To increase your revenue and make the most online sales possible, it’s essential to generate more traffic on your site before of course turning your visitors into buyers!
Online traffic acquisition is the most effective way to boost your ecommerce site's sales. More traffic means more data, more leads, and therefore more customers.
Web content, email, social media, marketing tools... Here’s a list of the 9 most effective online traffic acquisition channels that you can quickly put in place to boost your sales.
Acquisition channels: Definition
On the web, when we talk about acquisition, we mean mainly the objective of acquiring new visitors. In other words, acquisition channels are used to generate online traffic, which can help get customers for your ecommerce business.
Today, there are many acquisition channels to integrate in your ecommerce strategy. Each of them has its strengths and weaknesses, its opportunities and constraints, its challenges, and its specificities.
Written content, video, influencer strategy, social media, SEO, email, SMS, ad campaigns... Multiplying the sources of acquisition allows you to spread your investments to boost your chances of increasing your ecommerce site’s traffic.
What are the different digital acquisition channels that convert?
SEO for a sustainable marketing strategy
Let’s start with SEO (search engine optimization). This process aims to rank your web pages in the first results of Google searches, without ads or advertising.
SEO consists of working on your site so that your pages are positioned more effectively at the top of the results, when internet users perform a search.
However, you should know that SEO is a long-term process that doesn’t produce immediate results. To observe concrete evidence of its effectiveness, it generally requires at least 4 to 6 months.
Although SEO requires certain skills and a good knowledge of the web, a site created with the WiziShop ecommerce solution is going to help you to obtain a better ranking for your online store! All the technical configurations put in place perfectly meet the expectations of search engines for even better performance for your business.
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GET YOUR FIRST MONTH FOR JUST $1Online advertising: the most used marketing channel
Online advertising is a paid acquisition channel that can take many forms.
Your ecommerce advertising may include ads on search engines or image-based ads on Google’s partner sites (Display).
Social networks, on the other hand, also allow you to broadcast numerous ads while collecting valuable data on your targets. This is what we call social media ads.
Although online advertisements have a cost, they’re generally traffic generators, provided they are well targeted.
What’s more, as most of the searches on the internet are now done on Google (for 90% of them), Google Ads remains one of the main levers of traffic acquisition in order to broadcast your content on a maximum of spaces made available by Google.
The advantages of social networks and forums for customer acquisition
Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok... Today, social networks are among the most visited websites on the planet. Using them is bound to increase the traffic on your site and help you gain customers online, through a community and a targeted audience engaged with your business.
Social networks allow you to do “free” marketing, by broadcasting content on your accounts. As you’ve seen above, they also allow you to broadcast paid ad campaigns to boost your visibility and collect more in-depth analytics on your prospects.
Excellent levers of customer acquisition and traffic, social networks are used by consumers to relax and be entertained. On the other hand, users also frequently use them to discover products or to exchange with a brand.
In this context, 87% of consumers say that social networks influence their buying behavior.
For this marketing method to be effective, it’s essential to disseminate information regularly and to avoid mistakes, which requires some time to optimize these marketing tools.
Emailing: a customer service and conversion issue
Emailing, or email marketing, consists of sending emails containing a commercial solicitation to prospective customers.
An email can take different forms. It can be a newsletter sent to registered visitors on your site, an email sent to your potential buyers, or a reminder sent to all your visitors who have abandoned their shopping cart and haven’t finalized their order.
WiziShop now allows you to automate emailing campaigns, which is a real time saver. Moreover, emailing has the advantage of offering quick results.
Another benefit: it’s an acquisition channel whose cost remains low.
To give you some figures, for every $1 spent on email marketing, the return on investment is approximately $36. As such, 81% of marketers note that emailing is their first acquisition channel.
Content marketing to boost visibility
Content marketing consists of sharing relevant and high value-added information to attract a targeted audience and build loyalty.
One of the benefits of content marketing is that it places you as an expert in your field in the eyes of your potential customers. Online content can take many forms, such as videos, case studies, infographics, white papers, or blog posts.
Their goal is to position your company as a leader in its market.
In the long run, content marketing allows you to naturally attract traffic to your pages by increasing your blog’s traffic, for example, while boosting the awareness of your target and your products.
Moreover, the fact of distributing content related to your business also allows you to improve your SEO. In this sense, content marketing offers a double benefit.
Influencers to build your reputation
Influencer marketing involves using influential personalities in your business sector to promote your products or services.
More and more used, this web acquisition channel is very efficient for targeting a rather young market, shoppers who are very attentive to influencers.
However, you should know that some sectors are more conducive to its use, especially in the beauty and cosmetics industry. In fact, 57% of companies in the beauty or fashion sector use influencers in their marketing strategy.
Of course, the more famous the person solicited is, the greater the cost of the partnership. However, the benefits are greater as well...
When an influencer is relevant for your ecommerce store and you have a good relationship with them, it can also be advantageous to make them an ambassador!
Marketplaces to reach more customers
Marketplaces are platforms that bring together a whole bunch of merchants and that allow internet users to find the most products possible on a single site.
Among the most famous of them: Amazon!
Marketplaces include price comparison services that are a very important source of traffic. These services make it easier for internet users to compare products.
These online spaces are a place of interaction between sellers and buyers, which allows smaller online stores to make themselves known.
Marketplaces are an essential and very efficient acquisition channel to highlight your offers and gain notoriety. Customer reviews on marketplaces are also very beneficial to reassure potential buyers and generate more trust.
Today, 30% of internet users confide that they have bought on marketplaces in the last six months. This is why many e-tailers sell their products on these marketplaces.
Affiliate marketing: a very powerful marketing lever
Affiliate marketing is a technique based on partnerships.
Affiliate marketing encourages people or other companies to promote your products in exchange for a fee.
In other words, every time someone orders from your site through a partner, they’re paid a commission.
Each brand is free to set up its own affiliate program according to its budget.
It’s therefore a very helpful technique to capture more customers at a lower cost. The main challenge, however, is to find valuable affiliates who are convinced of the usefulness and interest of your products.
To help you create your affiliate program, there are platforms like Affilae.
The press to build brand awareness
Finally, using the press is a great way to bring customers to your site.
The fact that your products are mentioned in reference sites or books, related to your business sector, is a guarantee of seriousness.
Moreover, public relations don’t necessarily cost money. Some journalists may mention your brand without you even having to pay!
All you have to do is spend some time developing your network and your image. It’s of course a good idea to have innovative arguments that are out of the ordinary, whether they’re about the brand or the product for example.
In order to help you to understand all these levers, WiziShop provides you with a complete video training on ecommerce. It’s complimentary with your subscription!
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GET YOUR FIRST MONTH FOR JUST $1The acquisition levers in question
What are the best acquisition channels for ecommerce customers?
To summarize the best acquisition channels in ecommerce, here’s the list of levers to include in your ecommerce marketing checklist:
- SEO
- Online advertising
- Social networks
- E-mailing
- Content marketing (blog, social networks, review sites)
- Influencers
- Marketplaces
- Affiliation
- Press
Which channel has the lowest cost of acquisition per user?
The channel with the lowest cost will undoubtedly be SEO, especially if you manage your content creation strategy internally.
This organic lever requires no direct investment. Of course, you’ll need to invest time or money in the salary of a person who will take care of this part.
But by writing your content in the best way with the right keywords and the right size, by optimizing your images, and by benefiting from a technically efficient site, you’ll stay in the top of Google’s sites for your targeted keywords!
With the WiziShop solution, the technical part is already efficient: all our online stores are highly appreciated by Google.
All you have to do is create your content according to our SEO recommendations and improve your popularity on the internet, and you’ll be able to enjoy maximum visibility for free!
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GET YOUR FIRST MONTH FOR JUST $1What are the main boosters for online purchases?
To give your online store a boost, we recommend these different digital marketing levers:
- advertising online and on social networks
- calling on qualified influencers
- putting your items online on marketplaces
These three solutions will require you to invest a certain amount of money, but the return on investment will be maximized, especially if you propose temporary offers or specific sales!
To choose your acquisition channels, it’s essential to understand your business and define your target audience, your budget, and your objectives. Not all markets are suitable for all acquisition channels.
It also depends on how fast you want to achieve your goals. Generally speaking, the higher the budget for your acquisition channels, the faster the payoff.
Think about evaluating the performance of your marketing actions to possibly correct your communication axes. Little by little, experience will allow you to know which acquisition channels are the most appropriate for your activity.
