Tips & Guides — 25 May 2022
The Biggest Challenges in eCommerce Marketing
Nothing is more frustrating than finding out that your campaigns are underperforming, which is an increasingly common scenario for digital marketers. They see the need to switch to new methods and channels to keep reaching their audience. There are many reasons behind it, starting with the fact that customers have changed.
Today’s shoppers are more willing to interact, learn about values and expect more from a brand. They are also more inclined to buy online, leveraging the eCommerce business for expansion and opportunities. However, we can observe the growing competition has increased the cost of customer acquisition.
Marketers share common concerns, such as new shopping habits, acquisition costs, the cookieless future, and how to keep their campaigns working efficiently. This article will explore a bit more about what keeps marketers awake at night and present how to approach outcome-based marketing, the next step for eCommerce. Let’s begin?
eCommerce is redefining convenience during pandemia. A survey shows that 92% of customers who shopped online in 2019 were converted and made online purchases a habit. In Europe, the UK alone has one of the highest eCommerce penetration rates, with 87% of customers purchasing online at least once in the previous year.
The pandemic also caused social changes in the way that people buy online. Customers’ priorities and behaviors online are no longer the same as two years ago. Many have become more aware of the brands they consume, are more price-sensitive, and expect brands to deliver value.
One more significant change is that customers can now use various shopping platforms to buy, even social media. More than a source for shopping decisions, marketers now see an evolution of certain features on these social channels, primarily because now people can shop on them. This scenario brings new challenges for marketers, while brands need to find ways to integrate social commerce features into their sales strategies.
As eCommerce is expanding, competition in digital marketing increases. This is one reason for the proportional increase in customer acquisition costs concerning marketers. Today, advertising and marketing are essentially dominated by three major players: Google, Facebook, and Amazon. 64% of advertising spend in the US is distributed across these advertising platforms.
This leads the cost per click (CPC) for search ads to increase by 30%, the cost per media (CPM) on social networks by 34%, and the cost of lead acquisition from $14.88 to $73.70 for businesses. Due to the rising prices, more and more marketers want to stop relying on these channels to achieve their goals.
Moreover, in the US, online sales continue to grow and are expected to reach 23.6% of total retail sales by 2025. However, competition with Amazon and eBay makes it harder for businesses to enter the US eCommerce market.
The question is, how to rely less on these major channels and still keep the brand on the expected target? One of the ways that marketers are doing now is looking beyond the well-known channels. New tactics are needed to generate meaningful impact rather than numbers or clicks.
Many eCommerce companies use third-party cookies as a resource to personalize and improve customer and user experiences. However, as consumers become increasingly concerned about their online safety, brands need to rethink collecting consumer data.
In recent years, many consumers have been victims of cyberattacks or data compromise or know people who have been victims. This has led to changes implemented by the browsers such as Apple, Firefox, and Brave, and, by the end of 2023, Google Chrome. Customers’ are also taking action against cybercrimes, as we can say that 1 in 2 internet users regularly delete cookies from their devices.
As a result, we can already see a decline in reach in marketing campaigns due to new data use requirements. Let’s keep in mind that today’s brands are not just data collectors. Instead, brands that focus on telling a story through data achieve greater engagement and results.
To meet the new challenges, many business owners and digital marketers are looking at eCommerce marketing from a different perspective: focus on meaningful results rather than clicks. This approach is called outcome-based marketing. In short, outcome-based marketing looks at campaigns in a different way. Numbers are not the only important metric here; instead, building strategies around a big-picture goal and its value.
Outcome-based marketing emerges as a powerful resource to address the challenges marketers face to make their campaigns more effective, prevent their budgets from running out, and stay within the expected target. To begin with, it is necessary to go beyond traditional marketing channels and take a step further.
Essentially, outcome-based marketing is helping companies achieve significant results, and this topic doesn’t end here. Stay on top of the challenges by implementing an outcome-based approach to your business. In our new eBook, you can learn more about and see the best strategies.
Written by
Andressa is a Content Marketer passionate about art and technology. She is curious, ambitious, creative, and motivated to learn new skills. She wants to write good stories that inspire businesses and also people. When she's not writing, she loves to travel and discover cultures from around the world.
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