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How to advertise an online store? The foundation for the proper functioning of an online store is its functional, customizable website. Even the best advertising, which will attract a mass of customers, will not be effective if the recipient is not able to smoothly and pleasantly go through the shopping process. Therefore, before you even devote time and resources to promoting your store and generating traffic, make sure your site meets the right standards. If you haven’t set up a store yet, or are wondering which server you should choose, check out our article titled “Choosing the right server for e-commerce.“
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To make sure that a customer can easily go through the buying process on your store, put yourself in their shoes. Try placing a test order and think about which elements need improvement or might make it difficult for the recipient. It’s not just a matter of UX or design, but also the correct functioning of all the fields to be completed, confusing content on the site or functionalities that don’t work. Often, online store owners are not even aware that something is not working on their site. Also keep in mind that as the creator of the store, you know how to navigate through it and complete the shopping process. The average user won’t be so determined and a hindered shopping process can discourage them from buying at any time. To find out about potential difficulties, ask a few(a dozen?) people to order from your store and give you feedback. This will give you confidence that the site is working and not hindering customers from buying.
ECommerce promotion on the Internet
The shopping process should be made as easy as possible. Long and complex shopping processes can irritate customers and lead to cart abandonment. Requiring too much information, multiple transaction form fields or complicated navigation are elements that are often the deciding factor in the shopping experience. Try to make the shopping process as simple as possible. I covered this topic in an article titled How to save abandoned shopping carts in e-commerce?
If you have taken care of the functionalities in your online store and are sure that from the technical side everything is up to scratch, now is the right time to encourage users to visit the site and buy products. There are several main tactics you can use, depending on the goal you want to achieve.
How to advertise an online store – SEO
SEO is the on-page and off-page optimization activities carried out to improve visibility in organic search results. A high search engine ranking gets your site noticed by potential customers.
SEO is a long-term tactic that yields its first results after a few months of action. Therefore, it will be suitable for some stores — mainly those whose assortment does not change and is not dependent on seasonality. If you offer the same range of products throughout the year, which users search for using unchanging phrases, SEO will be the right solution for your store. You can read about how to conduct SEO activities for an online store in the article titled. “Positioning an online store“.
Before starting SEO activities, you should conduct a proper audit, which includes several necessary elements:
- verify duplication of internal content (and in the area of category descriptions as well as metadata),
- verification of the site structure and what subpages the site is made of,
- analysis of the page loading speed,
- verification of page indexing,
- analysis of the rules contained in the robots.txt file,
- finding errors in the 3XX, 4XX area in internal linking,
Wanting to conduct SEO of an online store in an effective way, you need to start with a good plan. The preparation of an SEO plan should be handled by an SEO specialist who already has in his experience the overall conduct of projects of this nature. You can use the services of Digital Agency for this purpose. The agency focuses on achieving your business goals, whether they are sales results, number of new customers or brand recognition.
How to advertise an online store – PPC (paid ads)
PPC advertising is an online advertising model in which you pay per click on your ad (not per display!). This ensures that the user who visits your store’s website is already interested in the product to some degree. This type of activity is also called Performance Marketing
This type of marketing can be used in many online channels, such as:
Native advertising – is advertising that matches the content on the website. Its main advantage is that it does not look like an advertisement. By choosing this type of advertising, you can pay for clicks or displays.
SEM (search enginge marketing) – is the totality of promotional activities on the Internet, which are aimed at obtaining the best possible positions of the site in the search results, for selected keywords / phrases typed by users in a search engine query.
Marketing on social media – Facebook, Instagram, TikTik, Twitter, LinkedIn are the most widely used social channels among people of all ages. They allow you to connect with your audience, increase traffic and brand awareness, and boost sales. When deciding to advertise on these channels, you can bet on various billing models, such as pay-per-click, view, display, contact acquisition, etc.
Affiliate marketing – includes affiliate marketing and influencers. In this case, billing is usually on sales, leads acquired, downloads, app installs, etc. Providing the affiliate with a special link allows you to identify the source of ROI and thus determine the most profitable strategies.
E-mail marketing — is a marketing strategy that involves sending emails to recipients and promoting products or services. It’s a great type of marketing for new launches or for reaching audiences with specific interests (this type of marketing also allows targeting).
E-mail marketing is a great way to market your products or services.
Store advertising – performance marketing advantages
It is easily measurable – in performance marketing advertisers and we only pay for the clicks/conversions/views gained. Traceability in performance marketing is not based on estimates, but hard data — we have access to information on impressions, clicks, sessions, time spent on the site, etc.
Precise targeting — that is, displaying ads to those who meet certain characteristics. If you own a pet food store, you can set up ad campaigns to display ads only to people who have pets or search for specific search terms, such as “cat food.” When targeting, you can take into account factors such as demographics, location, user behavior or preferences. This allows you to reach the desired audience at the designated time and place. You can read about targeting options in the article titled. “Targeting types and opportunities in performance marketing“.
Control over budget – you can clearly set daily spending limits, set preferred billing models such as cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-conversion (CPA), and adjust your approach and budget based on the results.
Scalability — you can easily increase your campaign spending based on your needs. With accurate performance tracking, you can adjust your campaigns to achieve greater reach, more conversions and increased sales.
Scalability.
Promotion E-commerce–Social Media
Maintaining social media is now one of the most important and largest elements of long-term marketing strategies. Having a social media presence allows you to maintain a relationship with your audience and communicate for free with people who have liked your brand’s profile. This means that once a community is built, it stays with you for a long time, so you only pay for acquiring an audience for the first time.
The main aspect you should take care of, regardless of the industry you operate in, is regularity in content publishing. This has a positive effect on both the algorithms that determine how wide an audience your post will be displayed to, as well as on keeping the audience’s attention and awareness of your brand or product. Regularly record stories, publish posts and encourage users to discuss. A properly managed fanbase will itself generate additional traffic and interest in your products among new audiences.
Make sure that customers visiting your brand’s profiles can place their trust in it and immediately feel attached to it. Such activity is called “Reason To Believe – how to make customers believe a brand?“. Reason To Believe (RTB) is an argument or evidence that proves that a brand’s promises are real and possible to fulfill. It is designed to convince customers of the brand’s authenticity, value and credibility and to build trust. RTB can take various forms, such as fact-based argument, customer reviews, awards, statistics, research, or unique product features. Its goal is to build lasting relationships and brand loyalty, which in the long run translate into increased sales.
How to advertise an online store — Digital Agency
There are many ways on how to advertise an online store. Their effectiveness depends on various factors, which should be taken into account even at the stage of planning activities. If you want to be sure that your actions will bring the expected results, use the services of Digital Agency The agency primarily deals with the planning and implementation of online marketing activities. These may consist of brand building, search engine advertising, public relations, creating marketing communications, optimizing online campaigns or data analytics. The agency’s marketing department will assess budget allocation, recommend solutions in ppc advertising and make any changes to the website.
