🛒The state of eCommerce in 2020 🛒
With a new year upon us, It’s time to look forward and plan for what 2020 holds for e-Commerce and NO we’re not talking about Fidget Spinners or Hoverboards.
The only way to plan for the new year ahead is to look back and analyze the trends of the market to see where things are heading for this year and the next decade of ecommerce as a whole.
None of what I’m about to share with you is theory…
It comes from analyzing and managing the performance of campaigns across a range of businesses and product ranges and literally MILLIONS of dollars over the last few years…
So, let’s get into it!
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1. Facebook Ad ‘Hacks’ and ‘methods’ are increasingly becoming less effective.
No one wants to hear this, but gaming the system is becoming increasingly less realistic AND this is a good thing!
The system and algorithm is smart enough to know WHO your ideal customer is, your job as a media buyer / marketer / brand owner is to focus less on the next best ‘bidding hack’ or ‘scaling strategy’ and instead, create a more holistic positive experience through strong ad creative, good copy and a positive landing page experience for your potential customers.
The best ‘hack’ of all is genuinely having a great product, an awesome company philosophy and to seriously provide massive value to your customers and community…
When you get this right, the profits will come and Facebook will reward you not only with endless amounts of buyers but CHEAP CPM’s! Something a lot of brands aren’t experiencing anymore…
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2. More and more people are buying online than ever before. Period.
The Boomers market is especially BOOMING for e-commerce and they’re becoming more and more tech savvy meaning they’re more comfortable shopping online and also online more often.
That being said, The customer is becoming far more skeptical, far more critical and far more aware of standard marketing tactics like countdown timers, spin the wheel boxes etc…
Your customers will go where the best looking, best feeling and easiest to navigate store / landing page is. If you’re slamming your customer with invasive, full screen Opt in boxes, Countdown timers, sales pop notifications and more… You’ll likely lose them…
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3. The real key 🔑 to scale has almost NOTHING to do with Facebook and EVERYTHING to do with the 5 macro levers of profitability.
I don’t really have the space here to break them all down in details and then the micro pillars within the 5 macro pillars but so that you have the general concept, the 5 macro pillars are:
• AOV (Average Order Value)
• CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)
• LTV (Lifetime Value)
• FB (Facebook)
• OO (Offer Optimization)
By spending all of your time and focus trying to game the algorithm or implement the next best hack, you’re only tweaking & optimizing one of the 5 macro pillars…
You’re missing out on the exponential compound growth opportunity that’s right in front of you if you were to focus on all 5 areas…
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4. Amazon is making your customers more entitled.
Fast Shipping, Free Shipping, Fast and reliable customer support and easy returns are all things that Amazon offers (among a long list of others)
If you’re still charging shipping with no incentive to unlock free shipping…
Have shipping that’ll take longer than 1-2 weeks max…
Neglecting your customers and their feedback / requests
You will be SQUASHED and rapidly put out of business by the brands who are willing to adapt and give the customers what they want.
Even the ‘offer’ of free shipping is quickly becoming mundane as customers are used to this level of service even on a weekend, it’s time to rethink your offers and the value you’re providing your end customers.
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5. The sales experience is EVERYTHING. Still driving traffic direct to a standard product page? That’s a MAJOR issue…
Last year made it more obvious than ever before that the best and most scalable products we’ve worked with have NOT been driving traffic direct to a product page.
Instead, we’ll do 1 of 2 things…
1) Drive traffic direct to the home page or custom catalogue page and let the customer self explore, self identify and let them go to the product / collection that’s right for them.
2) Drive traffic direct to an optimized landing page that pushes 1 product and 1 solution.
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6. Using multiple digital assets for retargeting is the #1 way to scale aggressively in retargeting.
By digital assets I mean:
• Advertorials
• Review Pages
• Long form sales page
• Short form sales page
• VSL’s (Video Sales Letters)
If someone doesn’t buy on the first visit, there’s a large % of people who aren’t buying because what’s on your product / sales page ISN’T convincing them to buy…
So what is retargeting them back to the same page going to do?
By have multiple digital assets lined up it gives you the ability to re-target and re-sell to your audience in different ways.
I could go on and on with different trends coming for this year and the decade ahead for ecommerce but these 6 are more than enough for you to focus on to see exponential growth this year and the years following 🚀
Bring on Q1 and here’s to your best year yet!
P.S. One last thing… For Top Of Funnel ads, native creative is CRUSHING anything with edits / animations on it.
Middle & Bottom Of Funnel have seen equal results.
If you’re not using native creatives for TOF – You’re missing out on some solid growth opportunities!
