclined to engage with them.

Organic Social Media

Advertising on social media is considered “organic” when you’re not paying for your ads to be placed strategically onto users’ feeds. Instead, you’re using the social network’s free tools to build and interact with a community on the platform by sharing posts, responding to comments, and growing an audience because your content is appealing and engaging.

How to do it right:

Let your customers know you’re listening

Show that you’re not just a faceless business but care about the customers who buy your products. You can do this by sharing posts from your customers, giving a testimonial about or using your product, or being helpful and quick when responding to questions and feedback.

Utilize hashtags

This is a great way to get exposure on specific social media platforms, like Twitter and Instagram. Users often browse hashtags they’re interested in or trending, so get in on what your target audience is looking at by making posts with relevant hashtags.

Initiate conversations with your community

Make your customers feel like they’re more than just customers and part of a larger community. Ask them questions, promote engagement, and share helpful information with them. This will turn them into loyal customers who repeatedly return to your business.

Create valuable and shareable content

Your social media accounts need to be more than just one giant advertisement of your products. Social media is about being social (in the name), so create content that users want to engage with and share with their friends and followers.

Email Marketing

Anytime you send an email to your customers, that’s email marketing. Don’t let anyone make you think otherwise; email marketing is still a huge source of conversions and a highly effective marketing channel for eCommerce. You can use email marketing, including abandoned cart emails, new subscriber emails, order receipts, newsletters, and more.

How to do it right:

Build quality email lists

To do this, your email list should be extensive, filled with organically-added legitimate emails, and include active email addresses. You don’t want to waste time or funds sending emails to dead or spam accounts.

Create valuable and relevant content

Your email needs to have content inside of it that makes the receiver want to click. This can include newsletters, content from your blog, news about the industry, etc. Use this opportunity to plug in CTA’s (calls to action) related to the range to boost conversions and drive revenue.

Include exclusive offers and discount coupons for subscribers

A great way to boost conversions with email marketing is to offer an incentive to your customers. If a potential customer abandoned their cart, email them with a discount code to complete it.

Plan automated emails for your campaigns

Email marketing automation is a great tool to help you skyrocket your conversion rate. Various events and conditions can trigger automated emails, including abandoned carts, first-time purchases, and more.

Make sure your newsletter is mobile-optimized

A staggering 75% of Gmail users access their accounts on mobile devices, so if your emails aren’t mobile-optimized, you’re missing out on a massive chunk of potential conversions.

Partnerships & Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a great cost-effective marketing channel that you should be utilizing for your eCommerce business. Affiliates and partnerships employ their following on blogs, social media accounts, video streaming channels, and more to talk about your company and its products to an audience that trusts them and their opinions. This form of advertising works like having your group of promoters who aim to get the word out about your products, and you only have to pay when you get results.

How to do it right:

Find partners who relate to your product

Keep your search for affiliate partners confined within the general industry that your products are in. When you’re reaching out to affiliates, you’ll get more success with pet bloggers than vape bloggers if you’re selling dog toys.

Keep your community actively engaged.

If you keep a good relationship with your partners, they’ll be much more willing to stay onboard and involve you in great content. Strengthen your bond and foster an overall feeling of being part of a team achieving the same goal.

Know your audience

To find the best partners to market your products, you need to understand who you’re selling to and what influencers they’ll most likely listen to. Ensure that your audience lines up with the audience with which the affiliates you recruit are involved.

Make things easy for your affiliates.

Ensure that your affiliates have everything they need to market your products on their platform. Create good-quality marketing assets that they can use to make the best reach towards their audience.

What works best for your business?

When considering what marketing channels you’d like to use for your eCommerce business, you should consider what works best for you. To determine this, think about your industry, your audience, and where they are online. If your industry’s audience isn’t generally very active on social media, then putting a lot of your marketing budget into paid social ads and social media campaigns wouldn’t garner results for you. Conversely, suppose you know your business’s products have a great chance of being competitive for a particular keyword and ranking high. In that case, putting effort into your SEO strategy is a good bet.

Are you on a limited budget?

Not everyone has a business where their marketing budget can handle utilizing these channels. If your budget doesn’t allow you to market across most of these channels simultaneously, the best idea would be to choose one track and dominate on that. Decide where your business’s audience is, for the most part, and put the most significant percentage of your online marketing budget towards that channel. Several companies, like the camera backpack business Brevite, have garnered success by going all in and marketing almost exclusively on social media platforms. If you know where your audience is and where your business will thrive the best, pick that channel and run with it.

Summary

If you’re looking to boost your business’s revenue through online marketing, there are a plethora of effective channels that you can use to do so. As long as you take advantage of everything each channel offers and approach them effectively, you’ll reap the benefits in no time. Just keep in mind what works for your business and your marketing budget. Your marketing strategy is tailored to your company’s needs, and you don’t waste money on ineffective campaigns.

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