10 Digital Marketing Strategies For eCommerce Websites

Digital marketing is one of the best ways to increase your sales. A well-defined eCommerce digital marketing strategy will help you allocate your budget and resources to those channels that can generate more sales and revenue for your business.

This guide will teach you the best digital marketing strategies for eCommerce websites. These are the same practices we have used repeatedly to 10X the sales of our customers in the B2B and B2C space.

What is eCommerce Marketing?

eCommerce marketing

is the process of promoting an eCommerce business's products or services to the right audience using one or more online marketing channels.

eCommerce marketers use different digital marketing techniques to drive traffic to a website and convert visitors into customers.

eCommerce marketing is important because without having an action plan and strategy to follow, it’s very easy to get lost and end up working on activities that won’t contribute to the growth of your online business.

10 Ecommerce Digital Marketing Strategies

1. Product Page SEO
2. Content Marketing
3. Facebook Ads
4. Retargeting
5. Google Shopping
6. Google Ads
7. Google Discover Ads
8. Email Marketing
9. Customer Reviews
10. Checkout Optimization

1. Product Page SEO

Product SEO

is a great way for your products to get found on Google without paying for advertising.

I added this strategy first because it takes time for SEO to work, so the sooner you work on your product page SEO, the better.

If your eCommerce business is new, SEO cannot help you in the short term, but it can guarantee your success in the long term.

When optimizing your product pages for SEO, you need to take into account several factors, the most important are:

Optimizing the product URL - An SEO-friendly URL is short and accurately describes the product.

A common mistake shop owners make is using codes within the product URLs that make no sense to users and search engines.

Revising your product URLs is certainly something that can improve your store’s visibility not only on Google but on social networks, too.

Optimizing the Product Titles and Meta Descriptions - The product title (also known as the page title) is the single most important SEO element for all kinds of websites.

The page title is shown in the search results and social media postings, and it is one of the elements that search engine algorithms use when indexing and ranking a page.

You should give users accurate information about the product in your page title. You should try to include the unique characteristics of the particular product in 160 characters or less.

Optimizing the page content - A product page should also include text content. Having images of the product and the price (without any other information) does not help search engines or users.

Take a look at any Amazon product listing and notice that all their product pages are text-rich. They have detailed product descriptions, user reviews, related products, and links to videos or other resources for additional information.

Optimizing images - Proving an alt text for images will help get your product images in Google image search, and it’s also an easy way to make your product pages SEO-friendly.

Use all modern SEO techniques to give Google as much information about your products as possible - New developments like product schema and structured data make it easier to describe your products to search engines in a way they can understand.

2. Content Marketing

One of the ways to differentiate your eCommerce business from the rest is to invest in content marketing campaigns.

When done right, content marketing can drive targeted website traffic, leading to more sales.

The best ways to use content marketing for an eCommerce website are:

Publish product reviews: Users like to research before they buy a product, and reviews are great for showcasing your products to potential buyers.

When doing product reviews, optimize your content by providing accurate titles and headings.

For example, if you’re creating a review about a specific model, make sure that you include the full model name and the word ‘review’ in your URL, page title, and headings.

The most appropriate review format combines text, many product images, and videos.

You can publish the videos on your YouTube channel, Facebook Page, and Instagram page and embed them in your review post using the appropriate schema markup.

Don’t worry if keyword research tools show low search volume for your review-related terms.

People interested in buying your products will perform a search to find reviews, and you want to appear on top of the results.

Publish product comparisons: Another great way to use content assets as lead magnets is to publish product comparison posts.

You can use product comparison posts to explain to users what makes your products better and, at the same time, use it as the medium to appear on Google for more searches.

A nice tip is to compare your products with related products with high search volume.

When you search for a product name on Google, you’ll notice that the results show both websites that sell the specific product, product reviews, and product comparisons.

This way, there is a good chance that your post will show up when people search for product reviews of popular products.

‘Best of’ series: People using the keyword ‘best’ when searching Google are at the bottom of the sales funnel and ready to proceed with a purchase.

We’ve seen this many times in our campaigns, which is why the ‘best of’ search queries are highly competitive.

When writing ‘best of’ posts, make sure that:

• You include your products high in the list
• You clearly state that it’s your products
• You should optimize your SEO posts with proper headings and formatting. Look at my post on the best digital marketing courses as an example.
• You include a section that tells users which is the best product from the list and why. Many times, users don’t read the content but go directly to the recommendations section (especially if they trust the author and website)

How-to posts:

If you search for any product on Google and scroll down to the related searches, you’ll notice that ‘how to use’ is one of the popular searches.

There are two ways to take advantage of this. The first is to publish posts showing users how to use your products, and the second is to publish how-to posts that use your products.

For example, let’s say that you sell eclectic screwdrivers. You can publish a post on how to use the particular model. The post will explain how to operate the screwdriver, what each button does, how to change heads, etc.

In addition, you can also publish a post on how to build a wooden coffee table. In the article, you’ll use the screwdriver you are selling and explain how it can help you accomplish your task faster.

For best results, everything you publish on your website should be part of our digital marketing strategy.

3. Facebook Ads

Facebook is a great sales channel for eCommerce websites. Besides traditional image and video ads, dynamic ads are one of the most efficient ways to promote your products.

Facebook dynamic ads are very easy to set up. You only need to upload your product feed to Facebook and configure the ad templates.

Facebook will automatically fetch products from your inventory and show them to your target audience in your campaigns. This can be a new audience or people who have expressed interest in your website (this is called retargeting).

During setup, you can add special features like discounts, create carousels, and customize the look and feel of your ads.

If you’re selling multiple products in your store and not using Facebook dynamic ads, add this step to your to-do list. You can get started by reading this guide from FB.

4. Retargeting

Normally, not all users will convert the first time they visit your website. People will shop around, search for reviews, compare prices and features, and look for alternatives.

One way to remind them about your products is to run retargeting campaigns on Facebook and other websites on the internet.

Facebook dynamic ads (explained above) are great, but you can also utilize the Google network and show your ads on thousands of websites that display Google Ads on their pages.

What is nice about retargeting for eCommerce websites is that with the proper setup, you can configure the ads to display the actual products they visited from your store.

For example, let’s say you’re selling engagement rings. A user clicks on your Facebook ad and visits your website. During his stay, he visited several products but left without purchasing them.

With retargeting, you can show him the viewed products when on Facebook or other websites on the Internet.

This creates a connection between your brand and potential clients; it increases brand awareness and trust, and this leads to conversions at a lower cost.

5. Google Shopping

When you search for products on Google, you’ll notice that the search results are also enriched with products. At the time of writing this post, it looks like this:

Google gets this information from your product catalog. It’s similar to Facebook’s dynamic ads in that you must create a Google Merchant account and submit your product feed.

During the search ranking process, Google will pull data from your catalog and show it in the results.

Creating a Google Merchant account is free; you can use the same feed on Facebook and Google.

In addition to appearing for related searches, you can also run dynamic ads on the Google network and show your products in the form of ads on YouTube, Gmail, and other websites that use Google Adsense.

Besides retargeting campaigns, you can also set up Google shopping campaigns and pay so that your ads appear on top of Google shopping results.

Taking advantage of Google merchant center is a must-have strategy for your eCommerce website.

6. Google Ads

Besides the visual ads, you should not forget about traditional Google search ads.

Using the Google Ads platform, you can set up campaigns to show your ads on the Google search results for searches related to your target keywords.

These are PPC campaigns, and their advantage over other campaign types is that they can drive targeted traffic to a website.

You only pay for clicks to your ads and can configure in detail when the ads should be displayed. You can specify specific countries, regions, devices, and other options.

The golden rule when running PPC ads is to monitor your results and increase your budget to a level where the ROI is positive.

PPC platforms use an auction-based system to decide which ads to show and at what cost, and it’s very easy to lose money if you don’t know how the system works.

Besides Google Ads, you can also try Bing Ads and show your ads on Bing and the Microsoft network.

7. Google Discover Ads

Google Discover

is Google’s attempt to get a share of the users looking for news and interesting stories to read. In a way, it is similar to the Facebook feed but without the social angle.

You don’t have friends or likes on Google Discover, but you get to read news and stories that Google’s AI system has chosen for you.

Discover is available to all users on the Google mobile app and Google News.

To show your ads on the user’s news feed, you need to set up Google Discovery Ads from the Google Ads platform. You can use discovery ads to make sales, get more visits, and for retargeting purposes.

8. Email Marketing

So far, all the eCommerce strategies explained above have to do with getting more website visits.

They are related to SEO, website marketing, content marketing, PPC marketing, Facebook marketing, and retargeting.

One important strategy that needs to be part of your eCommerce marketing strategy is email marketing.

Email marketing will not help you get more website visits but can help you generate more conversions.

To use email marketing as a sales channel, you need to have a big list of subscribers and use automation and personalization in your emails.

You can use the resources below to learn more about how to grow your email list, improve your email open rates, and take advantage of email automation campaigns.

What is important to understand now is the value of limited-time offers and how they can help boost sales.

This is a technique I’ve used successfully on many eCommerce clients. The process is the following:

Step 1: Show users a message (a non-intrusive popup or an exit popup) to register to your email list and get a coupon code for a small discount. I use optinmonster for this task - in my opinion, it is the best tool for this job.

Many users will sign up for the coupon code, but not all will use it.

Step 2: Create an email automation campaign to send a limited-time offer to those who registered to receive the coupon code but have not used it yet. The offer should clearly say that it’s a once-off offer.

For example, “Checkout today and receive an additional 10% discount. The offer expires in 3 hours”.

You’ll notice that the conversion rate will be much higher because a limited-time offer creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity, and it’s considered a ‘good deal’ for users.

If your eCommerce store is correctly connected to your email marketing platform, you can even create offers for the actual products they visited on your website, making the campaigns more effective.

9. Customer Reviews

To fully optimize an eCommerce website, you need to work on conversion optimization, and winning the social proof game with customer reviews is a step in the right direction.

Create a ‘Reviews’ page.

The first step is to create a page to post ‘Reviews’ on your website. You can pull these reviews directly from various social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and set it up to automatically show a social feed of the latest reviews from real customers. Testimonials from real customers add a layer of authenticity to your social proof, and this helps increase sales.

When searching Google, users will use ‘your brand name + reviews,” and having a dedicated reviews page on your website will help secure one of the positions on the first page of the results.

This is important because you can control what is published and protect your brand from fake or unsolicited reviews.

Ask customers for a review.

What you’ll post on your ‘reviews page’ should come directly from customers; the best way to do this is to ask them.

Use your email marketing software and create an email automation campaign to gather customer reviews after their purchase.

Make it easy for users to submit a review, ask them a couple of multiple-choice questions to rate the product quality and experience, and leave the text optional.

Send a reminder to those that have not submitted a questionnaire, this simple technique can dramatically increase the number of reviews you can get.

Secure your accounts on public review websites.

Some people may believe that the reviews posted on your website are fake, so the best way to eliminate this fear is to create accounts on public review websites.

Depending on your niche and products, websites like TrustPilot, Yelp, and Google Reviews are trusted by both Google and its users, and they are great at convincing potential customers about the quality of your products and the trustworthiness of your company.

Give incentives to customers.

Adding a review (especially when it involves writing), takes time and only a small percentage of your customers will be willing to do it.

A nice way to get customers to post a review is to give them incentives, such as a discount or coupon code for their next purchase.

Make sure that you send the incentives to customers who have already submitted a review for your website. You don’t want to invite unhappy customers to post a review and reward them for it!

Reply to all reviews on all platforms.

All kinds of reviews are valuable, especially those pinpointing issues with your products or processes.

Customers allocate time and effort to write reviews, and you should reply to all reviews (good and bad) on all platforms.

10. Checkout Optimization

Another critical aspect of conversion optimization is checkout optimization. Go and check your Google Analytics and find out the percentage of users who added items to their cart but did not checkout. You’ll be surprised by the result.

Reducing cart abandonment is a strategy that can directly impact sales and profit without increasing traffic or leads.

Do some simple calculations to find the effect on sales if you could convenience just 1% of those that added items to the cart but did not complete checkout.

Best methods to reduce cart abandonment

Use tracking software like Hotjar to record user sessions. Use their session recording feature to actually see how users interact with your shopping cart and checkout pages.

Remove the clutter - keep the cart and checkout pages as simple as possible and remove unnecessary destructions (banners, menu items, links). Try to have a one-page checkout when possible. Ask users for the minimum required information.

Optimize for mobile - check your pages on mobile and evaluate the user experience. Calculate your conversion rate on both mobile and desktop so that it’s easier to spot where you’re losing customers.

Run A/B testing - one of the basic principles of conversion optimization is to run A/B testing scenarios and find out which version of a page is better. Running A/B tests on your shopping cart and checkout is ideal because all other factors (rankings, traffic) remain unchanged.

So, if you manage to increase sales, you’ll know this is due to the changes you’re making in the checkout process.

Review payment options - A modern eCommerce store should allow users to checkout by Paypal and Credit Card. These two payment methods are mandatory. You can consider adding Amazon Pay, Google Pay, and Apple Pay, but don’t confuse users with too many options.

Remind them of the most important things to help them decide - During checkout, you can add a small box to remind users of your most important benefits.

For example, free shipping, a money-back guarantee, free updates, and anything else you think will help them pass through the final stage.

Key Learnings

You'll need a solid marketing strategy to boost sales of your eCommerce store. Your eCommerce strategy should include actionable steps for all the sales funnel stages, i.e., from customer acquisition techniques to conversion optimization.

The most valuable type of traffic for an eCommerce website is targeted traffic, where you should concentrate your efforts.

Targeted traffic is people who are actively interested in your products and services, and they express this by searching Google (for related keywords) or visiting your website through an ad.

SEO is the best way to reach your target audience, but it takes time to work. So, a strategic decision is to start with SEO as soon as possible while waiting for it to work to start advertising.

Facebook, Google, and Bing are great networks to place your ads.

To increase the ROI for your ad spend, you should run retargeting campaigns and connect with your potential customers through personalized email messages.

When designing your digital strategy, don’t forget to include new traffic channels like Google Shopping campaigns and Google Discover ads.

Finally, spend some time and try to reduce shopping cart abandonment. This is a task that can directly impact sales without acquiring new traffic.