ECommerce Advertising Agency Digital Marketing

An average e-commerce business should spend between $3971 and $7942 yearly on marketing and advertising expenses, or roughly 7.5% – 15% of annual gross revenue. The total amount may be higher if you are in a highly competitive industry, want accelerated growth, or your business generates high revenue during the holiday shopping season. 

E-commerce business owners are often heavily involved with the day-to-day operations of their business. Some of the most common challenges for a e-commerce business include: 

• 1. Competition and Market Saturation: The barrier to entry in e-commerce is relatively low, leading to an influx of businesses selling online. This results in a highly competitive environment, making it difficult for companies, especially newer or smaller ones, to differentiate themselves and capture significant market share.
• 2. Customer Trust and Security Concerns: Ensuring the security of online transactions is crucial. E-commerce businesses have to invest in secure payment gateways and robust cybersecurity measures. If customers perceive any security lapses, they might avoid purchasing, leading to lost sales and damage to reputation.
• 3. Logistics and Supply Chain Management: Efficiently managing inventory, warehousing, and shipping is paramount in e-commerce. Delays in delivery, stock-outs, or mistakes in orders can have a negative impact on customer satisfaction and the company’s bottom line.
• 4. Regulations and Compliance: Operating in the digital space means adhering to various laws and regulations that can differ vastly from one country to another. This includes data protection and privacy regulations (like GDPR in Europe), digital tax considerations, and consumer protection laws. E-commerce businesses need to be aware of and comply with these rules, which can be complex and ever-evolving, to avoid legal complications and potential fines.
• 5. Customer Experience and Website Usability: A user-friendly website that offers a seamless shopping experience is essential. Any hitches in navigation, checkout processes, mobile compatibility, or website speed can lead to cart abandonment. Additionally, providing effective customer service online—addressing concerns, managing returns, and handling complaints—can be a significant challenge.

Because e-commerce businesses are so focused on these challenges, it often becomes very efficient to bring in outside experts to help manage and ensure specific tasks are done correctly. Marketing and advertising are two of the most commonly outsourced areas businesses use because they are critical to their success. 

E-commerce Lead Generation 

Many e-commerce companies are focused on generating leads. This can include building an internal email list for marketing purposes or generating high-value leads that can be quickly contacted to grow revenue. Lead generation typically involves creating a specific incentive, offer, or informational guide and then driving prospects to a landing page to collect their information. You can also collect the prospect’s information on a lead form hosted by the ad platform. Both options can be connected with your CRM or email marketing system so automatic calls, emails, and SMS messages are sent directly to your new prospect. If you want to help set up a lead generation for your e-commerce office, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options. 

Increasing E-commerce Sales 

The most popular of all advertising objectives for e-commerce companies is sales. Increasing revenue is essential for every e-commerce company to succeed. Many ad platforms have new tools that allow you to pass through values for each customer, which means they associate more weight towards the customers spending the most. This allows them to find more customers like your top spenders. If you want to help grow your e-commerce business, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options. 

E-commerce App Installs

Perfect for any e-commerce business that has a mobile app. The mobile app objective allows you to run ads for new app installs or for app events, which are specific events set up inside your app, such as account created, payment method added, or transaction complete. It can also monitor usage inside the app or if users reach a certain area. This allows you to display highly targeted ads relevant to each user who sees your ads. The most common types of apps are games, utilities or informational mobile apps. If you want to help grow sales or usage from your e-commerce mobile app, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options.  

E-commerce Local Traffic 

Many e-commerce companies have locations they are looking to drive local foot traffic to. This can be for a special event, promotion, grand opening, or daily usage. Local ads can be targeted down to a single zip code or a 1-mile radius around a spot on a map. This ensures you can reach the individuals close to your e-commerce location and get your ads in front of them. If you want to increase foot traffic for your e-commerce location,  please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options. 

E-commerce Brand Awareness 

As your e-commerce company grows, it will become essential that you stay ahead of your competition. This is generally done by Brand Awareness campaigns, which focus on reaching a wide number of targeted users consistently over a long period of time. This ensures that your e-commerce company stays at the top of mind for your consumers, who continue to purchase your products and services. If you want to increase your Brand Awareness, please contact the team at AdvertiseMint to discuss your options. 

Content marketing is an indispensable asset in the e-commerce domain, aiming to produce and share valuable content to attract and engage a specific audience, ultimately leading to profitable actions. This strategy is particularly effective when integrated with leading e-commerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento.

E-commerce businesses, regardless of their platform, can enhance their reach and sales using content marketing. Here’s how:

• Platform-specific Product Guides and Tutorials: For businesses using Shopify or WooCommerce, creating platform-specific content about product listing, theme customization, or plug-in integration can be immensely beneficial. These guides can assist both the business owner in optimizing their store and the end consumer navigate it.
• Leverage Built-in Review Features: Platforms like BigCommerce and Magento offer integrated customer review features. E-commerce businesses can highlight and complement these reviews with user-generated content to foster trust and provide real-world proof of product quality.
• Engage Users with Interactive Campaigns: For those on WooCommerce or Magento, plugins and extensions that support interactive campaigns can be invaluable. Initiating quizzes or polls can deepen customer engagement and offer personalized product recommendations.
• Affiliate Collaborations on Specific Platforms: Partnering with affiliate marketers knowledgeable about platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce can provide a dual advantage. They can produce content that resonates with a specific platform’s audience and guide potential customers using platform-specific features to enhance their shopping experience.
• Optimizing Content for SEO on Each Platform: Every platform, Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or Magento, offers unique SEO tools and plugins. Harnessing these tools to integrate relevant keywords, craft compelling meta descriptions, and gather quality backlinks can make an e-commerce site more visible in search engine results.

The world has changed for e-commerce] looking to increase their marketing and advertising efforts using AI. Various new tools enable automation and AI to be used in areas like sales, graphic design, video production, content creation, voiceovers, spokesperson, video creation, blog writing, and more. 

The current average cost per click (CPC) on Google ads for the term “e-commerce” is $1.16 and is expected to increase over time. SEO generates these same clicks from targeted keywords for free. SEO has tremendous value as you can generate a high traffic volume for your key business segments; however, SEO is a long-term investment. Our recommendation is that e-commerce companies should be willing to plan for 6-12 months of SEO services before expecting to see an increase in results from these efforts. Please know that with SEO, the work is foundational, which means each task builds on top of each other. Each action adds more credibility to your website in the eyes of Google and other search engines. AdvertiseMint only believes in high-quality SEO, or long-game efforts, when building SEO. Most SEO tricks or gimmicks often work for a bit but later hurt your e-commerce company when updates are made to the search engines. The only way to move forward regarding SEO is by doing a lot of the right things and doing them faster than your competitors. E-commerce SEO involves three main areas. The first is onsite optimization, which means the pages of your website contain content and are optimized for the search engines. The second step is to build more topical authority around your business to help Google understand that you are an expert in the e-commerce area. This is done by writing consistent blogs between 500-2000 words on core topics relating to your business. The final area is off site linking, which means other websites are linking back to your site and using specific anchor text. This can be achieved by public relations, outreach and building relationships with other websites. When these three are done together, the result is that your e-commerce SEO will improve, and your organic ranking will start to increase, thus sending more traffic to your website. If you are looking to improve your SEO, please contact AdvertiseMint. 

Yes. Every e-commerce should have email marketing and SMS marketing for their company. Email marketing has continually been proven to be one of the most profitable marketing channels for e-commerce companies. Email marketing allows you to reach your prospects and customers with specific messaging based on their location in your customer journey. These “flows” can be set up so that every person experiences the same informational process regardless of when they join. This ensures your company communicates 24/7 with the people most interested in your e-commerce services and products. SMS messaging is also becoming highly profitable for breaking through all the noise and reaching your most valuable prospects via text. There are many rules regarding SMS marketing and how to add and remove people from your e-commerce SMS marketing. If you want to learn more about optimizing your Email and SMS marketing for your e-commerce company, AdvertiseMint is here and ready to help. 

E-commerce businesses, irrespective of the platform they’re built on, face many advertising restrictions. Whether you’re operating on Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, or any other platform, it’s essential to be aware of these limitations:

• Platform-Specific Rules: Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento: Each of these platforms might have specific guidelines for the types of products you can list and promote, especially when integrated with their partnered payment gateways or advertising tools.

• Product-Specific Restrictions: For instance, if you’re selling niche products on WooCommerce or Magento, ensure they don’t fall under categories like alcohol, tobacco, or medications, which typically face stricter advertising regulations.

• Target Audience Restrictions: If you’re using Shopify or BigCommerce and taking advantage of their built-in marketing tools, it’s crucial to ensure your advertising targets the appropriate age group, especially for age-restricted products.

• Geographic Restrictions: A business on Magento operating in multiple countries must adapt its advertisements based on local laws and cultural norms. Likewise, a Shopify store selling internationally would need to adjust its ad strategy for each target audience.
• Claims and Accuracy: When promoting your products, especially if you’re using integrations available for platforms like WooCommerce or Magento, ensure that any product claims are accurate and backed by evidence.

• Payment and Subscription Services: Platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce might have particular rules about advertising subscription services, emphasizing transparency and clarity for customers.

• Endorsements and Testimonials: They must be genuine if you showcase customer reviews or endorsements on your Shopify or WooCommerce store. Misleading testimonials can lead to distrust and regulatory action.

• Environmental Claims: When advertising eco-friendly products on platforms like BigCommerce or Magento, ensure that any “green” or “sustainable” claims are verifiable.

• Data Privacy and User Tracking: With GDPR and CCPA affecting online retailers, even those on platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce need to be cautious about user tracking, especially regarding retargeting ads.

• Cultural and Ethical Sensitivities: If you’re using Magento to target a specific region or Shopify for its international features, remember to be aware of cultural norms and sensitivities to ensure your ads resonate without offending.

Whether you’re using Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, or another platform, being informed and compliant with advertising restrictions is paramount. Non-adherence can lead to penalties and even damage your brand’s reputation.

You can find examples of e-commerce competitor ads online in several places. Here are the instructions for how to view competitor ads running on Facebook, Google, and TikTok ad platforms. 

View E-commerce Competitor Facebook Ads 

1. Go to Facebook Ad Library 
2. Select the country where the ad appeared. 
3. Select ad category (All, Politics, Housing, Employment, Credit).
4. Search by keyword or advertiser.
5. Review Facebook ads.

View E-commerce Competitor Google Ads 

1. Go to Google Ads Keyword Planner
2. Sign into Google Ads.
3. Click ‘Tools and settings’ in the top nav.
4. Click ‘Keyword Planner’ under the ‘Planning’ heading.
5. Click ‘Discover new keywords’
6. Type a relevant keyword into the box.
7. Click ‘Get Results’
8. Review Top of page bid and Google ads. 

View E-commerce Competitor TikTok Ads 

1. Go go TikTok Ad Library 
2. Select ad target country 
3. Select ad type.
4. Select ad published date.
5. Enter in the desired keyword or advertiser.
6. Hit search. 
7. Review TikTok ads. 

For most companies, revenue is the KPI (key performance indicator) we monitor when determining whether marketing and advertising efforts are successful. The revenue can be used to determine the ROI or ROAS for your campaigns over a set period. ROI (Return on Investment) is calculated by subtracting the initial cost of the investment from the final value, then dividing this new number by the cost of the investment, and finally, multiplying it by 100. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is determined by dividing the total revenue by the total ad spend for a specific time. 

In addition to revenue, other companies may use metrics such as CPL (Cost Per Lead), CPA (Cost per Acquisition), or CPI (Cost per Installs) for mobile apps. Monitoring these costs over time can help understand factors increasing or decreasing these numbers. They can be affected by various factors, such as landing page optimization, time of the year, and competitors. 

Many digital ad platforms offer a tool called the brand lift study for companies interested in branding and spending over $100,000 on advertising. This study is used to measure the impact on the perception of your brand when running ads. A brand lift study splits a specific audience into two groups. The first group is shown your ads over a specific period, the second group sees none. At the end of the study, users in both groups are shown a survey by the ad platform. The difference between the first and second groups is called the brand lift, or the increased consumer awareness of your brand due to running advertising.