E-commerce has been on the rise in the last 10 years, especially with more people accessing the internet and extremely affordable smartphones. While the number of online shoppers has massively increased, so has the competition, which means that it’s more crucial than ever to beat your competition if you want to generate a positive ROI (Return on investment).
In this article, we will explore some of the tactics that will help you get the most out of your advertising budget and increase your conversion rates.
1- Optimize your website loading speed
With the human attention span getting lower each year, and online shoppers expecting faster loading time, having a website page that takes long seconds to load can be a killer to your marketing efforts.
Research has found that the conversion rates drop by 2.11% with each second of reload time. Thus it’s crucial to work with your web development team to improve the loading speed of your pages by making the necessary optimizations.
It’s also well known among SEO experts that improving your page speed will likely improve your ranking on Google! Which is a double win. To get started you can use the Google tool pagespeed.web.dev to get a speed optimization report for your website.
2- Use the magic marketing word: Free!
Everyone loves to get things for free right? Have you ever experimented with free shipping? If you didn’t you should do so! Many case studies have shown that offering free shipping can have an immense impact on your conversion rates.
When possible, include your average shipping costs with the product price to cover your expenses. If you can’t provide free shipping consider offering a free goodie or making a “buy 2 and get 1 for free” offer.
There are endless ways to offer free incentives. It’s a great tactic to acquire new customers and make the existing ones loyal. Experiment with different formulas while keeping in mind the financial costs to find out what resonates the most with your target audience.
3- Make sure to have a coherent Ad with your landing page
Imagine scrolling on Facebook and suddenly you come across a blue jacket that looks perfect to you. You click straight on the ad and get your credit card to make the purchase. But once on the page, you don’t find the exact jacket model you saw in the ad. Disappointment right? You click away and swear to never buy anything from that website.
Unfortunately, this case is very common when the product advertised isn’t the same as the one on the landing page.
Not only is it deceiving for your potential buyer and harmful for your brand but moreover, platforms such as Facebook and Google track the user behavior on your website. If they notice a high bounce rate (people entering your website and immediately quitting without any action) your ad will most likely get penalized and you will end up with higher ad costs.
4- Make the checkout process smooth
Abandoned carts are one of the most problematic challenges for online store owners. Nothing is more disappointing than seeing your potential client clicking on your ad, clicking on add to carts then abandoning the purchase. Here are a few tips to avoid that :
- Try to reduce the number of pages needed to order a product
- Do not ask for too much information on your prospect and stick to the most necessary ones such as the name, address, and credit card info.
- Avoid any hidden costs in the checking process by clearly communicating in advance the total cost of the purchase.
- Avoid asking people to create an account to be able to purchase.
5- Make sure to have a mobile-responsive website
It’s no secret now that smartphones are currently the most used device to connect to the internet and shop online. In fact, 70% of online purchases come from mobile.
And while websites were inherently optimized for desktop screens. In the current era, your website must also adapt its design to the small screens of smartphones and be responsive. This will improve the user experience by reducing any difficulty in navigating your website such as zooming in and out and scrolling from right to left to find a particular information.
Google is moving to a Mobile-first indexing, which means that it prioritizes websites that are by default optimized for mobile. So Improving your mobile responsiveness will not only increase your conversion rates but will also give you a ranking boost!
6- Use high-quality product photos to reduce buying objections
It sounds like a no-brainer for e-commerce owners to be using high-quality pictures of their products. Yet you will be surprised by how many online stores still don’t follow this basic rule.
Your job as an ecommerce manager is to remove every possible buying objection that your potential buyer might have such as the inability to touch or to look closely at a product. High-resolution pictures will give a better sense of the product quality especially when they are taken from multiple angles.
Make sure to have the zoom features on your images, that way, the user can zoom on specific points and get a detailed look at the product. When possible try also to use a video presentation of your product as it’s proven to increase your conversions.
7- Provide social proof from existing customers
People trust people. This is the key idea behind providing customer reviews on your website. In fact, 92% of online shoppers read customer reviews before deciding to buy a product.
Having someone telling you how good the product is can be more reassuring than when it’s done by the brand itself. That’s why it’s important to add customer reviews to your product page, either as a comment or even as a casual video.
People are reluctant to be the only ones using a product, and if you show them that many other customers are using and enjoying the product, it serves as a trust builder.
Conclusion
As more businesses are abandoning their brick-and-mortar stores and jumping to the online jungle, it’s high time that we analyze every step of the buying process and make it as effortless as possible. Implementing these quick wins while providing a product that your customers want can be critical to the success of your e-commerce business.
Samir SOLAI
M2 Digital Economy Law – Class of 2023/2024
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