The Media You Should & Shouldn’t Be Buying Right Now.
Sometimes the world of digital is a little wordy, a little mundane, a big bit complicated; so, let’s start off on the right foot here; let’s set the scene.
As you read this intro – imagine you’re the protagonist of your own film… You look like you, sound like you, and work like you. We even open on a close up of you.
It’s April 2020, you’re wearing cool sunglasses (like really cool), you’re sat in your garden, Boris has said you can’t go outside for more than one walk per day and you spent that buying milk at 7am to go over your Weetabix.
But that’s fine because working from home means you can get a tan while you struggle to read a computer screen in direct sunlight and anyway, there’s a reflection of something even cooler in the forefront of your glasses…
It’s your brand-spanking-new E-commerce site.
There’s a record scratch sound effect and the scene pauses. Your voiceover says something like “Yeah, that’s me. Rushing to sell online for the first time. I bet you’re wondering how I ended up here. Well, I wish I knew then what I know now…”
Anyway, the rest of the film would explain how your character set-up a website, went through the complications of adding payment systems and customer support, but then just didn’t quite manage to hit the sales you expected.
Adapting to E-commerce
Well, here’s the thing, after everybody either developed or fast-tracked their capability to show, experience and sell online – just like you in that blockbuster film opening, they’re left thinking “Now what?”
As we transition to the “new normal”, there are two options:
- You can sit around waiting for bricks-and-mortar retail to come back, or
- You can take on a start-up mentality and adapt.
We at S3 Advertising have produced retail and e-commerce campaigns for the likes of Spectrum Collections and findandfundmycar.com from our creative agency in Cardiff, helping achieve record-breaking ROI through traffic optimisation.
So, how you can we help you do the same?
On-site Improvements
We’ll start with on-site, user experience improvements – this is all about making the process as easy as possible for your customer.
- Keep the checkout process concise, well defined, and free of any distractions. Free delivery’s good too. It’s pretty much becoming an expected element of a customer journey – and without it, or with any form of expensive delivery, this can result in higher bounce rates, tentative sales and big barriers.
- Only show the necessary information on product list pages. These are easy to clutter, but you want to achieve a ‘scan-able’ layout and keep heavy information as an accessible secondary page.
- Improve functionality through breadcrumb paths on product pages; help your users navigate back to a previous page without needing to click ‘back’.
- Add user inclusive search bars that provide dynamic suggest results, quick and easy accessibility from every page and complete search results, even with query mistakes – just like our client findandfundmycar.com
- Explore alternative payment methods for your customers. Buy now, pay later options will really help expand your audience
- Incorporate clear call-to-action choices throughout the customer’s user experience journey, assist their navigation using a single-minded approach
- Live chat features will not only help answer any questions customers might have but also bring an in the moment approach, increasing the chance of conversion during a visit rather than relying on remarketing
Off-site Improvements
When thinking about your customer journey, off-site marketing is crucial in getting audiences to your products. Without this, E-commerce plateaus and struggles to grow. Like planting a seed but never watering it. How’s it going to grow?
We base our campaigns on an ROI model, meaning we’ll work to a target cost per sale that factors in your cost of transaction and the margin you need. That way, we can see what works and what doesn’t real quick. Some things to consider include:
- Pay-per-click online media buying to achieve regular, cost-effective traffic – whether this is in the form of Google Search, Google Shopping, Facebook, Instagram or others
- Always remember a great agency will create an overarching campaign that works in partnership with your online/point-of-sale spend
A recent campaign of ours for jewellery client, Clogau utilised both of the above. The TVC campaign saw us marry up TV spot moments with an online sales objective using Adalyser media measurement tech.
This meant we were able to map out how a multi-media campaign works hand-in-hand with online platforms, linking real-time, virtual sales with TV spot activity.
The relationship of which ultimately becomes more powerful the longer it goes on for, with the effect of brand advertising increasing rapidly over time.
This move helped Clogau secure and report increased online sales by +45% year-on-year.
Make a point of asking your agency
Whoever you’re working with, make sure you ask how they’ll ensure their next ad campaign will work with your new online sales objectives, rather than allow them to be treated in two separate instances.
Brand advertising doesn’t just mean TV. The compelling need to integrate both offline and online channels, utilising digital-first channels such as YouTube or TikTok etc can have real clear, trackable benefits.
Depending on the product, online sales can also see a huge impact from a well-planned and executed influencer marketing campaign. Traditional channels aren’t the be-all and end-all, and this route doesn’t need to mean unattainable celebs with unengaged followings. You’ll actually find far more benefit through a chain of well-chosen, examined micro-influencers that fit your brand for the same price.
Any advertising agency you use should be able to meet your diverse needs and be able to present 100s of on and offline media buying options at their disposal. Each capable of helping you reach your target customer and deliver your message when it’ll be most impactful.
As a fully integrated advertising agency, we at S3 Advertising can build you a campaign that ties everything together – like that piece of string you’ll soon be using to gift wrap products from your E-Commerce site…
Want to chat? Drop our New Business Director, Matt Lewis, an email – m.lewis@s3advertising.agency.
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