Approach within advertising as an e-commerce
Review your customer journey and how you communicate with your target audiences.
Many e-retailers are stuck in the conversion swamp, which is what we at DigiView call it when the only communication conducted by a brand is sales pushes that aim to get people to buy (preferably as much as possible, preferably at once). Certainly you may already have a low threshold for consumers, but without brand-building communication that inspires and engages, you run the risk of buyers turning their backs on the wind if one of your competitors suddenly has a more advantageous offer. Consumers like the product, not your company – that’s the problem.
Review your media mix.
What is the intention of your target group when they visit different media? To succeed in running as relevant and cost-effective advertising as possible, you need to try to understand what mindset the target audiences are in when they are visiting different media. You also need to ensure that your media mix covers several stages, from platforms where visibility will be higher to channels where engagement and buying propensity are greater. Pinterest is a perfect example of a platform where users’ purpose is often to be inspired – their purchase intention is already high and you can push more for conversion, while Facebook and Instagram are platforms where you guarantee great visibility. Review where your target audience is, what mindset they are in and how well they know your company, then adapt the communication.
7 effective best practices as an e-commerce in social media
1. Lower the level on your website.
Once the potential customer has reached the conversion stage, a fast-loading and uncomplicated website is a basic prerequisite for enabling a simple and smooth buying process. If it is not in place, there is a great risk that the consumer will leave at a premature stage as the commitment decreases with long loading times and difficult-to-navigate websites.
2. Dynamic product advertising on your social platforms
Dynamic product ads are a very good and cost-effective way to re-advertise goods to people who have already shown an interest in them, either by looking at the product or putting it in the shopping cart, without having made a purchase. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest are the social platforms that offer DPA´s today, YouTube has a similar alternative and soon there will also be the opportunity on TikTok.
3. Discover: Facebook & Instagram Shops
New updates open up new opportunities for your e-commerce via social shopping. Set up a free shop on your Facebook and / or Instagram page, create product categories and let users see your range directly on the platform. In Sweden, there is not yet the opportunity to make a direct purchase via Facebook and Instagram Shops, but it is something that is expected to come in the near future.
4. Technical foundations & important metrics to keep track of
Technical foundations
Pixel – You can use it to analyze the effect of your advertising by measuring every event that the user does on your site.
Product Catalog – Can be used to gather the products you want to market in your social channels, including dynamic ads and Facebook Shops.
Tactics with your attribution model – Do you know last click, first click or linear? A foundation for keeping track of your efforts and how you measure their return.
Important metrics
ROI: Return On Investment – Your return on the investment you made
ROAS: Return On Ad Spend – Your revenue per invested advertising crown
Purchase Value: The conversion value you received through your campaign
Purchases: Purchases / Transactions that can be attributed to your ads
Initiate Checkout: Someone has started buying through your website
Add to Cart: Someone has added to cart on your website
Viewed Content: Someone who has done what you consider to be a valuable document on your website – for many e-merchants, this means that a person has visited a product page
PageView: Someone lands on any page of your site
5. New customer vs. returning customer.
What proportion of those purchases that we see attributed to our social channels were from completely new customers and how many of those who bought have bought from us before? To be able to separate the number of purchases made by new customers and the number of purchases made by existing customers, you need to have a solid technical implementation in place, but the result will be incredibly interesting to analyze. Measuring the CPA (cost per action / acquisition) per new and existing customer gives you valuable opportunities to see what it costs to get a new customer, versus an existing customer, to buy again. If you combine these insights with the conversion value per group, you can gain an additional understanding of your customer’s LifeTime Value and how you should focus your marketing efforts in the future – towards prospecting or loyalty.
6. Collaboration with influencers to strengthen your brand.
For many brands, collaborations with influencers have resulted in increased consumer confidence as the chosen profiles often have trusting and warm audiences. Does your company use influencers marketing? Make sure to connect the influencer you collaborate with through branded content ads. Your brand becomes a branded partner to the influencer’s profile and you can sponsor posts made by the person by linking the profile’s channel to your advertising account. This means that you own the data and can continue working with the target groups who have been involved in the advertising later on.
7. Additional sales via retargeting.
Keeping track of your products’ buying cycle is important in order to be effective in your additional sales. For example, do you sell shampoo and know that the cycle on the product is about two months? Then make sure you have a refill ad active that encourages customers who bought the product two months ago to refill. Do you want the customer to shop more often than every other month? Let customers discover more products that could be relevant by re-advertise specifically selected product sets to just them. If you are creative in your creation, you will not only get people to buy the same products again, but also other products in your range.
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