E-commerce is exciting, dynamic and prosperous. Until your online store ROAS drops.
How much ROAS is enough depends on your products/industry, channels and rivals. But in average, your online business is believed to work properly at 4x ROAS. Around your 7-10th year online you need to go after 10-15x.
The sky is the limit – for only 10% of the online stores, internationally.
Higher returns of ad spends = highly converting store and mix of several marketing channels.
In 2023, at BeyondCart, we observed more various campaigns and marketing approaches from our e-retailers than ever. The most experienced merchants tried everything there is to keep their ROAS steady.
80% of them actually came to BeyondCart to make strong ROAS without extra ad budgets. So we see the actual difference between responsive web shopping and mobile-first shopping.
If you are in e-commerce, here is a list of everything that could be effective for your marketing as well.
Why believe us?
BeyondCart is an online builder of mobile shopping apps, BUT it also provides you with a whole world of useful online consumer insights – collecting and summarizing data on your customers in-app behavior. This gold mine helps you make FREE retargeting campaigns very precisely, and helps you know your customers much better.
No coding, no huge costs, no risks, just one beautiful shopping app for your customers and a powerful marketing tool for you!
Here is our list of all the effective steps for higher and steady ROAS.
User-friendly, mobile-first store
Let’s go straight to the most effective, accessible and useful marketing tool for higher ROAS, in 2024 and beyond.
You need a mobile-first store for higher conversions from your ad spend, as 80% of your traffic is mobile and uses apps every day. So your store also needs to move, feel and perform like… an app.
Easy said, easy done – just provide your users with a native mobile shopping app. Do not try to redesign your web store at this point.
No, you don’t need thousands of dollars for software development.
You can now integrate a fully-synced shopping app to your Woo or Shopify store in a few days, no coding required. No personnel needed.
What to expect from your app is: instant page loading, greatest possible page design, fast checkout, live stream options, gamification options, precise retargeting, very detailed data on how your users behavior and what they like in your shop!
Exciting, right?
Advantage+ shopping campaigns in Meta – e-store and app promotions
Everyday you run Meta campaigns for sales. By now, you may have tried so many approaches.
In 2023, Advantage+ of Meta made sales campaigns much more effective and easy to set. Now AI searches for your perfect audience while you wait for the happy sound of every new order.
Every time you start a new sales campaign, Meta offers you a default option to attract traffic to a mobile app or website. What Meta is trying to tell you here is that mobile traffic may actually convert much higher (for the same budget) if people shop/interact through a mobile app rather than a web store.
Logically, apps are designed to suit every device and OS they are built for.
Web stores – not that much, especially if you have not invested enough time and money in QA. We encourage you to get a native mobile app as a second synced e-commerce channel and divide your ad budget between your web store and your new shopping app. BeyondCart can guarantee around 15% higher average cart value of your in-app orders.
Free shipping for subscribers and other perks you can offer
Yes, you know all about the free-shipping effect. It works and there is nothing more to say about it. If it is easier for you – see shipping costs as marketing costs.
You can always use “free shipping” period as a short-term discount when in need of fast sales boost – through your app, but also in your e-store. We know that this option lowers the barriers in online shopping as consumers feel they won’t make any extra costs.
Other short-term perks for followers and/or registered users, that will rise your ROAS rapidly, are:
- extra 5 or 10% discount for 24h or only in-app;
- wheel of fortune games with gifts;
- category-based discounts for a segment of your audience (when you know what your consumers are looking for).
Retargeting through automations and push notifications
Once you have detailed data on how your consumers behave on your store or app, you can set automated campaigns through mail, push notifications, SMS.
But where can you get the most precise information on each of your users and run the most effective retargeting?
Again, through a shopping app!
In BeyondCart, for example, you can see almost everything about your app users in real-time, in your admin panel. Data including categories and products each user looks at and purchases from; all in-app orders per user; value of each order; % of app orders vs all their orders from your busiess etc.
Then, with a few clicks you can segment target users by categories they are interested in, or by the last time they’ve purchased, and send them a discount on a favorite category or new products, via Free push notification.
Average open rate of all push notifications is around 20% (you can go higher with witty messages and interesting one-time offers), but the conversion is better than through any other channels, just because the targeting is more precise.
The 24-hours discounts and the worth of Instagram stories
We see all kinds of Instagram stories every day, they can actually bring instant organic sales – if use the best feature Instagram offers – direct URL to your store, in your stories.
If you do use this little trick, then you must get some extra sweet profit from sudden 24-hours offers or new product releases, only announced in Stories with a link to your e-store.
Just choose an image/video for your special Story-based offer, write “20% OFF for 24h” and add a LINK sticker to your store on the story. We recommend to run such discounts with a promo code – for Insta story exclusivity and better tracking.
People know that stories expires fast, so they better click on it now. If you have spent enough effort to develop your Instagram audience so far, you will be very happy with the reactions around this tactic. No ad costs here, this is organic.
So, monthly, you will increase your general ROAS from social media marketing.
Showcase your products in raw short videos – reels, shorts, TikTok
Yes, yes, every marketer has already told you to make short videos of your business, and you may not like that. We will only assure you that the ROAS from Meta ads with raw short (15 sec) videos in many industries is much higher than using a carousel or a banner. We see it everyday.
E.g, carousels have 8x ROAS for a particular brand and short videos in a square format got 15x ROAS for the same brand. So, run both formats simultaneously on Meta.
You don’t need anything fancy in your videos – just show your products like you would show them in a physical store – “we have got this, this, and this.”, you may not even need captions or music. And then promote them with Advantage+ shopping campaign on Facebook and Instagram.
In TikTok, you need to add a sound of a real person explaining the products you want to show. Otherwise, your views will be low. TikTok is all about people. And your brand better be the early bird of its industry on TikTok!
Might need to get a (new) digital marketing manager.
All the above is easy to manage BUT you might need someone to do it and to observe the results with you, measuring ROAS every day and switching tactics if needed. It is not a hard job per se, but you better have someone that loves data and is driven by good results, someone self-driven as usual.
The ad tactics can be learnt from many sources today but the heart in marketing is everything that will make YOUR digital manager the best fit for you.
And do not forget – the marketing in e-commerce can run at its full potential today and tomorrow only with a shopping app in the mix.
Mobile-first experience is everything your users need in order to easily find the best products and offers you can offer online. They easily got lost in web stores. So do you.
We hope this list help every e-retailer that needs fresh perspective or just some confirmation.
BeyondCart is your one-stop solution for precise retargeting and effective mobile-first commerce (m-commerce), no matter the industry – fashion, FMCG, supplements, electronics, beauty and cosmetics.
Feel free to share your case with us!
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