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Growth Academy

Shopify Blogs: The Key to Boosting Sales?

Blog icon in front of green bag
Shopify Blogs

How Blog Content can Increase Sales on Shopify

They say content is king, and for good reason: blogs are a proven method to boost your Google ranking and increase sales on Shopify.  This post explores how consistent blog posts can benefit your e-commerce business while also providing a few tips to inspire your own original posts!

Authentic Blogs Support your Shopify Sales

Recently, Google announced that any AI-generated content online will be labelled “spam.”  Business owners should reassess the content they are putting out to catch their audience’s audience.  Marketing data shows that, while helping increase your Shopify sales, online users primarily read blogs for entertainment and information. 

So, when writing your posts, keep an informational, educational, and entertaining tone at the heart of your piece.  There’s no need to push your products too hard.  Customers who have just discovered your site or product will appreciate quality, authentic posts for their enjoyment.  Combined with social media posts and audio-visual entertainment, consistent blog posts can become a crucial element to increasing your Shopify sales.

Blogs Complement Social Media & Video Ads

Think of regular blog posts as an extension of your social media posts.  In fact, it’s best to link your Shopify blogs directly on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Tik-Tok!  All these engaging posts provide a comprehensive narrative you can build regarding your brand and business. 

You can embed key infographics, images, and videos into the blog to push your most important audio-visual content across your ad channels.  It not longer takes a tech wiz to combine text, picture, and video content, as Shopify has boiled down adding these functions to one click.  It’s simple on a technical level, but it does wonders for your reputation online.

An e-commerce store that has an active blog and social media presence appears dynamic, consistent, and trustworthy to your audience.  Over time, your Shopify store will increase its traffic and sales by coming across as an authority in your industry.  If you can find the time or hire the talent, consistent, quality blog posts will become a key marketing strategy to increase your Shopify sales.

Inconsistent Blog Posts Harm your Google Ranking and Brand Reputation

You ever surf a website, impressed the professional layout, but find that their last blog content post was from 3 years ago…?  Not a good sign!  It gives the impression the brand is withering, and, despite its clear informational benefit, the business abandoned regular posts.

Not only does infrequent blog posting harm your brand reputation – it costs you ranking on Google’s search engine!  Less blogs posts means less webpages for Google to index, and the longer you go without posting, the more you lose authority on Google’s Search Engine. 

Even if you can only find time to write a 500 word post – maybe with a video embedded – remember that not each one has to be your magnum opus!  Some weeks, it is simply the consistent effort that will benefit your store in the long run.  Marketing research shows that e-commerce sites with 11+ blog posts a month experience a spike on monthly traffic.  Furthermore, sites with 400+ blog posts archived gain an edge on Google’s search rankings, as the sheer number of webpages indexed bumps them up the rankings ladder!  As we all know, a higher spot on Google’s rankings means increased sales on Shopify.

source

Boast a Call to Action at the End of every post

After providing valuable, entertaining information to your audience for free, drop them a hyperlink or “Call to Action” button at the bottom.  In this world, everyone could use a little self-promotion, so have it! 

If you want a good “rule of thumb” to follow when deciding what to blog, ask yourself this question: “What would I want to read?  What kind of post would I sit back and appreciate someone putting into words for me?”  If you know your audience, they’ll appreciate your work, too.

For further assistance and information on the value of blog posts, you can try a free demo by Ad360 today.  Our app provides 360 degree coverage on all aspects of your digital marketing, giving you a sense of clarity on how to best promote your product and boost your Shopify sales.  See what we did there? 😉  Reach out today!

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Growth Academy

How to Present your Offer to Convert More

How to present your offer
Convert more by highlighting your offer the right way

Welcome to Ecommerce Success by Ad360, the channel where we share tips, news, best practices to help business owners be happy, productive, and successful!

This e-commerce business owner wants to increase conversions for a specific offer.

Let’s review their website and how they present this offer.

The way you introduce an offer, the level of detail you give, which Call to Action (CTA) you use, and how you highlight it on your website matter a lot to maximize your conversions.

YouTube Video: How to Present your Offer to Convert MORE

Subscribe to our YouTube channel “Ecommerce Success by Ad360” to watch daily videos that share tips, knowledge and best practices with merchants to help your business thrive!

If you’d like me to do a more in-depth analysis of your advertising setup / targeting options / campaigns data, feel free to book a call using the link below:

BOOK A CONSULTING & FREE AUDIT WITH AD360

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Growth Academy

The Power of a Central Ad Dashboard

multi-platforms dashboard
Ad360 central dashboard for your ads

Runnings Ads Across Every Online Platform is Too Complex

There are pros and cons to leveraging multiple online platforms for your ad campaigns.

Web services like Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Google, Tik Tok, Twitter, and Reddit, reach wide audiences – but each platform’s presentation varies in significant ways.  On paper, running ad campaigns across all search engines and social media platforms may seem the best way to boost your brand visibility and increase sales on Shopify!

… It also sounds super complicated.  Imagine having to log into each separate ad interface, and learn the idiosyncrasies of all the different sites.  Even more, you need to find a way to effectively compare each ad channel while analyzing your digital marketing strategy.  Just the thought of lining up sales metrics from these separate ad channels gives us a headache!

That is why Ad360 is here to provide a turnkey solution to managing all your separate channels: a single, streamlined dashboard the brings all your ad campaigns – across every online platform – under one roof.  Ad360’s streamlined ad dashboard makes it simple to run multiple ads at once, helping refine your marketing strategy and increase sales on Shopify 😊 

The Problem with Disparate Ad Campaigns

Without a central ad dashboard, business owners waste energy simply keeping track of each promotion’s progress.  In fact, e-commerce business owners online report that they keep track of their various online ad campaigns through spreadsheets or notes – all manually. 

The time drain and effort wasted organizing and comparing each ad campaign is not only inefficient, but it could make that comparison inaccurate! 

Entering wrong data or forgetting the rationale for running each ad campaign can make your marketing analysis more difficult or even impossible. Manually entering data in notes or spreadsheet offline basically “disembodies” your data, removing it from the context of your various ad channels.  You’re forced to imagine how each ad campaign looks online instead of having them on an interface right in front of you.

It’s a scientific fact that humans only have so much brainpower for decision-making each day.  If you are draining all that energy simply trying to keep each ad campaign in order, you won’t have enough left over to effectively compare them! 

This “scatterbrain” effect disparate ad campaigns cause could lead to poor mental conceptualizations of your ad campaign’s progress.  Instead of being able to simply sit back and think, “How should I allocate my advertising funds from here?” you are bending over backward trying to keep each ad campaign in order.  Think of all the questions that would rush into your mind when comparing the success of different ad campaigns:

  • Was that ad campaign for brand awareness or boosting conversions?
  • Why did I run that ad campaign on Facebook instead of Google again?
  • What was different about these two ad campaigns?  Was it the visual I used, or was it different text descriptions? 
  • Why did I pay-per-click for this ad but paid per 1,000 views on this one? 

A Streamlined Ad Dashboard – The Key to Digital Marketing Success?

Ad360’s streamlined ad dashboard centralizes all your ad channels to one cozy, intuitive interface.  Think of it like consolidating your debt for a lower interest rate – a single central ad dashboard empowers business owners to take their digital marketing to the next level!

Advertising on multiple platform of your choice, and across the entire web – will feel easy.  By broadening your reach and focusing your promotional efforts, a single central ad dashboard gives you the best chance to increase your sales on Shopify.

Instead of having to open multiple tabs to check in on each ad campaign’s progress, manually record them in a spreadsheet, and compare the numbers by hand, Ad360’s central ad dashboard automatically records key marketing metrics for you.  In doing so, business owners can take a “bird’s eye view” of their overall digital marketing efforts, honing in on key areas to improve their brand message.

Experience Ad360’s Central Ad Dashboard for Yourself

Ad360 offers a free demo to e-commerce business owners trying to improve their digital marketing strategy.  Reach out today for a chance to streamline all your ad channels under one roof, along with the ability to create new ad campaigns with a single click.  If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed keeping track of your online promotions, give us a call today!

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Growth Academy

Digital Ads: Powerful Internet Billboards

Creatives illustration
Advertising creatives automatically generated

The Role of Visual Ads in E-Commerce Advertising

Digital marketing is arguably defined by the ability to use multimedia (text, photos, videos) in combination to promote your product.  When they say “a picture is worth a thousand words,” here are some stats to back that up:

  • Visual content is processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text
  • Visual stimuli makes up 90% of all info transmitted daily

If you want to make an impact on your customer, improving your visual ads could be the key to increasing sales on Shopify!  This post reviews the importance of visual ads in ecommerce, as well as how to deploy ad visuals while trying to increase sales on Shopify.

Importance of Digital Ad Design

In the past 10 years, users online have gotten used to bombardments of visual ads across the web, as well as mobile apps.  It’s commonplace to be reading a news article, then suddenly see a visual ad banner for footwear or something completely unrelated to the article itself. 

That’s the first key reason digital ad design is crucial to increasing sales on Shopify – you want your visual ad to be so eye-catching it literally draws the user away from what they were doing and toward your site!  If the visual looks cheesy or unprofessional, users may be wary that the product offered is a scam or low-quality.  Your digital ad design quality needs to match your product quality to boost your Shopify sales.

Digital Ad Design Aesthetics – The Key to Increasing Sales on Shopify

If you notice, major brands like Nike or Apple have perfected the art of making sleek, beautiful, simple ads that showcase their products with vibrant colors and dynamic patterns.  Some of the best ad visuals are basically a beautiful digital canvas with the flagship product in the middle, and a simple slogan like, “Get Ready,” or something that simple. 

How to Create a Facebook Ad Using Stunning Visuals
Note the beautiful hue in the background and the simplicity of the design – the product centered with the logo in the top-left corner.

High-resolution photos, edited to enrich the color scheme, may immediately draw the user’s eye.  Additionally, putting your brand logo in the middle of a beautiful colored background may enhance their perception of your product line.  To increase sales on Shopify, you need to demonstrate that your digital ads compete with the sleek professional designs found across the web.

Keys to Digital Ad Design Success

To successfully increase your Shopify sales, Ad360 has provided a few key pointers to follow when deciding on your final ad design:

1. Use high-resolution photos of stock photos, models, or your product centered on the ad visual

2. Pick colors that complement each other

3. Use big colorful fonts for a short, eye-catching message (e.g. ’50$ OFF!’)

4. Put your product or brand logo behind beautiful yet simple colored backgrounds with bright or neutral hues

5. DO NOT CROWD THE VISUAL OR OVERCOMPLICATE.  ONE PRODUCT, ONE IMAGE!  Only use multiple images if you have a specific design model in mind

6. Gifs and videos work too, but make sure the thumbnail is as aesthetically pleasing as a still visual

Ad360 Can Automatically Generate Eye-Catching Visuals for Your Business

A recent survey found that a majority of e-commerce business owners would prefer automatically-generated ad visuals and designs: it would save them precious time to focus on day-to-day operations.  Thus, it could be argued that automating your ad visuals is a keystone to increasing sales on Shopify.

If you want to try automating your ad visuals, try a free demo by Ad360 today!  On top of a centralized dashboard for all ad campaigns, as well as making ad campaign creation as simple as one click, Ad360 automatically extracts data from your Shopify store to create ad visuals.  From there, you will have multiple options of which one to release across the web, drawing in more visitors and increasing your sales on Shopify 😊

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Growth Academy

The Impact of Shopify’s Stock Split

Shopify’s Recent 10:1 Stock Split

As a storeowners trying to increase your sales on Shopify, you may have noticed that Shopify itself has been in the news lately! 

While still up over 900% since its launch in 2018 – which is amazing – there was a recent slump in Shopify’s stock price.  To address the issue and set up the company for future success, Shopify announced a 10:1 stock split. 

What does this mean?  It doesn’t affect anything other than the volume of shares.  For example, if you owned 100 stocks of Shopify worth $10 each, there are now 1,000 shares – but each one is now worth $1! 

Since you are focused on boosting your own Shopify sales and not much else, it may help to answer the question – “Should I be worried about the recent news of Shopify’s stock?”

Quick answer – no!  Shopify is poised to reap the benefits of the e-commerce industry’s growth the next several years, meaning the over 2 million users can ride the wave of their success 😊  Read below for more info on Shopify’s future prospects!

Shopify is Partnered with the Major Tech Platforms

While other e-commerce sites are out there, Shopify is one of the strongest platforms due to its partnerships with tech companies like Meta, Tik Tok, Alphabet, and JD.

When trying to figure out how to increase Shopify sales for your own store, know that Shopify itself is doing the same!  Having full integration with the most widely-used tech platforms means that a temporary slump in stock price – or the news of a 10:1 stock split – will not impact its users in any significant way.

You can rest easy that Shopify itself is trying to figure out how to generate more sales on Shopify for you!  While on a different scale, leveraging major partnerships with social media companies like Tik Tok mean that the future looks bright for Shopify and its millions of merchants.

A Temporary Slump Won’t Stop E-Commerce Growth

Some folks worry that, coming out of the pandemic, e-commerce stores may take a hit as customers flock back to brick-and-mortar stores.  On the whole, as you look for how to increase Shopify sales on your own store, remember this fact for motivation:

There is no stopping the e-commerce juggernaut.  E-commerce is poised to surge from $5.5 trillion in 2022 to $7.4 trillion by 2025.

Of all the major e-commerce platforms, Shopify is arguably in the best position to reap the rewards of online retail growth.  So, while you figure out how to generate more sales on Shopify, keep an eye out for more tools added to the Shopify brand!  There major be some digital marketing innovations on the horizon that better democratize the e-commerce space, meaning even the most tech-averse storeowners may find success online 😊

Try the Ad360 App to Help Increase Sales on Shopify

 We hope you are convinced and feel secure with your decision to open a store on Shopify’s e-commerce platform.  There is no reason for merchants to be worried about the recent news in the stock price and stock split.

However, figuring out how to increase Shopify sales is a big challenge!  If you want help simplifying the process down to a few clicks, reach out to try a free demo from Ad360 today.  With our flagship feature, Quick Ads, you need only set your daily budget and target location for ads – we’ll handle the rest, taking your online ad campaign creation to the next level 😊  Contact us today!

Categories
Growth Academy

Google Search Vs. Display Ads

Google Search versus Display
Google Search Ads vs Google Display ads

Navigating Google’s Ad Options

As a Certified Google Partner, we want to provide info that better frames all the digital marketing options available to business owners.  While Meta, Instagram, Tik Tok, Reddit, and more are all viable options, this post will focus on the key differences and utility of two Google ad channels:

  1. Google Display Ads
  2. Google Search Ads

If you have ever wondered why exactly a Google Display campaign better fits your needs (or vice-versa) read below!  Knowing how to leverage each Google ad channel can be a key factor to help increase sales on Shopify.

Google Search Ads: Pulling in the Local Crowd

Google Search ads only appear to online users who have searched your business’s keywords, or have executed a search looking for a local solution to their “need.”  For businesses that run local services like food, home improvement, retail, auto, or more, Google search ads could be a key promotional tool.

For example, if I type in, “Auto repair near me,” and your auto body shop recently deployed a Google search ads campaign, guess who I’m going to when the results come up! 😊

If users already have a clear intent for their need, and already know they have an issue that needs a solution, Google search ads can boost your click-through-rate (CTR) and lead to increased sales on your Shopify store. 

To maximize your conversions on Google search ads, do your research on the best keywords that match your business!  Bidding higher on these keywords will automatically push you up the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Concluding, “pulling” in your local audience, or researching and bidding on the best keywords to match your customers’ desires, are the two best rationales for starting a Google Search Ads campaign.

Google Display Ads: Reach the Wider Web

If you aren’t sure about what keywords to bid on, and your business is not primarily driven by local traffic, Google Display Ads offer a strong alternative to Google Search ads.

Google display ads are those sidebar images and banners that pop up across the web when you are browsing, whether it be directly for a product or not!  Google display ads gain access to more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps that over 90% of web users surf across every day.

For brand awareness and visibility, Google Display ads are far superior to Google Search ads.  However, remember these folks are not expressing a direct intent to buy something!  As such, the average conversion rates on Display ads are lower, even if the audience reached is wider.  Still, leveraged properly, Google Display can be a key component to increasing sales on Shopify.

Display ads are best when you utilize an eye-catching image with bold headlines or text.  Additionally, they help, in a sense, introduce the wider web to your products!  Remember that the average customer needs between 3-7 “views” of your product because they begin feeling compelled to buy.

To optimize Google display ads, it’s best to focus on specific sites you know your niche audience frequently visits.  Even better, you set them to appear only to your target demographic, so you don’t end up wasting money on an overly broad ad campaign.  Imagine you sell men’s grooming products, and your Google Display ads are being shown to women in the 60s… no good.  They’ll be weirded out, and your money will be wasted!

Conclusion: Ad360 Can Help You Reach Beyond Google’s Display Network!

As a certified Google partner Ad360 can help any business run either a Google Search or Display ad campaign – even both!  Even better, we can layer in ad retargeting to every ad campaign you run, and our Menadex network gives you access to the entire worldwide web even beyond the Google Display Network.  Leveraging ad retargeting on top of wider access are crucial advantages in the digital marketing landscape.

If you would like to receive a free consultation on how to optimize your e-commerce site or want advice on which Google ad channel to run, try out our free demo by Ad360 today!  We’re proud to bring you our flagship feature: One Click ad campaign setup with Quick Ads.  Advertising online has never been this simple.  Sign up today to get help increasing your sales on Shopify!

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Growth Academy

What differs between Clicks, Users, Sessions?

Clicks vs Users vs Sessions
What is the difference between Clicks, Users and Sessions.

In this video, I’m responding to a question on Reddit about the difference between Clicks, Users, and Sessions on Analytics.

If you’re puzzled too, watch me read and discuss the Google Analytics documentation to make sense of these Advertising and Analytics metrics!

I’m also giving the most probable culprit IMO for this user to have such a massive difference (3x) between clicks and users.

I wish you a lot of success!

Subscribe to Ecommerce Success by Ad360, the channel where we share tips, news, best practices to help business owners be happy, productive, and successful!

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Growth Academy

Why Mobile Ads are Superior to Desktop Ads

Mobile Ads and Desktop Ads
Mobile Ads represent a great opportunity that is still underused

By the Numbers: Proof Mobile Ads Have Eclipsed Desktop Ads

In the past 5 years, mobile ads have taken over desktop as the most effective ways to promote your business online. 

Not convinced? 

Consider that in 2010, mobile ads spending didn’t even scratch $1 billion.  Now, mobile ads is a ~$400 billion market, and that number is projected to eclipse $700 billion by 2028.  

While still effective at ~$40 billion revenue in 2021, desktop ads lack the explosive growth factors that power mobile ads.  If e-commerce businesses want to increase sales on Shopify, they have to run mobile ad campaigns. 

Unlimited Access and “Intimate Expectations”

Think about it – phones/tablets/wearables are useable in way more places, and 4G internet provides uninterrupted access to the internet.  That ubiquitous ease of accessibility may help explain why users, on average, spend 143 minutes browsing their phones vs only 35 minutes on their desktop.

Basically, your entire audience is online now.  All of it.  Everyone is either browsing the news, surfing the web, or checking out their social media.  Not only that, using a personal mobile device comes with a certain level of “intimacy.”  It’s not a “work laptop” or desktop, it’s a device we place all our calls from, and talk to all their friends and family on.

 A fun study even pointed out that most of us even use our phones while going to the bathroom (gross), but it highlights how in vulnerable moments, people will use their phones to browse for something that catches their eye.  The smaller screen and ease of “sharing” interesting posts simply make it a better place to engage with your customers. To effectively promote, you have to meet your audience where they are, and virtually all of them are hanging out on their phones!

Improved Mobile Ad Technology & Location-Based Retargeting

It’s undeniable that the user experience for mobile devices has become remarkably smoother – and overall more delightful – the past decade.  Swipeable ads and popups can be seamless for the user, yet they still advertise your product! 

Furthermore, location-based ad retargeting is supported much more on mobile devices than desktop.  On a technical level, every user’s phone has a unique ID that is traceable, meaning once their visit your store or conduct a search with your keywords, you can send those users tailor-made ads without jeopardizing their privacy.  Ad retargeting is an essential tactic in successful digital marketing, and it is much easier to do through mobile phones. 

For example, Ad360 offers hyperlocal ad retargeting services, meaning you could target all mobile users down to a city block with your products.  Running such a concentrated ad campaign from the desktop would simply be impossible in this scenario.  Hyperlocal ads are both cost-efficient – due to paying only for the hyperlocal adspace – and focused on only your most likely and local customers.  Your business will pop up locally whenever users nearby conduct a search or browse on their phone!

Key Tips to Improve your Mobile Ad Efforts

While both connected to internet mobile ads and desktops ads require totally different designs and content formats to make for a smooth user experience.  Here are a few tips to follow when designing your next mobile ad campaign:

  1. Make it a more visual experience – Colorful, vibrant pictures with only a few words of text play well on mobile ads and capture user interest
  2. “Swipable” Functions that allow for a progression of content in a “slideshow” format. You could show a picture of the product with a colorful background on one page, a text description when the user swipes right, and a “Call to Action” button with a link to buy on the next!  Mobile ad tactics like this are likely to increase your sales on Shopify and boost conversion rates
  3. Clickable Buttons that “Expand” or “Minimize” Written Content – Written content is still important, just tailor it properly so it is easily readable and can be minimized for ease of scrolling across the page.

Conclusion: Ad360 Can Run your Next Mobile Campaign with One Click

If you want assistance setting up and running your next mobile ad campaign, Ad360 is proud to present our Quick Ads feature – built to simplify the ad campaign creation process to one click.  Simply enter in your “daily budget” and “location” – our Quick Ads software will extract all the data from your Shopify store and handle the rest 😊

We offer a free demo for our services, and we’re confident you’ll feel that creating mobile ads has never been so accessible and effective.  Become the next ecommerce success story by reaching out today!

Categories
Growth Academy

Google Retail Search Released to the Public

Google Retail Search
Google releases Retail Search to the general public.

Searching but Not Finding: the Phenomena of Search Abandonment

Picture the common scenario, where, frustrated by the lack of results on their search, a customer leaves your site without buying anything.

That simple snafu costs ecommerce retailers over $300 billion a year.

Amazing, right?  Such a simple hitch in the process can bleed billions of dollars in the ecommerce industry.  Even retail giants like Macy’s and Ikea suffer from search abandonment, so you are not alone!

Luckily enough, Google recently released its Google Retail Search to the general public, bringing the power of Google’s search engine to all online retailers.  Read below how this new Google tool can help increase your sales on Shopify!

Why Google’s Retail Search is a Win for E-Commerce

A recent poll discovered that 94% of US customers abandon an online shopping session due to irrelevant search results.  Imagine that a shopper types in, “comfy winter sweater” to your search bar… they probably won’t get very precise results! 

However, with Google Retail Search, backing software would be able to link the customer’s buying intent, no matter how general in their search, to specific products available in your store.  Most ecommerce sites have search bars that, if the specific product name is typed, can provide the result quickly for users.

But what about all the potential customers who don’t know your brand’s products yet?  Navigating around to find the item that fits their match can be a chore they refuse to do, especially when ecommerce giants may be able to provide better search matches.

How Google Retail Search Helps Increase Sales on Shopify

Google Retail Search will help boost your Shopify sales in a few ways:

1. Advanced Query Understanding

This function provides high-quality search results for even the broadest searches.  If you sell footwear, and someone types in, “shoes for the beach,” instead of telling them, “What can’t find that specific product, can you refine your search?”  It will bring up a list of all your products that fit the context. 

2. Semantic Search

You will be able to better gauge “customer intent” to match them with the best-fitting products on site.

3. Personalized Results

Google Retail Search will also factor in each user’s previous searches through their search engine optimizing their experience and providing them tailor-made search results, even on your Shopify site!  All of this is done automatically for your ecommerce business.

4. State-of-the-art Customer Data Security

While the search results provided by Google Retail Search are personalized, Google implements “strong access controls” to ensure your customer data is anonymized and protected

Conclusion: Google Retail Search is Worth a Trial

As a certified Google partner, Ad360 knows the power of leveraging Google’s incredible search engine, ad platform, and analytics technology.  If you want any advice or help implement Google Retail Search to your ecommerce site, contact us at Ad360 today!  We provide a free website review, along with a free trial.  That way, we can test your search query and see what comes up 😊  Less search abandonment could increase sales on Shopify, so don’t hesitate to check out Google Retail Search!

Categories
Growth Academy

3 Ways to Increase Sales on Shopify

3 ways to increase sales with Shopify
Use these 3 techniques to increase your Shopify Sales

Introduction: Learn Vital Ecommerce Marketing Strategies

Finding the “right way” to promote your e-commerce business can feel like a crapshoot.  With so many social media platforms and “search engines” to buy adspace on, unfocused or disorganized ad campaigns can quickly lose their sense of purpose.  If your promotional efforts are not organized into a coherent marketing strategy, you can end up draining your funds with no results!

This post provides a few key promotional skills for ecommerce business owners who feel flustered while attempting to increase sales on Shopify.  It will help you slow down your racing thoughts, consider different marketing angles, and put your marketing budget to good use!  If you believe in your product, it’s time to give it the strong marketing it deserves – read below to boost your Shopify sales success!

Trust Badges: Easy Way to Increase Sales on Shopify

They are so subtle you may breeze past them while browsing, but “trust badges” on your homepage and checkout window have a profound psychological impact on customers.  Trust badges are the little logos, usually the bottom of web pages, that indicate the following about your website:

  • Verified “secure socket layer/transport layer security” (SSL/TLS) encrypted checkout

This trust badge means a third-party encryption system has verified and monitors your site’s security at checkout.  Seeing a trust badge from “trust lock,” for example, makes customers less likely to abandon their cart for fear of having their payment info compromised!  Check out a list of the best SSL/TLS third-party providers here

  • Verified Accepted Payments Badge

To increase sales on Shopify and gain the trust of their customers, online businesses should apply for certifications from “accepted payment” giants.  “Verified by Visa” and “Verified by Paypal” are two of the most-recognizable badges, and you can start the certification process by clicking the links here and here!

  • Third-Party Endorsement Badge

Trust badges verifiable from the BBB or Trusted Site are also well-recognized by customers.  To increase sales on Shopify, align your ecommerce business with one or both, linked here and here

One key thing to note: MAKE THE BADGES REAL AND VERIFIABLE BY “CLICKING THROUGH.”  Many sites will simply “copy + paste” an existing trust badge from Google or literally generate their own.  This is a big mistake, as trust badges are not legally binding.  They are only as valuable as the reputation of the third parties you link to. 

For example, if your “Trustlock” or “Verified by Visa” trust badge does not allow the user to “click through” and see the formal certification, it could actually make the users more skeptical, not less, or buying from your site.  To increase sales on Shopify, use only trust badges you applied for and got verified by trusted third parties for.  Don’t make up your own and slap them on your site.  They mean nothing at that point.

Go Mobile

The number of web searches (and web surfing) done from mobile devices has more than doubled from –  from 27% in 2013 to 63% in 2021.  That trend will only continue to go up, so it’s important that e-commerce business owners know how to create mobile-friendly websites and ad campaigns.  Mobile ad campaigns will become the primary way to increase sales on Shopify within the next several years, if it is not already.  Google has a nice breakdown of how to do so here, but, for the sake of conciseness and clarity, it boils down to a few key points:

  1. Shorten text and simplify with “Call to action” buttons centered on the page
  2. Include pictures/slideshows and videos
  3. Using sitelinks to connect your Shopify page without taking too much space up
  4. Add location extensions to connect mobile users to your brick-and-mortar location

Researching and implementing mobile-friendly ad campaigns is a promotional technique that very likely will increase sales on Shopify.  If you are running ads only viewable and optimized from a computer, you are basically missing out on two thirds of your potential customers!

Do Influencers Help Drive Traffic & Increase Shopify Sales? 

The short answer – YES.  There is a reason the idea of becoming an “influencer” is so trendy among young folk: they work.  They are an unaffiliated direct line to pools of potential customers who, for one reason or another, consider it worth part of their day to scroll and wonder, “I wonder what my favorite influencer is spending their money on?” 

The big advantage is the influencer themselves has done all the legwork of building a level of “credibility” and “trust” among their fanbase.  You simply ride their coattails to push your products, and thousands of followers deduce, “If my favorite influencer put their name behind this product, it must be worth buying.”

Now, you don’t have to hire the entire Kardashian family to have influencer-led ad campaigns increase your sales on Shopify.  There is a simple method to reach out to “nano” (1,000 – 10,000 followers) or “micro” influencers (10,000 – 50,000 followers) that can fit a smaller business’s budget while they scale up:

  1. Go to Tik Tok, Instagram, or a similar social media platform
  2. Search a hashtag relevant to your business (e.g. – #fashion for a clothing site)
  3. Scroll through the pages until you find influencers worth reaching out to
  4. Contact them!

Make sure you feel the payment process you agree to with the influencer is protected, and track the results to see if the influencer actually posted, and if that post got some nice engagement.  While these folks aren’t your friends, they are more than happy to provide access to their follower base for the right number!  Do not be afraid to contact influencers – they are looking to promote products that pay them well and don’t shred their reputation.  If you think you guys are good fit, reach out like you would any other business!

Conclusion

Verifiable trust badges, mobile-friendly ad setups, and influencer-promoted products are all highly effective techniques to increase sales on Shopify.  However, learning how to display the trust badges, establish mobile ad designs, and configure influencer outreach can sound like an arduous task to do yourself.

IF you want help implementing the promotional skills listed above, contact Ad360 today for a free demo!  We can help rebuild your website with trust badges, design entire mobile ad campaigns from scratch, and we’ll help analyze the impact of influencers on driving traffic to your store.  Reach out today!