Black Friday marked the beginning of the end of year shopping season, meaning that December will be the time of year where retailers and service suppliers make over a third of their profits. With the trend of many retailers turning away from the high street and choosing to sell online because of the overall accessibility of tapping into new markets, ease of opening an online store and simpler to make use of other marketplaces and sales opportunities, being an online marketer is harder than ever.
Creating visibility on the world wide web for your company or client and having an online marketing approach that is efficient, requires extra effort and attention this month. To ensure that you stay on top of your seamless execution this holiday season, we’ve pinpointed six DOs and DON’Ts for online marketing in e-commerce this December.
1. DO increase visibility and be listed on multiple sites
If you’re working in e-commerce, you will probably be using online marketing mediums like marketplaces, price comparison sites, display, search and affiliate networks all year round to cast your net further. However, these websites are in abundance today and with the run-up to Christmas, it doesn’t hurt to further extend exposure. Whilst you probably think you’re already active on the most important channels, here are some channels you may have overlooked in the UK:
Amazon and eBay have dominated the e-commerce marketplace scene for years. For comparison sites, Google Shopping is a natural favourite but there are channels such as NexTag, PriceGrabber, Priceminister, PriceRunner and PriceSpy are worth a look at. Affiliate networks are also numerous, a few of the most used are Awin, Webgains, CJ Affiliate, affilinet, TradeDoubler and DoubleClick.
If you’re selling outside of the UK or would like to, each country has its own most popular channels:
Germany & Austria
Google Shopping, eBay and Amazon are key channels but may not be new on your list if you target these two German-speaking countries. However, other channels include idealo, Real and Geizhals.
Switzerland
Galaxus is the biggest e-commerce giant in Switzerland. Other names such as Amazon and eBay are popular but if you’re not on Galaxus you aren’t on the Swiss’ radar.
The Nordics
Google Shopping and Facebook are two channels popular with online advertisers in the Nordics. More country-specific channels include Adform for Norway, PriceRunner for Sweden and Miinto in Denmark.
France
Criteo and FNAC are two examples of channels that can help you gain more French customers. CDiscount is a French marketplace that offers a broad range of items to its buyers and is easy to use as an additional outlet even if you’re not French.
Spain
Spain is the only country Carrefour has developed an online marketplace for, could it be interesting for you to use it as a medium to reach Spanish customers?
Benelux
The Benelux has its own version of eBay called Marktplaats, which is miles more popular. Furthermore, Bol.com and Beslist.nl are two marketplaces that serve the Benelux region.
2. DON’T waste time on irrelevant sites
Whilst we advise to increase your visibility with online marketing, sometimes less is more and you don’t want to be wasting your efforts on a site that won’t lead to conversions. Think wisely about which channels potential buyers will be shopping on but also which channels match the company’s own identity. Channels like eBay and PriceRunner are frequented by bargain hunters more than Stylight and Spartoo.
3. DO use analytics to put bestsellers in the forefront
You’ll be well aware of which items perform best overall, on certain channels and in certain seasons. Use that information to position the items even better this Christmas period to maximise profits. Naturally, you can do this by increasing a products CPC.
However, you could also select to only advertise seasonal items and bestsellers on the more expensive CPC platforms or keywords. Particularly as some channels even charge per listing, making it even more profitable to only list the bestsellers. You can make a CSV containing all the Best Selling items to upload into the channels or use a tool to exclude all other items from the selection.
4. DON’T be a victim of manual error
Mass sales require a lot of listing modifications, which can put you at risk of more room for error. Such high-risk modifications include adding ‘low stock’ and ‘sale’ tags to titles, specifying the sale price to be displayed instead of the regular price and manually calculating the sale percentage for advertorial purposes.
Save yourself the stress and automate any (especially price) modifications so you don’t have to manually change any fields. If you work with clients, it’s even safer to use a tool, such as a feed management tool, to automate bulk ads and listings.
5. DON’T disappoint potential buyers
Stock levels and availabilities will deplete faster than usual in December. It’s good to create a safety net against disappointing festive shoppers, and clients. This means if you’re advertising on a product level, have a way to ensure there is minimal wasted CPC. This also extends to items that are sold out in the most popular sizes/variations. Don’t pay for clicks when the customer only discovers when they reach the landing page that there is no supply. If you’re using a tool to manage ads and product listings there is often the option to exclude creating ads for products low in stock or availability. Of course, if you find it unfavourable to exclude items (or the channel don’t allow it) you can add the size to the title of a product. This way you can make sure that people that click will be looking for the product in that size.
6. DO stay organised
This period is undeniably hectic for e-commerce. Juggling marketing campaigns, channel listings, order handling and more, demands serious organisation skills. Staying organised is also a solution to not be a victim of manual error. People have their own methods of remaining organised but in today’s technological world there are also multiple tools to help you. From a simple cloud calendar to social media managers and feed management tools.
Feed management tools are specifically designed to simplify and organise multiple marketing channel efforts. That’s all the Google Shopping, Amazon and Awin listings and ads managed and created in one place. Channable’s feed management tool can be used to keep you organised but also protect against disappointing customers and being a victim of manual errors. It speeds up and simplifies listings and advertising on multiple channels.
Use Channable to make listings and ads more festive with easy-to-implement modifications, on both a simple and advanced level, and putting bestsellers in the forefront. Channable is a must for marketers that want to get the most out of online marketing this December especially as you can start within 24 hours.
