E-commerce advertising is crucial to succeeding in this competitive digital atmosphere where every brand and marketer is trying hard to let its voice be heard by its target audience. Moreover, with the shift of customers’ buying behavior from offline to online, it is the right time to aggressively market to the right audience to achieve your return on investment goals.
The US e-commerce revenue is expected to be around $4.9 trillion in 2023, increasing the customer base and ferocious competition. With so many options with the customers, it is necessary to have a well thought and strategic plan that focuses on the customer journey, empathy map, and customer persona. It doesn’t matter whether you are in the early stages of your e-commerce business or already have a well-established multi-million dollar business because customer acquisition would always be your prime focus, and there is no better way than e-commerce advertising and e-commerce SEO.
What is e-commerce advertising?
Ecommerce advertising
E-commerce advertising is the process of buying ad spaces in search engine results pages, niche websites, the social media network, podcasts, newsletters, etc. If you are in a position where brand awareness is crucial, you could also advertise on offline properties like TV ads, radio commercials, billboards, mail campaigns, etc.
Search engine marketing or paid search is a crucial advertising factor because you get to connect with the audience who are directly interested in the keywords related to your business. However, it would help if you counted on factors like volume, difficulty, intent, etc., while choosing the keywords for your paid search campaign. In addition, display advertising could be a great choice to boost brand awareness, and social media networks could help you in social selling.
7 tips on e-commerce advertising
1. Choose the right digital marketing channels based on your customer persona
2. Embrace social media to maximize revenue.
3. Google Ads take keywords and quality scores into consideration
4. Focus on improving the user experience
5. Content is the king
6. Focus on the customer persona and empathy map to create the most appealing advertisement
7. Hire a professional to assist you in the e-commerce advertising campaign
1. Choose the right digital marketing channels based on your customer persona
Digital marketing channels
There are several opportunities to connect with audiences online. With more than half of the global population surfing the internet, it becomes crucial to choose the right marketing channels that would make the most sense to converse with your customer persona. In addition, any penny spent on advertising should have a reasonable return on advertising spend (ROAS) to maximize traction and make the payroll worth the investment.
2. Embrace social media to maximize revenue.
Embrace social media
Around 86% of social marketers use Facebook ads, as it allows them to connect with the audience who would be specifically interested in their products by narrowing down the audience base. Facebook allows to target audience based on their behavior, demography, and several other factors, making it one of the most prominent marketing channels among marketers and advertisers. Other social media, including Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc., could also be an option to look at. Along with organic growth on the social media channels, you must also invest in paid social to get visibility and be a step ahead of your competition.
3. Google Ads take keywords and quality scores into consideration
Search engine marketing
Google ads could be one of the most profitable digital marketing channels. You get to connect with the audience specifically searching for the keywords related to your business and product, which means higher buying intent and a higher chance of a conversion. In addition, Google Ads follows the PPC model, where you only pay when somebody clicks on your ad. It means no expenditure for the exposure and awareness that didn’t bring a click.
Keywords
Keywords are no doubt the most important factor within your control. You must spend a significant amount of time selecting the keywords based on the objective behind the advertising campaign. The keywords containing the words like “buy,” “trial,” etc., have a higher buying intent.
Most consumers won’t search for the exact key phrases and still intend to buy a product or service. Moreover, the consumers may commit a spelling mistake or use a synonym to search for the query. To cope up with such complexities, Google allows three keyword match types.
Broad Match
Broad match is the Match type where Google algorithm would still show your advertisement to the people who search for a variation, synonyms, or misspelling of the keyword. The only criteria required is that the keybword should be present anywhere within the query.
What is a broad match modifier?
The broad match modifier is responsible for displaying ads if the chosen keywords appear in the search query in the exact or a similar variant form. A plus (“+”) sign is used to determine and highlight the keywords that must be a part of the search query.
Suppose your broad match modifier is “+Christmas +trees,” then the ad would be triggered for any query like :
- Buy Christmas trees
- Christmas trees online
- Christmas tree home delivery
Phrase Match
Phrase match allows your ad to be displayed only when the searcher puts the query that contains your keywords in the order. For example, suppose your keyword is Christmas trees, then your ad would not trigger if somebody searches, “Trees for Christmas.” However, if somebody searches “Christmas trees for sale,” then your ad would trigger.
Exact Match
The exact match is the keyword match in which your ad gets displayed only when the user puts the exact keywords into the search box. It is the strictest match tie and could help those with small budgets.
Quality Score
Quality score is a tool to measure how relevant and useful your ad is to the searchers searching for your target keywords compared to the other advertisers bidding for the same keywords. A quality score is calculated based on three factors,
- Expected click-through rate,
- Ad relevance and
- Landing page experience
It means that you could still rank on the number one position in the Google ad space, even without having the highest bidding. Ensure that your ads are relevant to the keywords.
As suggested by Google Ads Help, you should try to match the language of your text, add directly to users’ search terms and look for ad groups with many different keywords that the same ad can’t easily address.
Google earns when a user clicks on your ad. Hence, it makes sense to improve your click-through rate to have a better chance of ranking. You could improve it by editing your ad text to make your offer more compelling and ensuring that the details in your ad match has the intent of the keywords. You should be specific in your ad text and experiment with different calls to action with words like “buy, sell, order, sign up, free, find, get a quote.”
4. Focus on improving the user experience
Improve the user experience
Once a customer or prospect clicks on your advertisement, you must improve the customer experience to spread word of mouth and establish authority. Nobody likes a slow-loading webpage with unmatched visuals and color. The navigation on your web page should be smooth, and there should be sufficient content to satisfy the doubts of your target audience.
A good user experience means a higher retention rate and more chances of driving marketing goals. Your landing page should also not be distracting. It should not contain unnecessary links to let the audience navigate other pages or websites without purchasing or filling the form.
5. Content is the king
Content is the king
A general user sees many advertisements in a day which means less attention span and more options. In such a case, it is necessary to have the right content to get the audience’s attention and let them convert. Also, you must optimize your landing page as it is a crucial part of the quality score. Your headline brings the first impression to the audience in the case of paid searches.
Hence, you must showcase the value you would provide to your audience and which pain point you are solving in your headline to captivate the user’s attention and persuade them to click on your ad. At the same time, you should have great visuals for your social media advertisements to earn your potential buyer’s attention.
6. Focus on the customer persona and empathy map to create the most appealing advertisement
A customer persona is the fictional representation of your ideal buyer. Your product must solve the pain point of a specific audience who most preferably buys your product. The digital world is crowded, and you could make the most out of your advertising budget and campaigns only if you knew who you are targeting, what characteristics to find them and where they are located. You could look into factors like your existing buyers to know and define your customer persona. At the same time, an empathy map would assist you in understanding your customer’s needs and help you develop a deeper understanding of the persons you are targeting.
7. Hire a professional agency to assist you in the e-commerce advertising campaign
The higher the return on advertising spend, the better are your chances of capturing the market share and increasing your loyal audience base. When you spend a penny online, you must have a good return on investment to make the investment worthwhile. CodeDesign is a performance digital marketing agency that has helped multiple clients get higher traction and better return on investment with their expertise and proven success track.
CodeDesign is a performance digital marketing agency and Amazon Marketing Partner. Our digital marketing experts have put together thousands of successful digital marketing campaigns for businesses looking to increase sales, leads, phone calls, transactions, and qualified website traffic.
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About the author:
We are Codedesign – a multi cultural, technology, award-winning digital marketing agency. We can be define as a result-led, innovative digital marketing agency specializing in Digital Marketing, Ecommerce, Online Sales, Amazon Sales with a team of experts in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click Strategy and Campaigns, Social Media, Content Marketing, Data Analytics, Ecommerce development, Software development, CRM integrations.
