2016 is in full swing, and now is the time to be sure that your site is the most effective, current version it can be. Whether you are already planning for the holiday shopping rush, or you simply want to make improvements to your site, start with these tips.
Mobile as a Part of the Buying Process
Mobile eCommerce activity isn’t going anywhere, as the 2015 holiday shopping season proved. Mobile accounts for approximately 60% of total time spent shopping online, and 2015 was the first year ever that Google mobile searches surpassed desktop.
As So Young Park, Director of Product Strategy for Oracle Commerce, discussed in a recent webinar, understanding and catering to your mobile customer is one of the most important things you can do in eCommerce in 2016.
Aside from making sure that your site is responsive, be sure to target your customers wherever they are. This means thinking about the context and experience your customers are in when accessing your site on a mobile device. As Nii A. Ahene, Co-Founder and COO of CPC Strategy, says in this Brightpearl article, our phones are a crucial part of the buying process, whether for researching, comparison shopping, or making purchases.
Be sure to enable easy ways for your customer to research your products, close the consideration gap, and make a purchase from you.
Email: Don’t Call it a Comeback
Email continues to be an effective marketing tool, including in the eCommerce space.
As Nii A. Ahene also mentions in the Brightpearl article, the concentration for 2016 should not be on simply email marketing, but targeted email. As technology becomes more sophisticated, so can your email marketing tactics. Using past buying behavior, you can create incredibly targeted offers for your customers to encourage them to come back. Learn more about new ideas in marketing personalization.
Intent Data
An emerging data trend that So Young Park discussed in her webinar is intent data. Intent data are pieces of information that indicate your customer’s intention to purchase. These data points can be a key way to drive conversion, but they are less obvious than other data points.
A wish list is a classic example of intent data, as it shows that a customer is interested in the product even if they haven’t actually purchased it. Promoting wish lists to shoppers and creating marketing campaigns that target a customer’s wish list is a good way to capitalize on intent data.
Some other examples of intent data are:
- Time spent on a specific product page
- Reading reviews
- Multiple visits to the same product page
- Adding to and then abandoning cart
- Saved cart
- Comparing products
- Sharing on social media without purchasing
Intent data can also be used to judge whether or not a customer is likely to become a lifelong brand advocate.
If, post-purchase, a customer posts a review or rating, shares their purchase on social media, or answers community Q and A questions about their purchase, those are good indicators that they intend to be a repeat customer. Using this information, you can start marketing customer loyalty campaigns to that shopper, increasing their chances of returning.
Using these tips, make sure that your site is ready for what 2016 demands.
Have a question about your eCommerce implementation or how to make sure you’re ready for the year ahead? Contact our team of certified developers.
