50 Ideas To Help Brands & Advertisers Overcome eComm Turbulence

Our Head of Paid Social Strategy, Charlotte Sargeant, shared this brilliant article on LinkedIn that needed to be shared on our blog - enjoy!

The last few years have been a roller coaster for those of us in the eComm world 🌎

During the pandemic, we saw a boom in the industry that was almost unparalleled. Consumer behaviour changed, and people started shopping a lot more online.

This led to a consumer psychology change - with more and more people having positive experiences with online shopping and becoming more comfortable with it.

The eComm industry experienced a boost and developed a false sense of security. You only need to look at Shopify’s projections to see that even eComm experts expected this trend to continue.

Unfortunately, it didn’t.

And that’s impacted a lot of people. Shopify staff facing lay-offs, eComm businesses missing their own projections and everyone supporting the industry feeling the pinch.

This, coupled with Brexit, CPMs rising on advertising platforms, logistical delays, stock issues, the iOS14 impact on tracking, and even more challenges, has brewed the perfect storm.

Sounds like a nightmare, and it could easily be the end of the story - but it isn’t.

For those who stick around and work hard - this is the best time to win. Win new customers, win at refining business processes, win by surviving the storm.

Digital advertising can still help brands through this stormy period by being intentional and putting in the work.

What can eComm businesses and their advertisers do? Essentially, we need to be NAILING all elements of our campaigns and customer journey. Throwing up any old creative with a few lines of text just won’t cut the mustard anymore.

Here are a few (ahem, 50) suggestions to get started. This isn't an exhaustive list and I will dig into each one in a little deeper over the coming weeks. So keep your eyes peeled!

REALLY understand a brand’s customers. How?

• Do the research

• Read positive and negative reviews

• Talk to existing customers

• Talk to prospective customers

• Implement post-purchase surveys

Define different avatars thoroughly. How?

• Think outside the box!

• Use reviews and read comments on social to understand if buyers are using the products in an unexpected way. Is your product for mums also being used to solve their teenage daughter or own mother’s problems too? Great - that unlocks a bunch of new targeting/messaging options

• Where do they shop?

• What do they read?

• How do they keep active?

• What do they do for work?

• What’s their marital status?

• Do they have kids?

• What hobbies do they have?

• Do they enjoy taking care of their home?

• Are they avid cooks?

• The opportunities for exploration are huge here!

Experiment with capturing their attention in the newsfeed. How? Think about design principles for your creative

• Use the rule of thirds to bring attention to the most important part of the creative

• Try appealing to the reptile brain, using innuendo or food

• Use motion and movement (even in static images). This could look like an item falling or a person running

• Add colour, personality, shapes etc. to reflect your avatar’s preferences

• Remember: a picture speaks 1000 words. Make sure you’re applying this by being relevant and intentional with your creative assets, keeping your avatar in mind

• Test. Everything.

Once you know who you’re targeting, and you have their attention - figure out what to say to them. How?

• Use their words (from all the reviews you’ve been reading 😉)

• Talk to the problems they’re trying to solve

• Think about different frameworks to test in messaging. For example, Problem Agitate Solution, storytelling, objection busting etc.

• Test. Everything.

Review store conversion rate - getting the traffic to the site is only half the battle, we need to make sure they purchase! I'm no CRO expert, but here are a few things to look at.

• Review stats of the end-to-end purchase journey

• Look at the landing page to view content ratio. When users hit the site, are they looking at multiple products? If not, why? Could be a targeting issue, but maybe the site navigation isn't clear. We like to see a rate of landing page > view content of 3x

• Check the add-to-cart rate. If the proportion of visitors adding a product to the cart is below 20% figure out why. Is the ATC button too far down the page? Have you checked how it looks on mobile? Is there enough product info? Enough product images? Close-up images? Are the USPs clear? Is the shipping info clear? Is the sizing clear? Are you building trust with reviews? Are you reducing friction by showing the returns process? We like to see a click > ATC rate of 20%

• Check the cart completion rate. If the proportion of add-to-carters completing their purchase is lower than 30% figure out why. Is shipping time clear? Is shipping time too long? Is shipping cost clear? Is shipping cost too high in comparison to the order value? Does the checkout process look robust, familar and safe? Are you showing accepted payment methods? Can the user opt for buy now, pay later? We like to see an ATC > completed purchase rate of 30%

Make sure each purchase is making you as much £££ as possible by increasing AOV. How?

• Add the 'here are other items you might like' functionality to show users additional relevant, or complementary products

• Offer discounts on bundles, and use pop-ups make sure users know about these bundles if they're adding just 1 product to their cart

• Incentivise and gamify bigger basket size by displaying a visual of how much more a user needs to spend to get a reward - could be free shipping, £5 off at £50 spend then £10 off £100 spend etc.

• Test price sensitivity! Increase prices by 5% and monitor impact on conversion rate. Keep trying this to find the price versus conversion versus profitability sweet spot.

Know. Your. Numbers.

• Probably the most important one of all

• Are you working towards CPA, ROAS or something else? And is this aligned to your business goals?

• Does this make sense with your business model? For example - a repeat purchase brand with a low AOV product will benefit from a CPA goal, taking into consideration the LTV of an average customer. If they focus on ROAS of the first purchase - results likely won’t look (or feel) good, but it doesn’t tell the full story

It doesn’t end with advertising. The cost of advertising (and therefore acquisition) is higher than ever. So brands must make each new acquisition as profitable as possible.

• The first purchase is like getting a foot in the door

• To fully open that door, brands MUST nurture and encourage repeat purchase

• Consumers are fickle. They will follow pricing, trends, influencers and a whole list of other things unless you give them the right reason to stay loyal.

• Think automated email sequences, loyalty programs, refer a friend incentives, etc.

• Allocate a proportion of budget to target past purchasers. Remind them who you are and why they bought in the first place. It’s MUCH cheaper to get an existing customer to buy again than to acquire a new one. And I'm sorry to break it to you, but emailing your existing customers just sometimes isn't enough!

I hope this was helpful, and provided some food for thought as well as some actionable insights!

*Bonus Tip*

(And it's a biggie, so needs much more context and probably its own article)

Explore other channels. This isn't for everyone, but if you don't test then you don't know - could adding another channel to your marketing strategy improve performance? Think Meta, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, SnapChat, Klaviyo etc.

Don’t forget, the team (Charlotte included) are here to help accelerate your eCommerce business with Facebook, Google, TikTok and Pinterest ads and Klaviyo email marketing. 

Let’s chat about your business and goals - email us on hello@webtopia.co