It’s no secret that eCommerce is a growing industry. In 2020 alone, eCommerce grew by 46%, its most substantial growth in over a decade. With businesses forced to close and shoppers stuck at home, eCommerce bridged the gap and allowed sales to continue for many companies.
With eCommerce competition looking fierce, it can be hard to keep track of what marketing channels will work best for your business. This blog post will look at the top eCommerce marketing channels for your business in 2021, so you can focus your efforts on the channels that will still deliver results.
eCommerce marketing channels for 2021
These eCommerce marketing channels will continue to provide a strong return on investment for eCommerce businesses in 2021 and should be the focus of your eCommerce efforts. To grow an eCommerce business, you need to have a long-term strategy that includes the following marketing channels.
- PPC
- Display ads
- SEO
- Social Media Advertising
- Retargeting Ads
- Email marketing
Rather than seeing each channel as a separate branch, take an integrated approach to help feed insight from one channel into success in another. For example, keyword research for PPC should inform your SEO strategy. And demographic data from social media can inform your display ads strategy.
To understand how eCommerce marketing channels fit together, let’s explore the options in more detail.
1. Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC)
PPC is a great eCommerce marketing channel for eCommerce businesses since it costs you nothing but time to get started, and there’s no cost if people don’t click through.
The most popular PPC advertising platforms are Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads and Bing ads. This offers you great coverage to get your products in front of the right people.
As an eCommerce company, shopping campaigns should be the main focus of your efforts. The Google Shopping tab is where high-intent users spend their time comparing options.
While product listing ads are valuable, you can’t also target customers during the research stages of the customer journey. Optimising category pages and pushing these alongside a product-focussed approach will deliver significant results.
2. Display ads
Online shopping is a visual activity, so display ads are well suited to this sector. Display ads, or banner ads, can be seen across websites, apps and mobile games. In addition, you can target your approach based on the subject matter of the content, allowing you to focus on specific demographics.
Even if display ads don’t generate the number of clicks you might like to see, they can also help to increase brand awareness simply by making your company more visible.
3. SEO
Your eCommerce store needs to be found by current customers and potential customers, so SEO is a must. Having your eCommerce site ranked on the first page of Google will generate more traffic and drive up conversion rates as well.
By focusing on organic SEO techniques alongside paid advertising, you’ll see an increase in website traffic. If you stop paid search advertising for any reason, that traffic will dry up, but your organic search traffic will continue. So it makes sense to have a long-term strategy running in tandem with a quick-win approach.
4. Social media advertising
Social media advertising can be an excellent eCommerce marketing channel. However, it’s essential to make sure you’re always providing fresh content and promoting your best offers, as well as making it easy for people to share products with their connections.
You will need an eCommerce platform that allows you to track clicks and conversion rates to stay accountable. It’s very easy to sink a lot of money in social media advertising and not have much to show for it. By keeping a close eye on your ROI, you’ll be able to identify the campaigns and platforms that work best for your business.
Depending on the age of your target demographic, you might be advertising on platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat or Facebook.
5. Retargeting ads
Retargeting ads are one of the most effective eCommerce marketing strategies because they work to bring customers back to your site.
These cookies will follow them around and allow you to present an offer or a discount. This extra prompt might make them reconsider their purchase decision on other sites. Setting up retargeting campaigns in the early days will help your eCommerce store build a rapport with customers before they choose to buy elsewhere.
The last thing you want is for someone who has been following your brand for months, only then dropping off at checkout when it comes time to convert.
This strategy can help to boost the ROI of all of your marketing channels by encouraging users back to your website.
6. Email marketing
Email is an excellent way of driving sales back to your eCommerce store because it offers a level of personalisation that other platforms cannot do easily.
It will also open up the door for more opportunities when someone opts to receive emails from your eCommerce store. This strategy can help boost ROI by encouraging users back to your website.
You can also up-sell, cross-sell and reengage lapsed customers using intelligent email automation.
Keep your email marketing subject lines specific to help give users a reason to click. Remember, you aren’t the only brand landing in their inbox, and time-poor consumers want to know the facts before they spend time clicking on your ads.
There are a lot of different eCommerce marketing channels available to help you grow your business. While it may seem like you’ve tried them all, don’t be discouraged if that isn’t the case yet! It can take some time and research before finding what works best for your company.
To ensure success in this competitive industry, we recommend taking an integrated approach to marketing. This should include using paid advertising and exploring content creation opportunities such as video or blogs.
Additionally, make sure to track ROI so that you know exactly how much money is being invested into these efforts and what kind of return each channel is getting back. Finally, if any areas aren’t performing up to par, cut them off quickly.
If this sounds overwhelming or if you want help deciding what’s right for you, we’re here to help! Get in touch with our team today to find out more about how we can grow your online sales.