How you can get more bang for your buck on Google shopping
The truth is competing in Google Shopping is hard, but if you are a retailer it is fundamental to success online, considering that more advertising spend is now spent on Google Shopping than Google Search in the USA.
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There are 7 main strategies that you can implement to maximize your success on Google Shopping.
First, segment your campaigns by branded and non- branded search queries. You will find that performance will vary considerably between the two so it's important to change your bids…
Referrals are the most trusted marketing format. You need to harness them.
Every other year, Nielsen publishes its Global Survey of Trust in Advertising report, compiling latest trends in consumer sentiment towards various marketing and advertising channels.
Its latest report highlighted a growing trend in the industry; that consumer trust in traditional advertising channels has markedly decreased, whilst ‘personal recommendations’ among customers is by far and away the most trusted advertising format.
The fact that customer-to-customer referrals was ranked number one for trustworthiness, was of little surprise. But what did cause a stir was the emphatic extent to which it led the way in consumers’ opinions.
Personal recommendations didn’t just edge out all other options — it blew them out of the water, with an 81% vote of confidence, compared to its nearest rival - consumer online opinions - which trailed with just 58%.
For most modern marketers, reports such as these merely confirm…
Follow these 10 strategies to reduce cart abandonment and 1 strategy to recover lost sales post cart abandonment
Your customers add items to their carts, they may even start the checkout process, but then they leave the site and abandon the items.
Sounds familiar?
This is the cart abandonment phenomenon.
Cart abandonment is a common phenomenon in e-commerce, with an average cart abandonment rate of 68.63% for 2016 (see chart below).
Online shopping cart abandonment rate worldwide from 2006 to 2017, Statista.
There are many reasons for customers to abandon their carts. Some of the most common reasons can be seen in the chart below.
Primary Reasons for Cart Abandonment in the U.S. in Q4 2016, Statista
So why is cart abandonment a major issue for ecommerce sites?
Think of the amount of resources that…
New Mckinsey research highlights how to improve satisfaction
McKinsey's research on customer satisfaction highlights that consistency of service delivery is crucial. They have themed their findings around the 3Cs of Customer Satisfaction, thats:
Customer-Journey Consistency
Emotional Consistency
Communication Consistency
We all know that the economic climate and easier on-line access to goods and services, increases customer choice and this can lead to lower levels of loyalty, if we don't look after customers after the first touchpoint and beyond.
We're recommending this research since it shares research on customer satisfaction across 14 sectors: Brokerage, banks and health providers ranked high whereas car insurance, retail, telecoms and postal services were less favourable as shown on the graph:
Findings highlighted that brand and service are key to customers, and research from 27,000 USA American consumers across 14 industries found that effective customer journeys are important.
Let's look at the…
Examples of how build your ecommerce brand in a changing landscape
Research suggests many people are getting fed up of being ‘sold to’ thanks to incessant retargeting, yet we’re buying online more than ever before. That’s the oxymoron of our current ecommerce industry — how to sell, without seeming to sell.
In a saturated marketplace, marketers need to create more immersive shopping and retail experiences. Largely, ecommerce brands are evolving to meet the demands of the fractured user journey and the fractious user.
How?
Big brands tend to throw all their money and weight at influencers and programmatic advertising, whereas smaller brands focus on communities and stories. New retailers periodically flood the markets, capitalizing on the latest consumer trends and cashing in on the ‘fad economy’.
So what ecommerce evolution (or devolution), can we expect in the coming year? (Before you read on — check out our marketing megatrends for 2017 to be fully…
Chart of the day: User generated is the single most influential factor in determining purchase intent.
User-generated content (UGC) includes things such as photos and reviews sent in by previous customers. Nine out of ten (90%) of US customers who took a recent survey into UGC, said that user-generated content was the highest influencing factor when purchasing online. Search engine results came a close second. Promotional emails came third. It makes sense for SEO and email to have high influence, but this study shows that UGC is now heavily influencing shoppers, more than ever are buyers relying on reviews and the opinion of others.
Those under 30 were particularly heavily influenced by UGC. Those over 65 were least influenced by UGC. Clearly then UGC will become over more popular and is an area you should be looking at developing.
…
All online businesses need to move quickly to embrace a multi-channel strategy
All of us online business owners agree that our website visitors and paying customers are, by far, our most important asset.
It makes sense. Everything we do is targeted towards satisfying prospects, gaining their trust and hopefully, convert them in to paying and recurring customers. That’s why most of our marketing and sales efforts are focused on bringing visitors to our website (or app).
To convert this great story into industry terms, business pros live and breathe conversion rates and ROI metrics.
One important conversion enabler (or ROI generator, if you’d like) is related to the business’s customer communication strategy. I’ll focus on this one, in this article.
Online customer communication is a wide topic: It covers customer technical support, online chatting with prospects, answering frequent questions on different channels and much, much more.
…
Two-thirds of carts are abandoned. Here's how to win those customers back.
When a consumer reaches the final stages of making a purchase but decides to abandon their shopping cart, it’s clear there is some level of objection. Shopping cart abandonment is one of the largest obstacles for ecommerce retailers to overcome and the extent of the problem is shocking.
On average, 67% of online shopping carts are abandoned (Shopify) meaning businesses who are failing to proactively engage with these potential customers are missing out on a huge opportunity to recover lost interest to generate conversions and, ultimately, sales.
It’s easy to assume the majority of cart abandonments happen because consumers are undecided over a purchase, when actually there are numerous underlying reasons that are directly linked to your business’ sales process - ’not being ready for purchase’ only takes third place according to Business Insider’s top eight reasons for shopping…
Here are the 3 most important reasons why you should pay attention to your ecommerce personalization strategy today more than ever before
If your team is like most ecommerce organizations these days, you have already made some progress in your personalization journey by serving relevant content to your ideal customer groups and optimizing experiences that you serve. The ability to deliver true 1-to-1 personalized experiences across all channels has been the dream of every marketer — personalization increases loyalty, drives higher conversions and grows revenue.
Unfortunately, it has been incredibly difficult to deliver on individualized experiences at scale and various attempts at personalization over the past four decades have failed, resulting in greater unpredictability in revenue. With recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), this changes. It’s finally possible for brands and retailers to deliver on the promises of 1-to-1 personalization and serve the ideal experience to their each of their customers…
These massive trends will change E-commerce marketing this year
We are now well into 2017. If you are to develop a winning e-commerce marketing strategy you'll need to start planning now. E-commerce continues to grow rapidly, but with the huge market acting as a magnet to brands large and small, competition will ramp up faster than the total growth of the market. This means customers will be harder to win, easier to lose and fussier on price and user experience.
To avoid falling behind the ever more fierce competition, you will need to both be aware of and benefit from the latest trends in e-commerce. These megatrends are global, have huge implications, and are not going to go away anytime soon. Ecommerce marketers will have to integrate them into their planning to be successful this year And if any of you think you can get away without creating a detailed plan - remember that…
