Eagan Heath, Caravan Digital and Get Found Madison, demonstrated how Ecommerce marketers can reach and exceed their sales goals at AMA Madison’s Craft Marketing presentation on August 31st. In his presentation, Eagan broke down the three must-have strategies for Ecommerce, shared real case studies, and provided actionable tactics that Ecommerce marketers and even B2B marketers can implement right away.
To find success in the world of Ecommerce, Eagan recommends focusing on the Three Must-Have Strategies for Ecommerce: Paid Social, Paid Search, and Email Automation.
During the presentation, Eagan guided attendees through the “Three Must-Haves” by highlighting:
- Automating your Sales with Email
- Top Google Ads Mistakes to Avoid
- Real Case Studies of Wildly Profitable Facebook & Instagram Ads
3 Must-Have Strategies for Ecommerce
- Automating Your Sales with Email
Eagan provided essential considerations for marketers looking to implement email automation:
- Don’t neglect the prospect.
According to Eagan, many people see their email list as only useful for previous customers’ monthly newsletters. But this approach completely ignores a massive moneymaker: the prospect. Eagan emphasized that in reality, the focus shouldn’t just be on engaging previous customers but on growing a list of prospects. - Avoid sending too few emails and embrace email flows.
Eagan explained that many people underutilize email marketing under the assumption, “I receive too many emails myself, so why would my customers and prospects pay any attention to my emails?”But Eagan and his team have found that email marketing, including automated emails, can be highly profitable and should not be overlooked. For example, one client turned on email flows, or automated emails, and realized over $200,000 in sales in just a year from email flows specifically. When you send the right message at the right time to the right person, they’ll open it and take action.
- Your email system needs to know your customers’ activity on your website.
Marketers using services like Mailchimp that don’t connect to their websites are missing out. Your email system and your website must be able to “talk” to each other.Tools like Klaviyo can automate this process and drive revenue through automated email flows. Klaviyo can connect directly to Ecommerce sites like Woocommerce and Shopify and understands whether a user bought or not, what product they bought, and how much it cost. Essentially, it becomes an Ecommerce CRM that makes it easy to set up email flows. For example, Eagan explained that he used Klaviyo to help a client set up an email flow.
- Consider using interstitials, or pop-ups.
Similarly to emails, nobody likes pop-ups, so as marketers, it’s easy to think, “A pop-up will ruin my customers and prospects’ user experience on my site.” But Eagan and his team have found that pop-ups can be effective, especially if they present the user with something they want, like a discount in exchange for their information.To be sure that a pop-up is effective, Eagan suggested that Ecommerce marketers A/B test them. Klaviyo makes this process easy, doing all the hard work for you. It even notifies you when it’s done and discloses whether or not its results were statistically significant. You can A/B test multiple configurations of your pop-ups with different content offerings to determine which delivers the best results. When you find that sweet spot, your client email opt-in rate will go up. As a result, you’ll have more opportunities to sell through not only your newsletters but email automation too.
- Top Google Ad Mistakes to Avoid
In an ideal world, we could set up our Google Ads and start making money without putting forth any further effort. But Eagan advises optimizing your ad account over time, as this will produce better results. He offered the following tips:
- Add Negative Keywords and Adjust Bids Over Time.
Eagan then broke down the basics of Google Ads. With Google Ads, you input search keywords that pertain to your product. Search terms are the words and phrases that you show up for, and these results are provided to you by Google Ads. Eagan advised marketers to inspect their search terms to see if any terms don’t apply to their business. These terms are known as negative keywords. This way, you can scout out any “clicks” that you no longer want to pay for, optimizing your account in the process for more precise targeting down the road.While it might be tempting to simply add the specific negative keywords using the buttons Google provides in its Ads interface, Eagan doesn’t recommend it. Marketers can find far better results if they proactively generalize out from their bad search terms.
- Optimize Your Landing Pages.
It may be easy to assume that Google Shopping Ads handle themselves automatically. Eagan revealed, however, that you still need to optimize your feed. You can’t control keyword targeting the same way as Search ads. As a result, you need to optimize your landing pages like you would for SEO. Even further, once your Google Shopping Ads are up and running, you need to optimize them to capitalize on the best performers.
- Don’t Overlook Google Ads In Favor of Facebook.
Yes, social media advertising is worthwhile, but don’t give up on Google Ads. Eagan’s team has found that Google Ads still performs very well.
- Real Case Studies of Wildly Profitable Facebook & Instagram Ads
Social media marketing fundamentals matter just as the platform you choose to market on. Simply marketing on the hottest social media app won’t necessarily give you all the results on its own. Eagan offered the following tips to help marketers cover all their bases:
- Know Your Customer.
Eagan explained that there are proven principles of direct response marketing that can drive big results. Above all, you must understand your Customer Persona deeply. You need to convince them to stop scrolling and notice you, which is no easy task. Eagan suggested creating an in-depth buyer persona and using the “Customer Mind Reader” exercise, which asks:
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- What are the pain points the customer has that the product solves?
- How can we make the current pain specific and sensory?
- Do they have any questions about their problems?
- What about our solutions?
- Don’t Go On Autopilot if Your Facebook Ads Perform Well.
Even if you see results on your Facebook ads, hitting profitable ROAS is simply the first step. Instead, Eagan recommends scaling up what’s currently working. This way, you can increase your sales and profits over time. And due to Facebook’s ever-changing algorithm, it’s never wise to go on autopilot. Keep alert and never stop learning.
- Stop the Scroll Tip: Make Personable Ads
To capture people’s attention, Eagan suggests adding personal touches to Facebook and Instagram Ads. Whether it’s through longer posts that mimic a post from a human Facebook user, some emojis, or a form of social proof, these humanizing tactics can drive results. It’s also important to consider the wording potential customers themselves use. These specific words and phrases can be applied to ad titles and even customer testimonials. This is a prime opportunity to use A/B testing, too.
- Case Studies: Facebook & Instagram Ad Results
Burman Coffee Traders
Burman Coffee Traders spent $15,700 on Facebook ads and made over $221,000 in sales. Additionally, they experienced a 1400%, or 14X return.=
The Healthy Place
The Healthy Place advertised on Facebook and Instagram and got a healthy 3.51X return on their money during January 1st-April 28th, 2021. This period coincided with the iOS update that disrupted social advertising in many ways, yet they managed to still capture excellent results with a 6.75X return between July 5th and August 31st, 2021. All in all, they put in $24,000 and made $163,000 in sales through this channel.
What WE Make
From January-April 2021, What WE Make spent just under $10,000 and made almost $90,000 in sales through Facebook Ads.
Final Takeaways: The Winning Formulas
In closing, Eagan shared some of the winning formulas to success that he and his team have discovered:
- Targeting:
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- Broad: If you’re targeting a product with broad appeal that has a broad audience, try targeting USA 18-65+ years of age and see what happens.
- Lookalike: When you have a pixel installed on your site, you’re marketing to the people like the people on your email list, like your customers, like the people who spent 50% of the most time on your site.
- Remarketing: Don’t miss out on the sales opportunities that come from remarketing.
- Visuals:
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- Use bright images and videos that show results or social proof.
- Headlines and Copy:
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- Put plenty of thought into your headlines and copy and prioritize a clear call to action.
- Offers:
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- Offers: Discounts and free resources are a highly effective way to reel people in.
- Testing:
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- Start small in the beginning and scale up when you’re getting good results.
See You Online for October’s Craft Marketing
Craft Marketing invites you to its next event at 4 PM on October 26th where David Mantey of Industrial Media, LLC, will present “How Trade Publications Can Improve Your Business.”
Register here for the online event.
Author
Kara Martin, Content Writer at Naviant, specializes in written B2B content, from case studies to blogs. She transforms complex technical information into compelling, data-driven content.