Complete Ecommerce Marketing Guide (Tips Included)

Ecommerce itself refers to any business transaction that takes place online—which accounted for 15.4% of all US retail sales in 2023.

It includes selling products directly to customers through your online store or on marketplaces like Amazon’s Etsy, eBay, etc.

Marketing is a key element of ecommerce success in order to promote your brand, products, and services to drive more traffic, generate more leads, and make more sales.

Ecommerce marketing plans include digital strategies and targeted campaigns on search, social, emails, and more to attract customers and connect your inventory and products with customers worldwide. The goal is to encourage more visits to your brand’s product pages and convince people to follow through with their purchases.

Effective ecommerce marketing can lead to significant revenue growth and help you establish long-lasting customer relationships.

Successful ecommerce marketing relies on using the most effective digital channels and formats to reach your target audience.

From quality content to social media outreach, these avenues help you connect with your potential and existing customers online.

Content marketing

Content marketing involves strategizing and producing different content types to attract and engage clearly defined audiences.

For ecommerce brands, this includes a variety of formats, like blogs, eBooks, guides, webinars, and videos.

For example:

• An electronics company could create YouTube videos showing how to set up or troubleshoot different devices.

• A makeup brand might publish eBooks for beginners with makeup tips and guides.

• An apparel retail site might blog about new seasonal fashion trends, while an outdoor gear company could have a blog with advice for hikers.

• A health supplement store might host a live question and answer session (Q&A) with a nutritionist on its social channels.

The goal is to provide shoppers with useful information about your niche and establish your brand as a trusted authority they want to buy from.

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) enables you to refine your ecommerce site and product pages to rank higher in search engines.

This makes it easier for your ideal customers to find your products when they search for related keywords.

Targeting non-branded keywords—-without your company name—-are helpful for less-established businesses. Long-tail keywords, which are more detailed, specific searches, can also benefit certain brands and products.

SEO usually incorporates keyword research, metadata optimizations, site speed improvements, and securing backlinks to boost visibility.

Social media marketing

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest, and Snapchat are now vital components of most marketing strategies. In fact, sales from social media ecommerce are expected to reach $2.9 trillion by 2026.

Social platforms enable you to engage your online audience and promote your products using eye-catching images, videos, and captions.

Social media campaigns help drive buyers to your ecommerce site by highlighting your discounts, new arrivals, and helpful content.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is now a top consideration for many ecommerce brands—around 39% of social media users say influencers or content creators have some impact on their buying decisions.

This type of marketing involves collaborating with relevant social influencers, like popular bloggers, personalities, and industry experts, who have engaged followers in your niche.

Influencer endorsements help you tap into the influencer’s follower base, build credibility, and encourage purchases.

Some examples of ecommerce influencer marketing include:

• Unboxing videos: Influencers unbox and showcase your product’s features to their audience.

• Giveaways: Partner with influencers to run a giveaway where followers must like, share, tag, or comment on the post to enter.

• Discount codes: Give influencers a unique affiliate discount code to share with their followers.

• Takeovers: Invite an influencer to “take over” your social account for the day, enabling them to create content and post it on your page.

The best ecommerce brands use thoughtfully planned marketing strategies to connect with buyers and turn them into loyal, high-value customers.

Here’s how to do just that.

Identify your target customers

Research your buyer personas to understand your ideal customers.

Include details like their shared values, demographics, common pain points, and preferred content formats. Use surveys and interviews to quantify your findings and map their entire customer journey.

This information will inform the rest of your strategy—like what and how to market your products to attract your target customers.

Conduct competitor research

Analyze your direct and indirect competitors to see what ecommerce marketing strategies could work in your niche. Look at their product assortment, brand messaging, advertising channels, customer experience, reviews, and market share.

Document their strengths and weaknesses. Learn from them and spot any gaps you could fill.

Identify your marketing channels

Determine the places where your audience is most engaged and active, like organic search, social media, or influencers.

Evaluate what you already have in place—such as a website, blog, social, paid ads, email marketing, and SEO strategy—and outline what’s missing. Use the gaps to build a cross-channel plan that aligns with your customer journey.

Create goals and KPIs

Set out realistic and quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you meet your business goals.

For example, if you want to increase your site traffic, you might monitor your reach. Similarly, you could focus on acquisition to generate more subscribers or analyze customer retention to help drive repeat purchases.

Determining a baseline is also helpful, as it helps you see where you’re starting and how you perform month over month.

Track your results

Use analytics platforms to track the performance of each of your marketing efforts based on your KPIs.

These data-backed insights help you see which content and ecommerce marketing channels drive the most sales and where you can improve, for example:

• Website analytics enable you to see where your traffic is coming from and how people behave once they arrive.

• Influencer promo codes measure your campaign's success in terms of content and reach.

• Conversion pixel tracking from paid ads helps quantify your return on investment (ROI).

Analyzing micro-conversion metrics is also important, such as:

• Email opens and click-through rates
• Time on site and the number of pages they look at per visit
• Your social shares, followers, and engagement

These smaller consumer actions usually take place before a final purchase. Understanding what is and isn’t working here enables you to refine your approach to push people over the final buying hurdle.

With all this data under your belt, you can then build custom campaign reports and dashboards to present to important stakeholders and decision-makers.

Data visualizations, CRM integrations, and regular, scheduled delivery of your analytics insights can be hugely effective.

Adjust and experiment

Don’t be afraid to change your plan—especially if your current tactics aren’t producing the desired results. Refine what works and change what doesn’t.

Experiment with different messaging, creatives, promotions, or even product offerings. Figure out what converts your users into loyal brand advocates and then roll out broader changes accordingly.

Pay attention to emerging ecommerce marketing trends, such as new channels or ways of engaging your customers.

A few things to keep your eye on include:

• Augmented reality (AR) experiences offer customers the chance to interact with your brand in new ways, like virtually trying on clothing or placing furniture in their homes.

• Messaging channels, like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, now enable customers to browse catalogs, ask questions, and order products without leaving the chat interaction.

• Voice assistants like Alexa support hands-free shopping by verbally sharing a product’s features, price, etc. Voice-enabled commerce will be a huge future focus.

Taking your ecommerce marketing to the next level requires going beyond the immediately obvious.

Let’s look at how you can boost your brand’s customer engagement, satisfaction, and sales.

Create a loyalty program

Loyalty programs provide exclusive perks and rewards to repeat customers. This encourages them to revisit your online store and makes them more likely to recommend your brand.

Offers like free shipping above a certain order amount, birthday discounts, or early access to sales can help drive retention. Gamification through points-based programs also creates fun and keeps your customers engaged.

Invest in live chat

Real-time live chat enables customers to get their questions answered instantly.

Meet your customers where they are by offering omnichannel customer support through live chat on your website, mobile app, and other platforms. Use chatbots alongside human agents to provide 24/7 help, even outside normal working hours.

Quick assistance and personal outreach increase the likelihood of quality leads converting into paying customers. With abandoned shopping cart rates on mobile and desktop at 84% and 72%, respectively, being on hand to help with any problems or questions could make all the difference.

Track the most common questions in your chat conversations and be proactive with the information. Create frequently asked questions (FAQ) and other educational content to take the pressure off your customer support team and show your customers you’re listening.

Cultivate a community

Building an engaged community creates a feeling of belonging, fostering loyalty beyond individual transactions.

Launch forums or groups where shoppers can discuss your products, share reviews, and feel heard by your brand. Create dedicated branding for these programs to build a sense of identity.

Share community content, like user reviews, back onto your website and product pages.

Invest in user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC), like ratings, reviews, tags, and Q&As from real customers, adds authenticity and trust for new shoppers. You can integrate these onto your product pages to drive buyer conversion and highlight genuine satisfaction.

Run monthly UGC contests with prizes and discounts for people who rate, review, or post about your product.

Repurpose five-star reviews into valuable marketing assets, like videos and ads. This enables you to recognize your best fans who organically promote your brand.

Amplitude’s Digital Analytics Platform is designed to help ecommerce brands make smarter business decisions using customer data.

• Connect data from wherever you have it, including your website, mobile apps, help centers, ads, and more. Get a 360-degree customer view and eliminate channel silos.

• Visualize how customers flow through your funnel. Spot leaks and opportunities at different stages, including acquisition, activation, retention, and monetization.

• Tie ROI back to your specific campaigns and lead sources. See if your revenue growth stems from referrals, social ads, email nurtures, etc., and optimize accordingly.

• Get insights into your high-value segments, traits associated with customer churn, product adoption drivers, and much more.

Whether you want to personalize your buyer experience, predict customer trends, or identify new opportunities, Amplitude empowers you with incredible customer intelligence.

Take the next step toward data-driven ecommerce marketing and growth. Get started with Amplitude today.