Customer acquisition is the lifeblood of every successful online business in the brutally competitive sector of e-commerce. In order to continue growth and have a competitive advantage, it is imperative to draw in and keep new customers. Nevertheless, it might be difficult to stand out from the crowd given the wide range of options accessible to customers. Here is when efficient customer acquisition strategies are put to use. This article will talk about 10 strategies for e-commerce customer acquisition which businesses can use to engage their intended audience. Also, this will assist them in improving traffic, creating leads, and eventually sales.
Picture Credit: Mark Chaves
What is Customer Acquisition in E-Commerce?
The success of an e-commerce business is heavily dependent on customer acquisition. Since it entails locating the right customers and convincing them to make purchases in a measured and repeatable way.
There are three primary phases to this process:
Lead Generation: Here, attempts are made to draw new leads.
Engaging: This entails nurturing these leads with interesting content to influence their purchasing decisions.
Converting: This is the stage where they become genuine customers.
The fourth phase, post-purchase customer satisfaction, is a crucial one that often goes unnoticed. Businesses may improve their return on investment (ROI) by attending to customers’ demands after they make a purchase. Further, this will lower CAC, or average customer acquisition costs. E-commerce businesses build lucrative relationships when they are able to attract more of their intended customers. The reason for this is that happy customers are more inclined to make further purchases.
The process of acquiring leads or subscribers sets the foundation for the whole customer experience. The ideal customers, thus, initially express interest at this point. Businesses may transform these customers into devoted advocates by taking care of them and offering outstanding products or services. These people not only make several purchases but also passionately advocate for the business to others. As a result, they become an effective marketing tool through social media and referrals.
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Now, let’s explore the 10 strategies that will help e-commerce businesses in boosting their growth and drive valuable traffic.
Enhancing Product Pages
Product pages of the highest quality are essential for drawing customers to online stores. When potential customers visit a website, they look for a simple way to get all the information they want. Well-designed product pages are essential because people like simple, uncomplicated layouts. As a result, businesses must concentrate on creating product pages that provide precise and simple information. This will encourage prospective buyers to make their purchases. Providing a great user experience as a priority enhances the possibility of turning website users into happy and loyal customers. This leads to long-term success in the fiercely competitive e-commerce sector.
90% of Etsy customers believe that high-quality images are also essential. It implies that selling products with attractive and clear images can have a big influence on customers’ purchasing choices. The ideal resolution for product photos is 1024 x 1024 at 72 dpi. The image standard guarantees that the products are shown in a high-quality manner. As a result, it also makes it possible for potential customers to properly understand the products’ characteristics and details.
Growing Interactivity
The value of having meaningful conversations with customers cannot be underestimated. An appropriate response is essential for a successful interaction. One of the good tools for enhancing these encounters with customers is interactive content. Calculators, quizzes, chatbots, and assessments are examples of the kinds of content that promote active involvement with the business. Businesses may greatly improve customer engagement by utilizing these interactive aspects.
The experience of customers is enhanced by this sort of information, which also more effectively instructs them about the products. Customers are thus better prepared to make wise purchasing selections. It therefore results in an enhanced shopping experience overall and greater customer satisfaction.
Fostering Site Speed
E-commerce businesses must meet customer demands since most users expect web sites to load in under 2 seconds. Fast-loading websites are favored in Google’s search result ranks, which affects user discoverability. However, for these businesses, the effect of product images on site speed causes difficulties. To solve this problem, experts advise using JPEGs and compressing product images to the same size. When compared to PNGs, this provides the best quality-to-file-size ratio.
Moreover, maintaining a standard image size speeds up sites and improves the user experience altogether. Such strategies can help e-commerce retailers increase search rankings and speed up page loads. This, therefore, provides customers with a smooth browsing experience.
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Incorporating Live Chat and Support Options
Live chat has grown in popularity among online customers. This is particularly favorable for both customers and businesses. It provides useful information by recording customer interactions across several pages, allowing the support team to deliver tailored assistance. This feature is useful for recovering potentially lost conversions. As a result, allowing the team to swiftly intervene and assist customers who are having difficulty acquiring information.
Online support via live chat has a tremendous impact, amounting to a 20% increase in e-commerce customer acquisition. Furthermore, 63% of millennials prefer this kind of assistance. Offering 24/7 help with local phone lines improves customer comfort and trust for international businesses. Since it allows them to communicate in their preferred language. When constant phone support is not possible, integrating email and chatbots provides significant alternate support alternatives.
Chatbots have emerged as an effective and timely method of customer interaction. These enable businesses to minimize employee effort while providing rapid solutions to customer issues. Such diligent methods also reduce cart abandonment and website exits. With chatbots available 24/7, the support team can concentrate on other essential tasks while improving the overall customer experience.
Mobile-Friendly Optimization
According to recent data, 79% of smartphone users made purchases using their devices in the past six months. Moreover, in 2018, customers made an astonishing $207 billion in mobile device purchases. Consequently, by the end of 2020, this amount had increased dramatically to $338 billion. These statistics highlight how essential it is to make sure websites are mobile-responsive, giving users a smooth experience. Regardless of whether they are using an iPad, tablet, iPhone 5, or even an iPhone X.
It is vital to ensure that people can easily explore websites. Since the difficulty of horizontal scrolling and button obscurity might have a negative impact on e-commerce customer acquisition. According to Google’s research, 61% of mobile site users will leave if they are unable to discover what they are looking for. As a result, it is very important to optimize websites for mobile devices.
More Sign-Ups should be Facilitated
Trials can be essential for SaaS and software providers to maximize e-commerce customer acquisition. It may be advantageous not to demand a credit card upon sign-up to guarantee that the trial satisfies customers’ expectations. This strategy reduces users’ initial resistance to signing up for a free trial and removes friction.
The number of trial sign-ups may be greatly increased by streamlining the sign-up process. Businesses may provide the frictionless and seamless experience that customers want by only requesting the fields that are absolutely necessary. A/B testing should also be used to determine these fields.
Picture Credit: Bastian Ricardi
Eliminating Cart Abandonment
The issue of cart abandonment severely limits the ability of e-commerce to acquire new customers. It was also found out that almost 7 out of 10 customers abandon their carts while making purchases. There are, however, practical methods for minimizing this problem and recovering potentially lost business.
Businesses can save products in customers’ carts to make it simpler for them to finish their transactions. This will make it easy to get back to the shopping process. The cart symbol can be positioned in the screen’s top-right corner, where users would expect to see it.
The obligation to create an account is one typical reason for cart abandonment. Also, adding a guest checkout option can keep these potential customers from leaving. Transparency regarding delivery prices is another factor that is equally crucial.
Businesses might use timely departure pop-ups to offer discounts to address price issues. Up to 15% of cart abandoners may be saved by doing this. It can also be helpful to use web-based push alerts with motivating messages and deals. A follow-up email with user-generated evaluations and product ratings can be successful in situations where exit pop-ups are useless. Taking into account that it will generate up to 36% of any potential lost profits.
Utilizing Personalization to Boost Conversion and AOV
In order to increase conversions, it is essential to recognize how important it is to give customers appropriate alternatives. It may be quite helpful to suggest products similar to those that previous customers have purchased. As proven by the strategy “visitors who viewed x also viewed,” which accounts for a staggering 68% of e-commerce sales.
Personalization is another effective strategy. Marketing emails may be improved effectively based on the search habits of the customers or by considering their location. It is done while offering suggestions that are dependent on the weather. For instance, matching items to customers’ immediate requirements involves offering rain gear on wet days and flip-flops on sunny days.
The average order value (AOV) is also increased by including related goods on product pages. Customers like offers that are relevant to their first purchase and that also offer value. It encourages customers to look into new goods that match their interests and preferences.
Picture Credit: Eduardo Rosas
Evaluating Everything Using A/B
A/B testing is a must for improving e-commerce customer acquisition. A well-designed interface may boost conversion rates by up to 400%, with conversion rates ranging from 1% to 4%. Having exactly what customers want, however, is not enough since there are numerous design and communication considerations.
Businesses should do A/B testing on crucial features like color schemes, image locations, and button phrasing to improve customer acquisition. Finding the appropriate phrasing can result in more insightful and useful information. The words “Add to cart,” “Buy now,” or “I want this” are examples of this. A/B testing makes it possible to identify unanticipated details that influence conversion rates.
It is advisable to carry out both small, gradual modifications and larger tests, depending on the e-commerce maturity stage. A/B testing can produce useful findings when attempting something new and encountering unforeseen difficulties.
Assessing Key Metrics For Constant Optimization
Average order value and the number of things bought are the two most common key metrics in e-commerce. It also includes the number of transactions in a customer’s lifetime, conversion rates on various steps, and cart abandonment rates. Businesses may learn more about their performance across a variety of categories, marketplaces, and product lines by analyzing these measures.
Every key metric is assessed first to establish where it stands in the process. So that they may execute methods to improve these KPIs, businesses can then identify areas for improvement. To assess these modifications’ efficiency and make data-driven decisions, it is critical to monitor the effects of these adjustments. For an e-commerce business to expand, continuous improvement of these KPIs should be the main goal.
Saajan Ahmed
(Assistant Vice President - Sales)
Hi, Saajan here! reach out to me with any questions you might have, we'd be glad to help.
For an e-commerce business to succeed, customer acquisition is essential. Businesses may successfully draw in and retain customers by putting the correct strategies into action. As a result, it supports them in accelerating their growth in the fiercely competitive digital market.
