E-commerce Marketing Automation

 What is E-commerce Marketing Automation?

E-commerce marketing automation is the process that automatically implements processes, tasks, and marketing campaigns. It implements the marketing software that launches effective marketing campaigns for your e-commerce business advertising.

Automating e-commerce marketing helps you in the following ways.

• Saves time and resources
• Removes the risk of human error
• Expedites customer retention by customizing the shopping experience of each customer
• Contributes to business growth
• Streamlines complex processes
• Cart recovery through abandoned cart emails
• Obtain more traffic to their website
• Increases the Average Order Value (AOV) by improving the user experience on the website
• Optimize business revenue
• Streamline advertisement strategies

The marketing automation e-commerce software helps online sellers to launch effective marketing campaigns without managing them manually. It can accomplish automated email marketing campaigns, schedule omnichannel campaigns, and schedule social media posts.

They simply have to deploy the initial configurations and enjoy the outcomes of an online business. You can make the required adjustments to modify any automated actions accomplished with software solutions.

Types of Marketing Automation Seen in E-commerce

Here are some major marketing automation types used in the E-commerce industry.

1. Email marketing automation

A manual email marketing strategy consumes time and resources for prospects to interact with a company. 

Email marketing automation facilitates email campaigns to share valuable content about your product or trends prevalent in the industry. It builds dynamic content to improve conversions and user engagement. 

Following the predefined rules, you can activate email messages depending on your customers’ actions. For example, you can send customers a ‘welcome email’ when they sign up. This develops trust and foster relationships with customers.

2. Automated workflows

Customers expect tailored experiences at all touchpoints throughout the customer journey. This task is challenging if data needs to be integrated and delivered to all marketing tools the brand uses. Hence, it is significant to design automated workflows that convey all the customer data throughout the process.

Automated workflows incorporate advanced/modern marketing communication tools for new customers, delivering notifications, and managing return processes.

3. Customer analytics

Customer analytics involves the collection of data points which demonstrate the following aspects.

• What are customers interacting with?
• How are customers interacting?
• For how long are the customers interacting?

Interpretation of those data explains the aspects that match your various customer segments.

You need to dive deep to understand your customer analytics and make smart business decisions on what works well for you. Use these following metrics to analyze site’s performance:

• The number of users who clicked on a homepage offer.
• The number of daily pageviews.
• Compare the number of users who bounce with those who stay to visit another page.
• The average amount of time dedicated to a webpage.

4. Creating and maintaining landing pages

The e-commerce automation connects you with your customers through their browsing behavior and demographic data. If customers are looking for chairs, your landing page should provide chair details to grab their attention and interest. Marketing automation and e-commerce software can create landing pages targeted to every segment for higher conversions and relevancy.

Your marketing automation software helps you quickly execute A/B testing between your landing and product pages. Hence, you can easily decide on the digital asset you use.

5. Omnichannel automation

Omnichannel marketing incorporates multiple digital marketing channels collectively. The omnichannel channels can cover text messages (SMS), email marketing, paid social campaigns, chatbots, and direct mail. These channels enhance the customer experience, develop leads and strengthen customer relationships effectively. 

For instance, one of the most robust paid advertising channels is Google Shopping. With the help of omnichannel automation, an e-commerce company can incorporate its Google shopping feed and drive Google Ads that display its product images directly on the Google search page. Consequently, it attracts more sales, enhances search visibility, and develops trust with your audience.

The Main Benefits of E-commerce Marketing Automation

Increases business efficiency

Marketing automation e-commerce uses software or web-based services to strategize, execute, manage and automate marketing tasks over multiple channels. This reduces time wastage and makes business efficient. It saves time, boosts ROI, optimizes costs, and drives customer loyalty. 

Helps to increase your business revenue

Marketing automation e-commerce helps you pinpoint new revenue streams and upselling and cross-selling opportunities for your e-commerce business. 

Your key goal is to increase revenue and sales. There are various ways to fulfill this goal, including customer retention, customer acquisition, and optimizing the average order value. E-commerce marketing automation helps you to excel in these aspects without putting in manual effort. It prioritizes retaining customers as acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining existing ones.

Other key benefits

• The e-commerce automation software helps you to set triggered email campaigns to deliver relevant information to users when they undertake specific actions.
• It allows setting up email campaigns to retain lost customers or regularly deliver abandoned cart reminders to encourage them to complete a purchase.
• A/B testing helps to increase the average order value to understand the impact of a price change on various customer segments.
• It uses automatic product suggestions to allow upselling and cross-selling. The upselling and cross-selling are carried out on different pages or providing bundled packages depending on user analytics and behavior.
• It provides noteworthy results for mobile-first brands.
• The marketing automation e-commerce software helps you to set up landing pages. These pages would work as lead magnets to grow your subscriber lists.
• An automated email campaign keeps you connected with new subscribers who have demonstrated some interest in your brand.

What are Examples of Marketing Automation?

Here are the commonly used examples of marketing automation.

• Transactional emails (for example, a password reset email)
• Customer service emails (for example, “We’ve acknowledged your support ticket”)
• Retargeting
• Credit card expiry warnings
• Lead nurturing email marketing campaigns
• Email surveys and feedback requests
• Welcome email series
• Receipt emails
• Cart or browse abandonment emails
• Automated follow-ups (“Did you get a chance to read our ebook?”)
• Posting to social media
• Omnichannel marketing
• Visualized workflows
• A/B testing
• Chatbots
• Pre-filled forms

How to Use Marketing Automation in E-commerce?

The following points will clear your confusion on how to use marketing automation for e-commerce.

Welcome new leads and orient them to your brand

Many business websites trigger e-commerce marketing email automation workflows that welcome visitors to the website upon signing up. Subsequently, it can share the brand’s message, acquire consent for adding the customer to the email list or lead them through the purchase process. You can attract new leads with discounts and promos, which they will acquire instantly after swiping their credit or debit card.

The marketing automation software automatically conveys the leads to a welcome email series. This educates them on how to use the products. 

Win back lost sales

A win-back email campaign includes a sequence of targeted and tailored emails you send to lost customers who haven’t bought from your e-commerce website for a while. This lets your customers interact with your email content and purchase something from your store again. 

Prioritizing winning back lost sales is crucial because CAC is higher than customer retention. Moreover, re-engaging lost customers monetarily benefits your business.

Re-engage inactive customers

The e-commerce marketing automation allows you to re-engage with old or inactive leads who had previously shown interest in your service/product but lost contact. You can reach out to them through fresh offers and content to boost your sales.

You can use the marketing automation platform to identify inactive leads from past conversations and deliver promotional coupons with expiration dates. Consequently, they will not miss the promotion, although they will see your email the next day.

Send automated e-commerce to upsell and cross-sell campaigns to your customers

E-commerce marketing automation can help you cross-sell and upsell your existing customers effectively. You can infer your customers’ needs and expectations from their actions like multiple visits to previous purchases or a product page.

Automated e-commerce marketing uses automated emails to nurture leads and develop robust customer loyalty. These emails demonstrate that your business’ offerings don’t fulfill a one-time need. Your upsell and cross-sell campaigns denote how much you value your customers’ shopping experience over and above the initial purchase. 

Nurture leads and build strong customer loyalty with lead scoring and emails

With new customers on your ecommerce business, they need two things:

• Good experience
• Time saving service

The e-commerce marketing automation helps to build relationship with new leads and customers. They require knowledge on how to use your products and what service your company proivdes. 

E-commerce marketing automation sends email campaigns and connects with your sales CRM. It guarantees new leads and customers get enough support from your e-commerce store. It also saves time and guarantees a satisfying customer experience.

Reward your loyal customers with discounts and special offers

E-commerce automation derives customers’ insights without wasting time and shifting your focus away from essential business tasks. Loyal customers can purchase more from your e-commerce store. 

E-commerce marketing automation segments your best customers and rewards them for their buying behavior. As a result, it boosts loyalty and sales.

You can send a marketing automation program to transform first-time shoppers into repeat customers. Encouraging subsequent purchases through reward programs (created using marketing automation) builds customer loyalty and promotes sales. You can execute a point-based system that provides reward points for each purchase. Can redeem these reward points on the website to obtain discounts.

Collect feedback

Those e-commerce businesses that encourage users to submit reviews and ratings about their products can boost conversion rates. The e-commerce marketing automation software streamlines product reviewing through automatic feedback collection in this context. It triggers buyers to share their user experience after using the product.

How to Choose the Right E-commerce Marketing Automation For You

1. Determine your business needs

The e-commerce marketing automation software includes setup fee, monthly usage fees (depending on the number of users), and on-site team training fees. In certain scenarios, the marketing automation service providers can levy more fees if the amount of leads generated is huge.

It, therefore, depends on the service you choose and from whom you acquire it. You must plan what features you need for marketing automation, prepare a budget, and ultimately select the automation marketing platform that best fulfills your budget and business needs.

2. Do an initial search on software and reviews

The right e-commerce marketing automation platform choice primarily depends on your business needs and goals. However, you also need to understand how other platform users are exploring its benefits. 

You can review the video testimonials or case studies of existing customers who have already used the platform and share their genuine opinions. Reading reviews from an external source can provide a more reliable perspective about the e-commerce marketing automation platform you want to use. 

You also need to assess some of the best e-commerce marketing automation software that meets your business needs, offers required features, and suits your budget. Also, you must thoroughly research the e-commerce marketing automation software you have shortlisted.  

3. Book a demo and try the software

You may have thoughtfully chosen an e-commerce marketing automation platform, but it’s futile if you find it difficult to operate and manage. You must find the marketing automation software’s interface and features easy to understand. For the same, you can ask for a demo of the particular platform. When testing the platform, you can ask the following:

• Does it present clear navigation? Consider drafting an email or evaluating the analytics and checking if these easy tasks are challenging.
• Does it present contextual information? Certain marketing automation platforms provide contextual information below or when you hover over the title if the titles need to be clarified or clarified.
• Does it compel you to jump through multiple hoops to finish an easy task? If yes, then it can impede your business efficiency in the long run.

FAQs