Table of Contents
When one manages an E-commerce site, whatever it is, one is always confronted with the same dilemma: How to promote one’s site, one’s online store? How to bring visitors?
Many entrepreneurs swear by only one method to generate their traffic… Yet, you have multiple ways to fill the funnel of your E-commerce.
I therefore invite you to read a list of 18 levers – grouped into 4 main categories – which will allow you to increase the visibility of your site & attract more potential buyers for your online store.
Do you know them all? Check it out immediately!
Make your site known through search engines
1 / Natural referencing on search engines (SEO)
Search engines remain essential levers to make your website known.
Google rules of the world!..
With 5.6 billion searches per day on Google, a website – whatever it is – cannot ignore its natural referencing in its traffic acquisition strategy.
Search engines remain an important source of qualified traffic. In particular because they allow you to bring in visitors who have an explicit intention around your product category.
The goal of SEO: optimize “on-site” and “off-site” factors to win top positions
The goal of the SEO discipline is to position a site in the first search results, for certain target keywords. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) also includes:
- internal site optimization ( On-site)
- that the work of netlinking necessary to increase the popularity of a site in the eyes of search engines.
Beyond Google: Vertical Search
In 2022, the search engine landscape extends far beyond Google. We are talking about vertical research, ie the requests made by Internet users on “specialized” sites such as YouTube, Amazon, marketplaces, etc.
The SEO problem is therefore no longer only:
- “how to appear on Google”,
- but also “how to appear on Amazon, on Esty, on Pinterest, on LinkedIn, etc.
It all depends on the industry in which you operate, and the platforms that are most used by your customers.
Advantages & disadvantages of SEO
Benefits
- Really capable of generating high traffic
- Qualified visits, which have a real intention around the niche on which the site is positioned
- “ Free ” traffic, since the visits generated naturally by search engines do not involve any media cost
- Dynamic & constantly up-to-date : Google robots automatically identify new content published by a site
Disadvantages
- “ Unpredictable ” performance ; a site can technically lose positions in search results overnight
- Results that take time (we do not become first on Google overnight on highly searched keywords)
- SEO remains a complex and opaque discipline, insofar as no one really knows all the ranking factors taken into account by search engines.
- Requires continuous investment to constantly improve and maintain organic visibility.
2 / Search Engine Advertising (SEA)
Sponsored links that offer instant visibility & controlled costs
A sponsored links campaign is an advertising action on search engines paid for by the “click”. This type of advertising can be purchased via the Google Ads platform (for Google), Microsoft Advertsing (Bing) or Amazon Advertising (for Amazon).
The main advantage of Search Engine Advertising (SEA) is that it offers high visibility instantly, and that it allows you to control your acquisition cost : as an advertiser, you bid on a keyword to be able to appear in front of others.
An auction system, which rewards the relevance of your site in relation to the request
SEA advertising is an example of performance advertising where advertisers must bid on relevant keywords.
It’s a bit like the stock market for keywords… However, you can’t improvise yourself as a “trader”… Sponsored link budgets can cost you a lot of money unless you know how to optimize your campaigns correctly!
Indeed, the ranking of ads is not defined by the bid alone. Your relevance is also taken into account.
For example, Google Ads uses its Quality Score, which takes into account the relevance of your ad, your expected click-through rate on your ads and the quality of your landing page to define your final ranking in the auction, and the price you will pay. if someone clicks on your ads. The higher your quality score, the lower your CPC (cost of a click) will be.
Advantages & disadvantages of SEA
Benefits
- You only pay if a user clicks on your ad, and therefore visits your site.
- The targeting of your advertisements, based mainly on keywords, is very precise.
- You can have granular performance statistics, at keyword level
- Predictable performance, in that you “just” pay to appear when a user searches for a given keyword.
- Quick to set up, to propel yourself to the top of search results in a few hours.
- Very advanced advertising features (audience, auction automation, various ads, etc.) to maximize its return on investment.
Disadvantages
- Advertisements that are increasingly competitive, and therefore relatively expensive.
- Requires solid skills in SEA, at the risk of transforming this type of advertising into a “money pit”.
- Need for continuous optimization to improve its return on investment and get the most out of its marketing budgets.
Make your site known through online public relations (PR) actions
3 / Online Public Relations
Publishing press releases online: an easy way to get started with online PR
Are you launching a new product? You can publish a press release on the web on publication sites, or even on sites specialized in your field of activity.
In addition to the announcement effect, this publication can also bring you visitors in the medium term. But make no mistake, it is not with a single publication that your result will be tangible.
The strong point of this type of promotion?
- Press releases promote your natural referencing in search engines.
- writing and publishing press releases has a direct cost close to zero !
The real challenge of online PR: taking care of your reputation and attracting visitors
In reality, online PR can take many forms. Either way, your online PR actions aim to build your reputation and maximize favorable mentions of your business on the web to make you known and attract more visitors.
Advantages & Disadvantages of Online PR
Benefits
- Insofar as your press releases are really interesting for your audience, they can allow you to make yourself known to a large audience.
- A relatively low implementation cost ; it is mainly about the time you will spend writing & distributing your communications
- Allows you to work on the company’s reputation and inspire trust
- Synergies with natural referencing (SEO)
Disadvantages
- A return on investment that is sometimes difficult to understand and quantify
- Some PR actions can escape the company’s control, and generate a “bad buzz” or negative comments.
4 / Produce content for a blog, a podcast
Publishing unique & interesting content sets you apart and helps your SEO
A blog, filled with fresh and always updated content, can be an interesting weapon as part of a traffic acquisition strategy. It has also been established that the more companies publish blog posts, the more leads they earn.
By talking about your field of activity, you will be able to offer useful and value-added content that will have repercussions in terms of image… and SEO!
Indeed, search engines like Google are fond of unique and interesting content that really answers the questions their users are asking.
On the other hand, it is necessary to ensure a “minimum service”. Without regularly updated content, a blog loses its purpose. Moreover, without a minimum of SEO optimization, your blog will not serve your business.
Hosting a podcast: another variant of blogging
Podcasts are like “radio shows” that anyone can host. They make it possible to discuss, through an audio or video format, subjects that interest their target audience.
It is a format that is experiencing strong growth, and which is increasingly popular with companies wishing to make themselves known.
Advantages & Disadvantages of Blogging / Podcasts
Benefits
- Allows you to make your site known via a better natural referencing in particular.
- Positions you as an expert in your industry, your market niche
- Brings results (and traffic) over time
- Encourages interactions with others in your industry
- Gives a voice that humanizes your business
Disadvantages
- Requires a lot of investment to regularly produce your content, your programs.
- Can become very time consuming
- There is already a lot of competition, which publishes content that is difficult to beat.
Make your site known through marketing & advertising actions
5 / Display advertising (advertising banners)
A popular online advertising format, which has performance limitations
Display is the best-known online advertising format. However, it remains the online advertising lever in which advertisers invest the most.
It is a format derived from “traditional” advertising, which is mainly assessed at Cost Per Thousand, as in mass media advertising. It is beneficial for brands that want to make themselves known & improve their notoriety.
However, this is not the most efficient format for attracting visitors:
- Click-through rates are low,
- limited conversion rates,
- and Internet users have learned to navigate without seeing the advertisement (14 sec. before seeing a banner!)
Display advertising remains relevant, thanks in particular to programmatic buying
Programmatic buying has revolutionized display advertising buying, allowing advertisers to:
- move from an investment logic (buying advertising space on a site),
- to an audience logic (display an advertisement according to “who” visits the web page),
- while automating all media buying.
Programmatic buying has greatly supported display investments, which still remains a key lever in the acquisition strategy of many websites.
Advantages & Disadvantages of display advertising
Benefits
- With display advertising, you can reach almost all of the Internet population in the world, there are so many advertising spaces.
- It is a lever that you can use to bring new visitors to your site, or bring back known visitors.
- The targeting possibilities are increasingly fine-tuned, in particular thanks to programmatic buying.
- There are many different formats in display advertising (image, video, native, interactive, etc.)
- In general, the cost of bringing a visitor to your site is lower with display than with other levers.
Disadvantages
- Performance that remains low in terms of click-through rate, engagement rate and conversion rate.
- A format that can be totally ineffective if your ads are not seen
- It takes a substantial investment for this lever to generate significant results for the website.
6 / Emailing
A still very powerful lever to generate traffic & sales on a site
New generation direct marketing, e-mailing is the 2nd means of communication that most encourages purchases. It is also one of the first CA drivers for E-commerce, with an unbeatable return on investment.
Its ridiculous cost allows you to spend more time testing and especially targeting your messages, so as to address them to the right person, with the right timing… If you succeed in this key step of E-mail Marketing, then you will have satisfactory return rates.
3 types of e-mailing campaigns to bring new visitors to your site
There are three main types of e-mailing campaigns when it comes to bringing new visitors to their site:
- Prospecting e-mailing: in this case, the company uses e-mail to contact individuals who do not yet know it. The email addresses may have been purchased from a broker, for example (on the decline, in particular because of the growing importance of data confidentiality) or captured via a previous marketing operation.
- Co-branding e-mailing : in this specific case, the recipients receive e-mails likely to interest them after having given their consent to be contacted in this way (e.g. newsletter from a distribution brand that promotes loss leader)
- Message sent to a partner’s subscribers : in the same vein as the previous campaign typology, it is possible for a company to establish a partnership with another (sponsored or not) which agrees to promote its products to its own subscriber base.
Advantages & Disadvantages of emailing
Benefits
- Very low creation & sending costs
- Very fast implementation of the campaign
- Possibility of making the Internet user act directly, who can go to the site or buy with a simple click
- Easy & inexpensive to personalize your messages according to the recipients and their preferences
- A complementary lever to other marketing actions (e.g. social networks)
Disadvantages
- It is not always easy to ensure that emails arrive at their destination ( deliverability ) and that they are opened ( concurrency )
- Usually, recipients are highly engaged when they sign up for a mailing list, but their engagement tends to decrease over time
- Requires impeccable management of the mailing list to maximize its return on investment and avoid a spamming reputation
7 / Presence in the physical world & Offline marketing actions
What you do “offline” influences your online results
In general, to attract cyber-buyers we naturally think of Internet media alone… But if you have a physical distribution network, for example, this can be transformed into a strong lever of visibility and a real competitive advantage.
All off-line communication actions are also likely to increase the visibility of your e-commerce site. Indeed, nowadays, all marketers know it: online influences offline. And vice versa.
Advantages & disadvantages of offline marketing actions
Benefits
- Your offline actions can allow you to reach an even wider audience (eg TV, newspapers, radio, etc.)
- Offline levers are powerful for generating brand awareness
Disadvantages
- The cost of traditional media (and the entrance ticket) is high
- Advertising waste is inevitable: rather than precisely targeting your audience, the targeting of your offline actions is necessarily less precise
- Difficult to assess the return on investment of its actions offline
- Lack of personalization of messages (compared to what is possible online)
- Less interactive, since most of your offline marketing actions are one-way, and do not allow people to interact with your brand (ex: billboard)
Promote your site via social media
8 / Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other “social networks”
Many existing social platforms
Visibility is also designed via social networks. The current landscape has become particularly broad: there are dozens of different platforms, which allow you to interact directly with your audience.
Cleverly used, social networks of all kinds can help you bring more visitors to your site.
Social platforms take up a significant portion of our online time
This lever is particularly interesting for websites wishing to make themselves known, given that Internet users spend a large part of their time connected to these services.
In the United States for example, 5 of the largest social networks are used about 30min per day (i.e. more than 2h30 spent daily on these services!)
Even greater opportunities when considering social advertising
The main social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Tiktok… also allow you to reach your audience via targeted advertising.
The latter are quite interesting because they allow you to push your messages to a very targeted audience.
Also, you can automatically “clone” audiences (such as people who visit your site) to reach Internet users who have the same profile as those who are already interested in your site, or in your products.
Advantages & disadvantages of social networks
Benefits
- Social networks have a very large reach, and concentrate a massive audience.
- Allows you to make your site known, even with a small marketing budget
- Social networks are ideal for boosting the notoriety of your company
- Allows you to exchange directly with your audience to create a relationship
Disadvantages
- Managing your presence on social networks can become extremely time- consuming
- Risk of receiving negative comments, attracting “haters” and tarnishing its reputation
- Not always easy to understand the return on investment
9 / Word of mouth
Actions to promote word of mouth
Word of mouth is surely the oldest communication technique … and surely one of the most effective.
There are different ways to encourage word of mouth around your site:
- buzz marketing : using the news to get people talking about you
- viral marketing : creating messages whose primary objective is to be transferred to other people (ex: chain of e-mails)
- influencer marketing : engaging with opinion leaders in a given niche to talk about you.
- community marketing : distributing content to a niche community, which shares the same interests (ex: forums)
- referral programs : give bonuses & benefits so that satisfied customers refer their friends.
Advantages & disadvantages of word of mouth
Benefits
- By relying on relays & opinion leaders, your message can have a greater reach
- Internet users will be more likely to adhere to a message relayed by opinion leaders rather than by the company itself
Disadvantages
- The company has no control over communication, which can lead to “bad buzz”
- Negative feedback can spread just as quickly as positive feedback
- It can be difficult & expensive to start the virality of the message
10/ Digg Like & News Broadcast Sites
Digg Likes allow Internet users to share their best addresses. In addition to improving the visibility of your site, being on the digg like will promote your natural referencing in search engines.
As for the news broadcasting sites, they will allow you to recruit a few qualified Internet users interested in your field of activity. Like price comparators, these sites have the advantage of being well referenced naturally.
However, even if these platforms will allow you to reach a qualified audience, remember that these sites will mainly allow you to reach Internet users looking for information, in other words, who are in a “primary” phase of any purchasing process.
Make your site known through other websites
11 / Membership
A performance-based partnership
Affiliation has already been mentioned in this blog, in particular by explaining that it was one of the ways to increase e-commerce sales without spending more.
There are specialized platforms that play the role of “matchmaker” between E-merchants and affiliates. Some major sites even offer their own affiliate program directly.
In a few words, an affiliate can be likened to a “commercial” of the web. That is to say that he will offer your products on his own site, and will be paid each time a visit redirected from his site results in a tangible result (a click, a lead, a sale, etc.).
Affiliation can take very different forms
Affiliate partners of a brand can take very different forms:
- Advertising : Still in 2022, many affiliates simply rely on vendor-provided “ad kits” that include banner ads and in-context links. Affiliates display them on their web pages to drive traffic and sales to advertisers.
- Influencers : A person can use affiliation to recommend brands to their community and direct them to the seller’s products through social media posts, blog posts, and other interactions with their followers.
- Bloggers : Some blogs write reviews or other types of content about the seller’s product and services, and promote the brand, which drives traffic to the seller’s site.
- Price comparators : These affiliates offer Internet users the opportunity to compare products on several criteria, then refer the customer to the seller’s site. Very often, this type of affiliation requires sending a product feed to the affiliate site so that it can promote it on its comparator.
- Cashback : These affiliate sites relay the various discount coupons from e-commerce sites. Very useful for e-merchants, coupons allow the seller to attract more customers to their online store and encourage them to buy immediately.
- Contests : Some affiliated sites offer Internet users contests and give away prizes with the aim of capturing qualified contacts that they then resell to advertisers.
- Mailing to Email Lists : This is an old (and terribly effective) method of affiliate marketing to promote the seller’s products. The affiliate sends out an email newsletter that includes hyperlinks to products and earns a commission after the consumer purchases the product as a result of a click through in the email.
Advantages & disadvantages of membership
Benefits
- Reach a wide and varied audience as you expand your affiliate network
- A variable cost only (you only pay when the expected result is achieved)
- Puts the marketing risk on your affiliate network (it’s up to them to attract visitors and convince them of your offer)
Disadvantages
- Affiliates rely on your brand awareness, and can cannibalize sales that would have occurred “in any case”
- There is a risk to your reputation, because you do not control the environment in which your brand is represented.
- Remuneration of intermediary platforms can represent a significant cost.
- Animating your affiliate network effectively requires a lot of time and effort.
12 / Partnerships with other websites
From the exchange of good practices to co-branding
In business, 2 business leaders meet and shake hands… On the Internet it is also possible to set up business “partnerships”.
This can range from a simple link exchange – because there is an affinity in the theme of the 2 partners, for example – to a real exchange of good business practices, or even co-branding;
Wacky example: “If you put an advertisement from my site in your newsletter addressed to your customers, then I will send an email to my database to announce the launch of your new product”
Advantages & disadvantages of online partnerships
Benefits
- Reach an additional audience through a complementary, non-competing partner
- Allows you to make your company known, without necessarily having to bring the Internet user to your site
Disadvantages
- May have a cost, when partnerships are sponsored
- Requires investing time and effort to identify, contact, build and nurture established partnerships.
BONUS: The other levers to make yourself known when you are specifically an e-commerce site
13 / Private sales
Some sites are based on the following economic belief:
- Companies have stock, which is expensive
- Better to sell them off than to keep or destroy them
As a result, private sales sites help manufacturers “destock”. They get very low purchase prices, which allow them to offer competitive sale prices to their own subscriber base.
Why not make your brand known & sell some of your goods through this distribution channel?
14 / Promote your products on auction sites & other marketplaces
Many e-merchants begin the adventure of E-commerce with a simple E-bay store… And why, once your E-commerce site is online, E-bay would no longer be of any use to you?
You can still use these auction sites—or marketplaces like Amazon—as a full-fledged distribution channel. With the high volume of traffic experienced by these sites, you increase your chances of making your products visible and accessible to your prospects.
15 / Presence on price comparators
In e-commerce, price comparators are often essential levers for creating traffic on your merchant site. There are generalist product comparators, but also specialized comparators on a market segment.
In addition to attracting thousands of cyber-buyers in the advanced phase of their purchasing process, comparators are often very well referenced naturally in search engines on “product” expressions.
True “infomediaries” of web business, these sites help Internet users to make their final decisions; don’t miss it!
16 / Cash Back Websites
An economic model that has made its mark: rewarding consumers with hard and stumbling euros for their purchases!
For the smartest cyber-shoppers, visits to the price comparison follow one another with a short check: check that the merchant is indeed affiliated with his favorite cashback system!
A judicious weapon therefore for the merchants who thus benefit – with some competitors – from a “privileged market”; those who prefer to buy from you because it makes them money!
17 / Discount code sites
The hunt for bargains continues for our clever Internet user!
- After having taken a look at the whole offer available on the comparators
- After verifying that you offer cashback
The cybershopper wants more and will check to see if you offer any promotional code. At this stage of the purchase, your chances of winning the deal become more complicated if you are not on the “short list”… But by being present at this fateful moment of the purchase, you may be able to remember good memory of the Internet user who has his credit card in hand ?
18 / Advertising via the order confirmation page of another site
And if ever you haven’t won the buyer’s choice, you can try a final action of visibility; display the advertisement of your offer on the payment confirmation page of another merchant site.
At first glance, this technique may seem eccentric. But if your offer hits the mark and you are able to offer relevant advertising, I remind you that your user always has his credit card in hand ?
Even more?
Do you see other ways to be visible on the net? Do you use any others?
