The ECommerce Marketing Guide
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Transcript of The ECommerce Marketing Guide
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The eCommerceMarketing Guide
kissmetrics.com
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Table of Contents
1. Inbound Marketing 3
2. Outbound Marketing 35
3. Design 46
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Inbound Marketing1
BuIldIng a Brand
undersTandIng Your CusToMer
MarkeTIng an eCoMMerCe CusToMer
ConTenT MarkeTIng
searCh engIne opTIMIzaTIon
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Building a Brand
Many view eCommerce as simply an online store selling products. What they neglect is the importance
of building a brand and focusing on the customer. Many shops simply sell products, but what distin-
guishes some from others and converts them into robust businesses is the brand they build throughout
the process. The brand is what your company is known for, how people think and feel about your com-
pany, and it is derived from the cumulative experience they have with every single touchpoint from the
moment they come to your eCommerce site to their perceptions about the product theyve purchased
and continue to use.
In Building Brands Apples Way, Jeffrey Rayport explains that products themselves need to serve as
brand ambassadors. An advertisement only makes an impression for a short period of time. A product
on the other hand makes a lasting impression on how the consumer perceives the brand.
If you sell more than just private label products, its important to think of your actual eCommerce prod-
uct that goes along with your brand. For Amazon, their eCommerce products are things like prime ship-
ping, Amazon Air (if it becomes reality), relevant product recommendations, and a vast selection. This is
the Amazon product.
I want to share a quick example of a company building its brand. Its not related to eCommerce, but can
help us to understand how some of top performing companies think.
Life Time Fitness, a fitness club with locations around the United States, recently launched an annual
5k run/walk called Commitment Day. Its held annually on January 1, a holiday after the extended holi-
day season where people may be literally and figuratively hungover.
When I first heard this idea, I was puzzled. Why would a fitness club start something called Commit-
ment Day on a day where the majority prefers to relax and enjoy their New Years Day without working
up a sweat? Was this such a great idea of spreading the word about their club?
I realized soon after that this had nothing to do with marketing. Instead, it was about building the Life
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Time Fitness brand. Nearly all other fitness clubs are promoting their product for low cost, which really
has little to do with fitness, while Life Time is creating a high barrier to entry gym.
Life Time Fitness is using Commitment Day to start a movement and ultimately boost its branda brand
that (they hope) will be known for fitness, living healthy, and taking personal responsibility. Others can
discuss prices all they want, Life Time is taking the longer view and building its brand.
For businesses, its important to understand your customer and then build a brand with them in mind.
Understanding Your Customer
The key job of a business is to have a deep understanding of its customer. The customer is at the cen-
ter of all initiatives. Functions like marketing, sales, and design are all impacted by the customer. If you
dont know who your customer is, you dont know who your market is. And understanding your custom-
er means understanding how to run your marketing.
Marketing an eCommerce Company
I have to admit something. I dont know you or your company, and given that, I dont know how to mar-
ket a company Im not familiar with. I can write an eCommerce Marketing Guide that provides ideas
on marketing and building an eCommerce brand, but I cant write a manual. Each company needs its
own brand path and marketing approach. There is no one size fits all marketing.
One thing eCommerce companies dont lack is options. Companies today have a range of possibili-
ties they can use to get their business in front of their ideal customer. In this guide I hope to provide an
overview of these possibilities and explain their application for the online business.
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Lets begin by examining how eCommerce companies can use content marketing to raise awareness
and drive online sales.
Content Marketing
Content marketing can be an extremely effective marketing program for eCommerce companies. It can
showcase your knowledge and thought leadership and create a personality around the products you
sell. A few ideas on what eCommerce companies can do with content:
Blog:
Provide an overview and background on products. This should be both recently launched products
as well as your category staples. You dont have to write a book on each product, but it should be
detailed and accurate enough so the reader understands its features and benefits, and gets drawn
in. You can also include a video where you demo the product and show how it works.
Dont write to sell the product. Instead, your goal should be to provide information to readers so
they can decide if the product is for them. Make sure to post at least two links to the product page
(if you sell it) on these product overview blog posts
Demo products that provide a background on the product and showing it in action
Write about newly launched products that fit what you sell
Show what people can do with the products you sell (i.e.; what they get out of it)
Help people discover new products by writing about small, innovative companies and the story
behind them.
Teach people about multiple product categories. If you sell car parts, your product categories (and
blog categories) will explain how oil filters, exhausts, air filters, and brakes all work. You can explain
the basic function behind them and guide on what to look for when shopping for that specific part.
Produce educational videos and post them to your blog. For example, if you sell fly fishing equip-
ment, you can create videos showing basics of fly fishing (and mention the products youre using in
the video) and how to tie lines and hooks. Overtime your videos can get into more advanced areas
of fly fishing.
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YoUTUBe:
Product demonstrations
Product comparisons (but beware that ranking them or picking a winner can be a political night-
mare)
How to videos showing installation or maintenance and upkeep of products (if applicable)
SoCial Media:
Your brand is unique, and social media should be a voice for your brand. Think of how Taco Bell
uses Twitter as a voice for its brand. Once viewed as cheap, low quality food that gets thrown under
the same umbrella as places like White Castle, Taco Johns, and Burger King. Taco Bell is undergo-
ing a brand transformation, and is using Twitter to broadcast its new identity. Check out the Twitter
page and observe the topics the company tweets about, how it interacts with followers, and the
feelings it provokes. Use a voice and tone that is consistent with your brand today and creates the
mood you want it to have for the future.
Post photos of products and short demo videos on Instagram and Vine
Use social media as a customer service channel, but be sure to keep the etiquette and responses
consistent with your brand, and be prepared to put out fires. You may also want to keep this cus-
tomer service channel separate from your companys primary tweets, and have a backup chat,
email, or phone service for more complicated cases. Even good customer service can be brand-
building, but make sure to keep it carefully managed.
Give customers a percentage discount off their next order if they tweet or Instagram a picture of
them wearing the clothes or using the widget they purchased.
Retweet and repost quality, creative pictures of your customers wearing or using your product.
Everyone likes the recognition; it plays a small part in building the company-customer relationship,
and shows your products from a new perspective.
Well now look at a few brands that have found the channel(s) with the perfect fitchannels that have fit
the brands persona and have effectively earned visibility. Lets start by looking at a blender company
that has produced dozens of viral videos. Along the way theyve been seen by millions of people and
have gained thousands of fans and customers.
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Blendtec
Blendtec sells an assortment of blenders and accessories. The marketing challenge is that blenders
can be really boring. Its hard enough to market a blender, not to mention in a market where there are
already hundreds of options and each one is nearly indistinguishable from the others.
What they did to get their name out and showcase their product was create a video series called Will
it Blend? and put it on YouTube. This wasnt your typical blender items. They created videos blending
the iPad, iPhone, iPod, a baseball, and many more items. Making these videos showcases the blenders
durability and its supposed quality as a blender.
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Rei
Outdoor gear company REI has a Learn category on its website to help visitors research and under-
stand product features:
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If youre looking to buy a snowboard, REI offers plenty of content to learn about which one would be
right for you:
They also post compelling videos:
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life extension
Life Extension is an eCommerce store that sells dietary supplement. Its blog focuses on health-related
information:
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It also publishes a magazine that features the latest in wellness news. All this content is indexed, so
its likely that much of Life Extensions traffic is organic. When visitors come to one of the companys
web pages, they see rich content and read about the benefits of some sort of supplement. Its an easy
sellLife Extension writes an article extolling the benefits of a product, and since the visitor has already
arrived on the site out of interest in the first place, a well-written article could convert him or her into a
paying customer.
Bodybuilding.com
Nearly every gym rat has heard of this website. Bodybuilding.com is split into two parts, a content sec-
tion with thousands of articles about exercise and weight lifting, and a store that sells nutritional supple-
ments.
Search for any bodybuilding or weight lifting topic on Google and its likely that bodybuilding.com will
be near the top of the results. And its through this SEO that they get the majority of their customers.
Mr Porter
This online menswear retailer does a masterful job at content marketing. Mr Porter uses several proper-
ties to spread its message. Lets take a look at a few of these:
The Journal
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Its version of a blog, Mr. Porter publishes a weekly series of articles called The Journal. The content
revolves around the best in fashion for men, and topics can include the looks of various style icons, the
latest trends, and tips on how to wear it and pull it off
On the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobains death, Mr Porter paid its homage by featuring Cobains fash-
ion.
Its image slideshow featured his style along with a link to that product on the Mr. Porter store. They also
include some wonderful copy to go along with the images.
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YouTube Channel
Mr Porters YouTube channel even has a few playlists on mens fashion.
The Way I Dress is a series of short videos showing how fashion experts choose what to wear.
Behind The Brand is a collection of videos telling the story behind a few of Mr Porters vendors.
Global Street Style shows unique fashion trends from locations around the globe.
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instagram
Their Instagram account shows what you would expecta large audience with over 170,000 people fol-
lowing its feed, and images to promote its journal.
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Some other images promote products:
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There are also images showcasing a certain fashion selection:
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Instagram is a great fit for eCommerce stores. The pictures you use can showcase your products and
ultimately build your brand. Try using Instagram as a tool that will help tell your brand story. What is
your brand about? What pictures will help tell your brand story? What are your brand values and how
can you showcase that through Instagram?
Search engine optimization
One of the most important aspects of content marketing is getting found. Writing quality content is vital,
but you need to ensure your website is driving the right traffic for you. Lets run through a few areas of
your site and how you can ensure theyre optimized for search engines.
PRodUCT deSCRiPTionS
Write unique copy for your product descriptions. It takes a lot of work to do this for each product, but
the payoff can be huge. Dont copy the manufacturers description of the product, which can be drab or
overly technical. Oftentimes stores can write more interesting copy than manufacturersnot to mention
more aligned with the brandso the benefits extend beyond just SEO.
Heres an example of the Osprey Exos 58 backpack. This is the product description from the manufac-
turer:
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And the features:
This is the product page from Camp Saver:
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You can see that the product description is nearly identical to the manufacturers description.
Now heres the product page from REI:
Out of the three, the REI page offers the most content. The company did not use the manufacturers de-
scription, but instead crafted its own and even went as far as including a different selection of images
and a video showcasing the product with an REI employee. Which do you think catches more eyes
and search engines?
Matt Cutts also notes the importance of having unique content on product pages.
If you cant manage to have 1000 (product) pages and have something unique, something differ-
ent than just rewarmed content of an affiliate feed rank compared to someone elses 1000 pages
of that same affiliate content... what makes your site unique, [where] is the value add, whats the
compelling proposition that makes people want to go visit your eCommerce site? If you cant have
unique content, if you cant come up with some unique angle or reason, even if its a gimmick,
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something that makes it fun, something that makes it better, easier for people, that makes them like
your site, then thats a really tough proposition.
Use ThinkGeek as inspiration for your product descriptions. Their descriptions are far beyond the or-
dinary and are targeted to their audience. Remember, write for your audience and the people who are
interested in buying. Make the features and benefits clear.
iMage alT TagS
Image alt tags describe the images to search engines. Lets go back to the example of the Osprey Exos
58. For the product image, REI uses the alt tag Osprey Exos 58 Pack:
Your image alt tags should include the manufacturer and product name, so the image alt tag should be
Osprey Exos 58 Pack not just Exos 58 pack or Osprey.
If applicable, you should also include the serial number in your tags. Many people search for a product
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by its serial number (or part number) and adding this to your alt tag as well as the product page can
improve your SEO.
TiTle Tag
Title tags are what can be referred to as the title of the webpage. The title tag can be found at the top
of your web browser (unless you use Chrome), in the source code, and sometimes on search engine
results page (Google will occasionally alter the headline in results pages). The REI title tag for the Exos
58 backpack is Osprey Exos 58 Pack - Free Shipping at REI.com.
Here is how it appears on Googles search engine results page:
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Notice how REI slips in a little sales message? They do what no one else on that results page does
mention free shipping.
In some cases inserting the serial number may help. If you sell parts, add the model number along with
serial number to the title tag. Here is an example from Newegg for a motherboard they sell:
Google limits its search engine results page to a maximum of 70 characters for each title tag. If your
title tags are over 70 characters, Google may display different text in place of the title tag. It may also
change the title for some queries. We can see this if we run a Google search with the query fly fishing
ESPN.
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Our number one result is Unity with the Universe. If we check out that page we see that the title tag is
different than what Google listed:
Why does Google change the headline? According to Matt Cutts, Google may change the headline to
fit these criteria:
1. The appropriate length (short)
2. Good description of the page and ideally the site that the page is on
3. Relevant to the query
Dont worry too much about Google changing your headline. Be sensible when crafting the title and
you should be fine.
Its important to keep the title tag relevant to the product. If you can, add a competitive advantage
whether it be free shipping, a lifetime warranty, flat rate shipping, free installation, etc. Avoid keyword
stuffing, adding a hodgepodge of commonly searched keywords. This could result in a penalty from
Google and your organic search will suffer.
Do not have duplicate title tags. This is easy to do in eCommerce because there can be slight varia-
tions of the same product, but the title tag for each product can be the same. Be specific with your title
tags, and if you can, let the visitor narrow down in the specifics on the page. Well see examples of
fashion stores that have one product page and let the user choose color and size from the options dis-
played on that page. Opt for something like this instead of creating multiple pages for the same prod-
uct. It makes for better usability, and less chance of getting a slap on the wrist from Google.
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donT deleTe PRodUCT Page URlS
If you sell a product thats been discontinued (or you choose to no longer sell it), you may not necessar-
ily want to delete the URL for that product.
Instead of removing the product page, you may simply want to replace it with a note mentioning that
the product has been discontinued or that you dont sell it anymore with a note alongside that, men-
tions similar products the visitor may be interested in. This can be especially helpful for SEO. If a prod-
uct goes out of market, people may still search for it. Many eCommerce companies may delete that
product page and the URL, but if you retain yours it could still rise to the top of search engine results.
When asked about what eCommerce sites should do when products go out of stock, Matt Cutts broke
his answer down into three parts. What a small store should do is different from what a medium-sized
store should do, and a large store should do yet something else. Lets take a look.
Stores with a Small number of Products
Dont use a 404 for the page of a product that has gone out of stock or you dont sell it anymore.
Instead, keep the page but redesign it saying that you dont sell it anymore, and offer suggestions for
products similar. So if you had a cherry wood shelf that isnt sold anymore, you can offer the suggestion
to the user that they checkout the mahogany wood shelf that you do have available.
When you have a very small number of pages and a small number of products, it probably is
worth not just doing a true 404 and saying this page is gone forever but sort of saying if you were
interested in this cherry wood shelf, well maybe youd be interested in this mahogany wood shelf
that I have instead and sort of showing related products. Thats a perfectly viable strategy. Its a
great idea whenever something is sort of a lot of work (in putting together all the work in individual
product pages).
Stores with Hundreds or Thousands of Pages
For products that you no longer sell, make a 404. If its a product that is out of stock, make a note that it
is. You may also want to add in when you can expect it back in stock. Some stores let the visitor receive
an email notification when the product is back.
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For those sorts of situations, I would probably think about just going ahead and doing a 404,
because those products have gone away, that product is not available anymore and you dont
want to be known as the product site that whenever you visit it its like oh yeah, you cant buy this
anymore. Because users get just as angry getting an out of stock message as they do no results
found when they think theyre going to find reviews. Now if its going to come back in stock, you
can make note that its temporarily out of stock. But if you really dont have that product anymore,
its kind of frustrating to just land on that page and see yup, you cant get it here.
Stores with Hundreds of Thousands of Millions of Pages
Look into using the unavailable_after meta tag. This tag lets a webmaster tell Google that on a certain
date this page is no longer relevant, so Google should not show it in search results. It will take a day
after the removal date passes for the page to disappear from Google search results.
We do have a meta tag that you can use called unavailable_after that basically says okay on such
and such a date this page is no longer relevant and so Id like Google to sort of not show it in the
search results. And so thats something where you can put a deadline on it and you can say after
this date, its not useful to show, therefore just let it sort of automatically expire on its own.
do noT CHange URlS and URl STRUCTURe
Keep the same URL structure throughout your website. Here we see the example from REI:
This URL structure follows the item number and product name. Its incredibly important to use the prod-
uct name in your URLs, and once you set these URLs, do not modify them down the road. These URLs
are crawled and indexed by search engines, and changing them may degrade your SEO. You want
search engines to recognize and continue sending traffic to the same URL!
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For more on eCommerce and SEO, check out our post that covers SEO errors of eCommerce websites.
Building a Relationship With Customers
FolloWing UP WiTH CUSToMeRS
Understanding the customers level of satisfaction with the entire browsing, purchasing, and receiving
experience is especially important for eCommerce companiesits all they have! It helps build the rela-
tionship after the transaction, resolve any issues with the order, and shows your company is proactive.
The best way to do this is to send the customer an email a few days after the product has been deliv-
ered. This should come from a live human being and should be personalized to their order. Heres a
simple format:
From: Name of customer service agent or customer service manager
To: Customer who recently received the order
Subject: About your recent order with
Message:
Hey ,
Im , for .
Id like to get feedback on the order you placed on so I can know how everything went and if
anything needs improvement. You can just reply to this email or call me at .
Look forward to hearing from you,
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Ask customers for feedback and many of them will jump at the opportunity. On the flip side, some may
be more hesitant to call customer service and instead just accept their poor experience and never
return to the business.
Many customers will speak when asked for feedback. Being proactive like this allows your business to
get in front of the customer and get their feedback. It can also be important, then, to track purchases of
repeat visitors and monitor overall return rate.
SoCial Media
Social media can be useful in attracting new customers to your store as well as communicating with
current and prospective customers. Its called social media for a reason - you are meant to use it for
engaging in conversations, not just broadcasting your message.
Everlane uses Twitter to promote its brand and communicate with those who have questions about the
company or its products:
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Dollar Shave Club uses Facebook to promote engagement with their brand and reply to anyone who
has questions or feedback:
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Use these social media platforms to engage with people and drive traffic to your site.
Some stores also choose to embed a Like and Tweet button on product pages. There are two is-
sues that can occur if you embed social buttons:
1. It can take the focus away from the product, especially if the button is too large or seems out of
place
2. It may reflect poorly on the product (and your store) if each product has little to no Likes or Tweets
These two issues can degrade your checkout conversion. Approach with caution before you embed
social media buttons on every page. Remember that you can always test and learn if social media but-
tons have an effect on your conversions.
Try putting social buttons on your product pages and see if it affects your conversions.
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outbound Marketing2
paY-per-ClICk adverTIsIng
reTargeTIng
eMaIl MarkeTIng
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Outbound is anything that pushes an advertising message out, such as PPC, banner ads, billboards, TV
or radio advertising, newspaper ads, email marketing, or even cold calling. Different forms can be use-
ful throughout various stages in the lifecycle of your company to meet your evolving objectives
Pay-Per-Click advertising
Paid advertising can be very usefuland in some ways idealfor the eCommerce situation. List your
advertisement for a product on search engines, and someone already interested in and searching for it
is more likely to come across it than just via organic search alone.
I wouldnt recommend bidding on keywords for products that dont sell well in an effort to promote
sales. Instead, bid on more competitive keywords with popular products where you dont already have
good organic search traffic. In this example we run a search for dyson vacuum. We get our organic
results from the usual round - Dyson, Amazon, Walmart, Target, eBay, Sears, etc. In an ad we see that
Lowes has placed an advertisement for Dyson Vacuums.
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Clicking on the ad brings us to their selection of Dyson vacuums:
This ad is useful for Lowes because their pages did not appear in the first page of organic results. This
advertisement is also relevant (which is necessary for AdWords) because it brings me results of the ex-
act vacuum I was searching for. If it sent me a page of vacuums from a dozen different manufacturers,
the ad would be less relevant and would lose its quality score, not to mention that it would frustrate the
prospect.
Here we run a search for a more specific product. Our search query, nest thermostat, yields a few ads.
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We click on Best Buys ad:
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Instead of bringing us to a page listing all the thermostats they sell, Best Buy links the ad to their
product page. Best Buy could make this ad more related to the Google search. They know the visi-
tor is shopping for a Nest thermostat. Knowing this, Best Buy could make a more specific and focused
landing page for this product. It could remove some of the navigational bars at the top and put more of
a focus on the Nest product and Best Buys value proposition. Creating a more targeted and focused
product page could help Best Buy increase conversions of that page.
You dont always need to convert PPC visitors to buyers. A sales cycle is long, and an ad may not have
failed if it didnt immediately convert visitors to buyers. You may get one visitor to buy a product, but
what if they never return again? Is that ad successful?
Instead, ads can help introduce visitors to your brand. Its there that you can establish your relation-
ship with the visitor, and brands that do it well and provide great service win in the long run. If you have
a specific PPC landing page, dont make the only focus being on converting the sale. Intrigue visitors
enough to give you some small piece of loyalty, such as their email address, or a social media follow.
Before you begin pay per click, you need to first understand conversion tracking. This allows you to
track the visitor from their initial click through any actions they take on your site. Youll want to set this
up before you spend a penny on AdWords. Running pay per click advertising without proper tracking
is like driving blind. Conversion tracking ultimately helps marketers discover the ROI of their advertise-
ments, and having this data helps them iterate on their advertisements and know where to invest a
portion of their marketing budget.
After you get tracking properly set up, you need to focus your attention on testing advertisements. Ele-
ments to test are ad copy, products, categories, the landing pages visitors are sent to after they click,
and the advertisement itself (testing whether adding site links improves click through rate).
What also matters is how much money you put into testing. A few hundred bucks probably wont cut it.
It may require an investment of at least a couple thousand to see if PPC advertising is appropriate for
your store.
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Google is the dominant search engine, but its not the only one people use. There are still Yahoo and
Bing which are used by a lot of people everyday. Yes, Im aware that there are many others but they
wont be the focus as only a small percentage of people use them.
Yahoo and Bing both have a good audience, and part of your testing can be trying your ads on different
search engines to see if they have a better ROI than Google. Perhaps your ideal customer uses Yahoo
or Bing more than Google. Or maybe youll get better conversions on other search engines. You wont
know this until you give each platform a fair test. Take a poke around their page, see their pitch, and
perhaps put some advertising dollars into their platform and pay attention to the result.
Facebook Advertising is another platform worth testing out. The benefit of launching Facebook ads is
that they can be hyper-targeted. You can specify the audience that sees your ads by their age, gender,
education, location, job, interests, apps theyve used, and much more. Some companies choose to use
Facebook advertising to target their competitors customers. The ability to really narrow down on your
target market and catch them when theyre passively consuming content can create a huge advan-
tage.
Facebook can also be great to introduce visitors to your brand and begin building the prospect rela-
tionship. You dont have to make a sales pitch, but instead grab their attention by appealing to their
interests.
Some ads let users Like a page right from the advertisement. This is really useful for building the rela-
tionship with the visitor:
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Check out our blog post on Facebook advertising. It goes into deep detail about how to structure your
ads and the ad copy and images to use.
Retargeting
Lets say you visit an eCommerce store that sells everything under the sun. You visit their shoes for sale
and then exit without buying anything. A few days later youre browsing another website and notice
a banner ad from this same eCommerce store advertising their shoes. The eCommerce store is using
retargeting to grab your attention and bring you back to their site.
There are some things to consider before starting a retargeting program. Heres a short list of pros and
cons to consider:
advantages:
Useful in keeping a product or website top of mind
Can bring a visitor back to the website and convert to being a customer
Can keep current customers coming back
disadvantages:
Can be a BIG turnoff to those unfamiliar with retargeting technology
Can be expensive if no one buys a product from your retargeted advertisement.
Some people have their browsers set to clear cookies after the browser is closed. Others may
make a habit out of private browsing, which deletes all cookies.
A few ideas for using retargeting:
problem: A visitor abandons his or her shopping cart
retargeting solution: A banner ad showing their products and a message saying that they still have it
left in their cart. For your customers, you can also do this with email.
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problem: A visitor views a category of products but doesnt buy
retargeting solution: A retargeting ad that shows xx% off . Can also emphasize your
unique value proposition (free shipping, 24/7 customer support, etc.).
problem: A customer buys a product but doesnt return to your site for months
retargeting solution: Show a more general advertisement about your store. Or perhaps one that is
more targeted that shows the category of products the customer bought.
problem: Customer buys only one product rather than three or four!
retargeting solution: Show them products that go along with the item they bought. If they bought a
fishing pole, you can show ads for lines and hooks.
email Marketing
You should start doing this from day one. Facebook may die next year, people may stop tweeting, but
people will always be checking their email. And it is one of the most cost effective forms of direct mar-
keting availableessentially free! Start building your contact list immediately, and be diligent over time
to continue growing it. Youll find years later the ROI from your email list will be incomparable.
Some benefits of email marketing:
Low cost
Useful for building relationships with prospects
It pays off for years down the road. Start an email list early, years later youll have thousands of
subscribers.
Some drawbacks of email marketing:
It gets a bad rap because there are so many companies that mismanage their email marketing. Be-
cause of this, some people may have a stigma about giving their email address to a company.
If people dont know how to unsubscribe (or they are having troubles with it), they can grow furious
and youll have a flood of people who disdain you because of your email marketing.
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Protect and respect your list by not sending emails too frequently, and never spam. Partner or joint
venture emails should be sent sparingly, if at all. Make it clear up front how often youll send emails and
what will be in the emails. You may want to test frequency and see if sending emails more frequently or
less frequently has an impact on ROI.
A lot of eCommerce stores offer email signup right on the homepage. REI offers 15% off selected items
if you give them your email:
Everlane offers early access to new products if you give them your address:
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Beardbrand promises to make your email inbox more awesome:
Teavana offers to keep you informed about the company:
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NET-A-PORTER (a fashion store) offers to keep subscribers up to date with the latest news, trends, and
latest product arrivals. This is a good one because its specific and aligned with the brand but adds
value beyond simply the products they sell.
Many others make the offer when the signup for an account or when they are placing an order. If you
do this, avoid pre-checking the opt-in. By default it should start unchecked, so people can self-select.
Its less sneaky and will ensure people who are on your list actually want to be there. Some marketers
may be unwilling to follow these sorts of permission marketing rules. Their only goal is to increase the
size of their email marketing list, no matter the tactic. Seth Godin teaches that marketers need permis-
sion from consumers. Its from this permission that they are then able to get the ultimate prize - the
(albeit short) attention of said consumer. So when asking for an email address, remember that you are
asking for permission. Dont assume you have the right to get it.
You have to give people a reason to give you their address. Promise some sort of a benefit, whether it
be saving money, exclusive offers, great content, or all of the above. Keep your emails short and to the
point. Make it clear before they signup how often you send your emails (i.e. weekly, bi-weekly, monthly,
etc.). Be sure to also give the CAN-SPAM Act a quick read-through before you start your list.
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design3
hoMepage desIgn
sITe searCh
produCT pages
MoBIle
eMBraCe unIqueness
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A functioning, well designed website is the cornerstone of great eCommerce stores. Cluttered websites
that have no clear value proposition and lack adequate information are destined for failure. The design
needs to align with and support your brand story.
In the next sections Ill detail some key pages of an eCommerce store and how you can be sure yours
are optimized for selling products and communicating your brand.
Homepage design
The homepage sets the stage for what visitors need to know about your store. Key homepage features
include:
1. ValUe PRoPoSiTion
This is your main selling point, the core promise your brand makes, and what distinguishes you from
others. This can be something like a price match guarantee, free shipping, great customer service, life-
time warranty, etc. Its usually best to make your value prop clear and above the fold.
NatureBox lets visitors know they sell healthy snacks that are delivered to their door.
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Goodrock lets visitors know of their free shipping for US customers.
Dollar Shave Club tells us that they offer a great shave for a few bucks:
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Kaufmann Mercantile displays their value prop in the middle of the homepage.
2. inSTill ViSiToRS TRUST
People can be a bit wary about buying from an unknown store on the internet. The job of the store is
the ensure visitors that it is safe and rewarding to buy from them. Trust is often built over time, though
you may have only one chance to create a feeling of confidence in your customers shopping experi-
ence.
The footer of the Dodocase website has two sections that are particularly important in garnering the
trust of its visitors - company info and customer support. Prospective customers may want to know
about the company and its policies, so making this information readily available shows the company
understands and has mastered its prospects needs.
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Harrys puts its email, phone number, and social media contacts at the bottom footer of every page to
show humanness and accessibility:
To establish social proof, Havertys shows the Facebook Like button on the top right corner of the
homepage, nice and prominent. More importantly, the brand has over 273,000 likes, which validates to
visitors that its a popular store that many choose to patron. Using social widgets can be an important
step in fostering trust between the business and the visitor, and its even more powerful to display your
number of Likes and Followers just underneath if you have a large number of each, while a low Like
and Follower count may actually deter visitors from buying because it shows the store isnt well known.
3. exCellenT PHoTogRaPHY
Professional, beautiful pictures on the homepage draw people in to shop.
Indochino announces their spring arrivals with a large image consuming about of the above the
fold content. They have a singular focus on this homepage with the goal of getting the visitor to view
their new arrivals. You see the big text New Arrivals with the button Shop Now. This is their CTA, or
Call to Action. The Call to Action literally means that you are using images or text to get the user to take
some action. In this case, the image draws people into the CTA, and in fact its difficult to look at the im-
age without viewing the CTA. They clearly want people to shop their new arrivals.
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Ambsn uses this colorful image on their homepage. Clicking the image leads to their swimwear collec-
tion.
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Beardbrand doesnt use this picture to sell any particular product. Instead, they use it to feature Urban
Beardsman, which is compelling in its own right.
Clicking it leads to a profile of the two gentleman.
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Instead of selling, they are using this profile to create a feeling and build their brand.
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Site Search
This is often an overlooked feature of eCommerce stores. Nearly all visitors are coming to your site
to look for a particular item. Given this, its important to make your site search box prominent and the
actual search accurate.
Macys has a giant site search box that makes auto-suggestions as you type.
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Callaway has a big search box but does not include product or category suggestions:
When you search for say, golf balls, the results page uses big images showing products under that
query:
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A good search box is useless if it doesnt return relevant results. If you have a small store with only a
dozen or so items, a site search may not be necessary. Good usability should be enough. But if you sell
hundreds or thousands of products, a good site search tool is a necessary feature.
Product Pages
The product page is often the first page people visit, since many land on eCommerce stores by search-
ing for products and clicking on what Google returns. In these cases, its especially important the prod-
uct page makes a good impression. Its fine to design the page yourself, but here are a few things you
must keep in mind:
PRodUCT PHoToS
People buy with their eyes first. The grocery industry knows this wellpeople cant taste their food
before they buy it, so they base their food purchase based off how it looks.
NatureBox understands that good copy isnt enough to sell a food item, but convincing pictures just
may.
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Selling clothing is another challenge for eCommerce stores. People cant see how they look in the
clothes, so the images and copy have to sell the product. Drop Dead uses multiple images for their
products and 360 degree photos. They also mention the models size and height. In the example, we
see that the model in the photos is 6 3 and is wearing a small. Without this information it would be
tough to gauge what size is appropriate if you want to buy.
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Yet pages rich with product photos can cause slowdowns in speed. If you have a dozen product pho-
tos on each page, it will make pages slower to load and lead to a poor user experience. If you have a
lot of product photos, you may want to look at uploading those to a content delivery network (CDN).
The CDN will help in delivering the photos to the visitor much quicker than a standard web host would.
Finding the balance is important with these photos. You dont want so many that they slow your load
time down, or too few so that visitors cant get a good idea of what the products youre selling look like.
A few rules of thumb for product photos:
.jpg is probably the best overall format for eCommerce
Aim to keep photos under 150 kb
Too many photos on one single page will increase load time. This can negatively affect conversions.
For more detail on using product photos, check out our post on why presentation and context are cru-
cial to product photos.
SeCURiTY SYMBolS
Clearly labeled and well recognized security symbols are important throughout your site. Smaller stores
may encounter visitors more hesitant to buy, so ensuring their security throughout the buying process
is pivotal. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Most visitors now know to look for HTTPS when they are buying a product online.
Offer PayPal as a payment option. Some visitors will not want to give out their credit card and would
instead prefer to pay with a system theyre familiar with.
Make it very clear how visitors can get in contact with you. Phone number, email, live chat, and
social are all good choices.
Any product guarantees or warranties should be placed on your product pages
Testimonials of your store can be great for every page of your website. Probably best if they are
placed near the top or bottom of the page.
Product reviews are useful for influencing the visitors buying decision and showing other people
have tried the product.
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I suggest that you test if adding or removing certain elements of a product page improve conversions.
We have a PDF where we show that in some cases conversions were either improved or reduced by
removing various security and trust elements.
Check out this KISSmetrics post for more ideas on how to gain trust with visitors.
Mobile
Mobile eCommerce shopping is increasing every year and expected to continue its growth for the fore-
seeable future. eMarketer estimates that by the year 2016 eCommerce purchases will reach $86.86
billion and account for 24% of total eCommerce purchases. A Nielsen study of smartphone ecommerce
shoppers found that consumers spend 15+ hours per week researching on mobile sites and apps, while
visiting websites 6 times on average in the purchase process. Additionally, 48% of consumers start mo-
bile related shopping queries on search engines, which is more than a branded app or website (such
as Amazon).
A survey published in September 2012 showed that 67% of mobile users are more likely to buy from a
site that is mobile optimized.
This research should set off the alarm for any eCommerce store that isnt mobile optimized. Research
also shows that 61% would leave a site if they didnt quickly find what they were looking for.
Lets run through a few guidelines to keep in mind when designing your mobile site.
a PRoMinenT SeaRCH Box
When on mobile devices, consumers want to shop for products and compare your offering to others.
Given this, its important to have a clear search box on every page of your store. Lets see how Over-
stock does it.
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overstock
Overstock has a well designed mobile website with a clear search box at the top:
Search suggestions instantly appear:
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Their product selection page is well organized with two products per row. Notice that the search box is
still at the top.
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The product page is clear and search box always remains at the top:
Well oRganized PRodUCT PageS
On mobile, site speed is crucial. A mobile site shouldnt have too many images and it should be well
enough designed that it leaves plenty of white space. The amount of white space you have is a good
indicator of how bloated a page may or may not be.
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Everlane has a slideshow of images with the ability to swipe from one to the next. There is also a zoom
button where upon tapping the user views an image that takes up the entire screen. This makes for a
much better UX than a user having to pinch and zoom to select each thumbnail.
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Scroll down a little on the product page and we see that we can select different colors and see how the
clothes look in that color. Also notice the large Add to Bag button.
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Scroll down a little more and we see more details on the factory that produces the product as well as
more details on the product and the models height.
The bottom links are Home, Checkout, Contact, and Desktop Site.
There are really four parts to the Everlane mobile product page:
1. Product images
2. Color & size selection, Add to Bag button
3. Product information
Some stores fail their users in their design when they dont give any indication that the user has added
an item to their cart. Many times, a user will an item to their cart but there will be no confirmation of it
and the user will not know where to locate their cart. When you tap Add to Bag on Everlane, they give
a clear indication it was added to your bag. You tap it and this appears.
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Close it and we see that we have one item added to our bag.
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Ultimately, your mobile website shouldnt be much different than your regular desktop website, but it
should be slightly simplified. A responsive design aims to provide the best viewing experience across
multiple devices and screen resolutions. A store should be optimized for mobile. This means that
should be no pinch and zoom required and all images should be clear.
Check out this Smashing Magazine article for more details on building a mobile optimized website.
embrace Uniqueness
We live in a world of copycats. In order for a company to succeed, it needs to make its value proposi-
tion and brand positioning very clear with customers and anyone who interacts with the company. Its
not enough to simply set up another bland store that copies everyone else but sells products for $1
less. eCommerce companies need to build a unique brand that is unlike anything else. Its what will
help them stand out and keep them at the top of consumers minds. Bland companies fade away over-
time, while strong, innovative brands are able to resist disruption.
Marketing is a key ingredient to building a brand. You only get a few chances to leave an impression
with customers, and your marketing needs to speak your brand. I hope this guide has helped generate
some ideas and provided guidance for marketing your eCommerce company.
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kIssmetrics is the perfect analytics
tool for eCommerce stores
Customers are at the heart of eCommerce stores; and KISSmetrics
is the perfect companion for eCommerce stores. KISSmetrics ties all
your data to actual people. When you use KISSmetrics, you wont be
tracking pageviews, youll be tracking actual people.
Hundreds of eCommerce stores are already using KISSmetrics to
learn about their customers and each person who interacts with their
website. Join them today and get the insights that guide decision
making and growth.
TRY kiSSMeTRiCS FoR FRee
Table of Contents1: Inbound Marketing2: Outbound Marketing3: Design