According to the latest research, online retail sales currently amount to 4.9 trillion USD worldwide, and it is forecast to grow over 50% within the next few years.
eCommerce ad spend has naturally increased in direct proportion, with many companies funnelling more and more of their budget into digital promotional activities. In a report published in February 2022, Statista noted that eCommerce ad spend in the US alone reached 12.5 billion USD in 2019 and is expected to surpass 38 billion by the end of 2024.
With more than 2 billion online shoppers worldwide, having a solid eCommerce strategy can determine a company’s success. However, for many businesses, continually staying afloat in the market proves to be difficult, and not necessarily because of anything to do with budget.
Small businesses (defined as businesses with fewer than 500 employees) make up the majority of firms around the world. This means that when a company decides to start up their eCommerce journey, their main competition may be the big and established brands based on digital budget, but they are also competing against a ton of small businesses in an overcrowded marketplace.
To navigate the eCommerce landscape and outshine the sea of competition, below are five ways entrepreneurs can focus on to increase ad visibility and engagement.
How to optimize and increase eCommerce ad engagement
1. Optimize your ad type to tell a story
While static advertisements are easy to produce and almost universally implementable, studies have shown that dynamic ads are more engaging and therefore more likely to increase the clickthrough rate.
Dynamic ads can also be used to tell stories, which is hugely important for businesses these days. Telling a story is vital as it gives potential customers who have never heard of your business a chance to learn about you and your values.
In today’s eCommerce world, customers do not lack for options, and they are aware of this. Most of them do not just want to buy a product or a service – instead, they want to know they are buying from and the kind of business they are putting their money in. Take advantage of the dynamic ad by emphasizing on your unique selling points and communicating your brand values.
2. Rethink your demographic
Your company may be operating in an overcrowded industry, but that does not mean they are meeting all consumer demands. Sometimes, simply rethinking your demographic can go a long way.
A good example is DoorDash, an American food ordering and delivery platform. With the popularity of ordering takeaways and having them delivered to your door, DoorDash had – and still has – some stiff competition against big names in the industry, such as UberEats, Deliveroo, Just Eat, and Grubhub.
However, in recent years, DoorDash had a revelation when it rethought their demographic. Previously, many had imagined the biggest consumers in the food delivery market to be well-to-do millennial metropolitans. It made sense. These people often worked long hours and had disposable income.
But rather than going head-to-head with other food delivery service in cities, DoorDash saw an opportunity in an underserved market – American suburbia. This new customer segment even came with several perks, such as having higher per-order ticket sizes to feed an entire family instead of just an individual, less traffic, better parking, and more loyal customers.
Catering to this new demographic, DoorDash became one of two of the biggest companies in the American food delivery market alongside Uber Eats, with the former dominating with a market share of over 50%.
3. Leverage social media
As consumers begin to value authenticity, studies have shown that social media advertising can be just as effective as other forms of digital promotion, such as search engine advertising. In fact, as of January 2022, there are nearly 4 billion social media users across all platforms, meaning that if you opt to promote yourself on social media, you will definitely not lack for visibility.
By now, everybody understands that businesses cannot get by on organic posts alone, and that leveraging paid ads for product launches can often rake in high visibility and engagement which can increase revenue in the long run.
Take Nike, an American multinational sportswear company. Despite being a household name, Nike is in a competitive industry that is growing rapidly. To keep abreast of the competition, Nike has been slowly but surely making fewer commercials and investing in digital marketing instead. So far, the brand reigns supreme when it comes to cross-channel engagement, raking in a total of 20.5 million engagements on social media monthly, which is about four times the competitor average of 4.93 million.
Nike leverages social media ad spend hand-in-hand with investing in social media customer service. Whenever the brand puts out an ad, they also make sure that there is a person behind the screen to field customer inquiries and comments.
In fact, 96.8% of the tweets on Nike’s Twitter page, which has over 9 million followers as of April 2022, are replies. Customer representatives answer questions about products and solve customers’ problems, which fuels more ad engagement while building trust.
4. Personalize your ad copy
According to the latest studies by management consulting company McKinsey & Company, 71% of customers these days expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when it does not happen.
These days, customers do not just prefer having a personalized touch from companies – they demand it. Therefore, it is more important than ever to customize your ad copy to your audience if you want to increase ad interaction.
There is also a greater emphasis on ‘getting it right’ with customization. In other words, not only should the contents of ad copies be relevant, but the style and tone of the copy should also match customer expectations, and targeted promotions should appear at the right time.
When it comes to placing ads on social media and on search engines, eCommerce brands can gain a lot from auto-targeting and continually updating their targeting preferences to match what their audience expects. This means that there is also a greater need to do sufficient customer and target market research instead of focusing only on selling the brand’s unique strengths.
5. Offer multiple ways to engage
If you already have personalized ads that perfectly fit what buyers are looking for but are not raking in the clicks, it may be because of the lack of ways they can engage. For example, if your ad is about a specific service or product but contains just one link that leads to your company’s homepage, customers may click on it and leave due to the irrelevance of the link.
Depending on the size, message, and complexity of your ad, you can consider adding multiple links that can take the buyer to their preferred destination. For example, if you are advertising a product, you may include one link that takes the buyer directly to the landing page of the product, one that takes them to your homepage, and a third one that encourages them to check out your social media pages.
However, a word of caution: adding too many options will end up overwhelming the buyer and causing them to not engage with your ad at all. Therefore, it is always best to use your judgement and keep in mind the wider context of your ad when implementing different engagement options.
Closing thoughts
As the eCommerce advertising space will only get more competitive in the future, businesses should think outside the box in terms of ad copy and type, and even demographics. Instead of focusing on the quantity and budget spend of ad campaigns, they can aim to bolster engagement by being responsive and empathetic.
