As eCommerce and social commerce have become our go-to channels for shopping and entertainment, the role of influencers has become central to helping brands convert new customers.

For growth-driven brands, the key to success will be understanding the biggest influencer marketing trends for 2022. 

How are brands getting the most from influencer marketing in 2022?
What types of influencers and social media channels are the most important this year?
What is the future of influencer marketing?

Get the answers to these questions and more in this round-up of the top 7 influencer marketing trends for 2022.

The Top 7 Influencer Marketing Trends For 2022

1. Market growth 

Once considered the ‘Wild West’ of digital marketing, influencer marketing is now a proven and adaptable sales-boosting strategy. It’s a cost-effective marketing channel for brands big and small, so it’s no surprise that the influencer marketing industry is continuing to grow in 2022. In fact, it’s predicted to reach $16.4B this year according to Influencer Marketing Hub. 

Now more than ever before, brands are investing in influencer marketing to strengthen relationships with new audiences and turn social media into a sales generation channel thanks to creator partnerships. 

2. Brands harness the power of first-party data in influencer marketing

Marketers are facing many challenges when it comes to accessing third-party data. Google is planning to phase out third-party cookies by 2023. While 62% of iPhone users are opting-out of app usage tracking following Apple’s iOS 14.5 update. This creates an environment where leveraging first-party data for marketing is more important than ever. 

For the influencer marketing industry, first-party data helps brands identify new potential partnerships. Businesses are analyzing the consumer data they already own to pinpoint valuable customers to activate in loyalty schemes, brand ambassador campaigns, affiliate programs, and influencer marketing partnerships. By deep-diving into their customer’s demographic data, purchase history, and social reach, brands can surface new channel partners from their own customer database. 

This is improving the influencer identification and onboarding processes. Meanwhile, it’s allowing brands to save time on negotiations and briefings as your influential customers already know and love your brand.

3. TikTok influencers drive shopping trends

We know that social media plays a key role in the online shopping journey. Indeed, research from TINT highlights that 85% of consumers use social media to research companies. Yet corporate content won’t get you very far on TikTok. But there’s no need to worry. TikTok creators can help brands to build a presence on the platform that’s so popular in 2022. They are known for their highly engaging and entertaining content which doesn’t feel at all like an ad. That’s what makes these creators so effective at promoting brands authentically on TikTok. 

Influencers on TikTok are tapping into viral trends on the platform and featuring products in their posts which go on to have a massive reach and launch a new shopping trend. Brands have seen a 700% spike in sales in a single week thanks to TikTok.  That’s the magic behind the #tiktokmademebuyit hashtag which highlights the effect of TikTok creator content on influencing shopping decisions. These TikToks also make their way onto other platforms, like Instagram Reels, Youtube Shorts, and Youtube compilation videos, allowing the trend to reach those consumers that may not actually be on TikTok.

With the knowledge that 76% of people have bought something based on a recommendation from someone else, it’s clear to see why brands need to harness the effect of content creators if they want to see an uptick in sales this year!

4. Influencer-generated content converts awareness to sales 

The impact influencers can have on sales applies to all social media channels. Almost all social networks have rolled out social commerce features such as native in-app shops or product catalogs. With this in mind, brands can collaborate with influencers of all types from nano, to micro, macro, or KOL to create authentic product recommendations that can be used at key moments of the purchase journey. 

By sharing content such as unboxing videos, shopping hauls, or how-to guides, influencers can offer product information and social proof, which helps brands target customers at the ‘consideration’ stage of their shopping journey. When it comes to conversion, brands can use influencers in promo code campaigns, affiliate marketing programs, or even live social shopping events. 

Influencer marketing has officially gone beyond promoting brand awareness and boosting social engagement to becoming a scalable and attributable strategy for driving sales for your business.

5. Employee-generated content brings additional authenticity

The advantages to leveraging authentic user-generated-content aren’t limited to a brand’s customer base. Businesses can also harness content created by their employees to increase online reach and engagement for their brand. After all, people like connecting with people, not brands. This explains why posts such as @ricky.federici’s, who’s TikTok video of him creating a Baconator burger earned over 178K views, gain so much traction. 

@ricky.federici Reply to @joegoose24 drop a comment in the chat if u think u could eat one of these bad boys #wendys #bacon #fyp #foryoupage #fy #foryou #baconator ♬ original sound – iammassis

Whether you’re a B2C or a B2B company, your employees are subject-matter experts and perfectly placed to speak on behalf of your brand. Consider encouraging your employees to share thought leadership articles on Linkedin, a behind-the-scenes Instagram Story, or live video from an event. 

6. Video content reigns supreme

The soaring popularity of video content is part of a wider content marketing trend. As of last year, people were watching an average of 100 minutes of online video per day.  Influencer marketers should be tapping into this trend through influencer-generated video content as 55% of consumers are using video to guide their purchasing decisions. A well-timed video from their favorite creator could seal the deal for someone who’s considering buying from your brand. 

What’s more, there have never been so many options for leveraging video content across social media. Whether it’s live video streams on Twitch, a live shopping feed on YouTube, or a 30 second TikTok video, there are so many ways to get engaging video content in front of your audience. With so many options and so much popularity, 71% of marketers plan on increasing video efforts in 2022.

If you don’t have the budget for expensive TV ads or an in-house video-editing team, then collaborating with influencers who are experts in content creation is definitely the way to go!

Related article:

Brief #102: Visual storytelling with video

7. Social platforms are finding new ways to pay creators

We’re already seeing many new ways for content creators to earn money via social media platforms which helps to professionalize their role in marketing. Social media platforms know the value that influencers bring to their audiences. Therefore, they’re investing in new incentives to reward influencers who are posting on their platforms to help generate more engagement and attract new users. Let’s take a closer look. 

• Instagram – In 2021, Instagram announced they would trial a native affiliate tool that would allow creators to promote products available to buy directly on Instagram and earn a commission from their sales. A new initiative being tested already this year is creator subscriptions where creators can set a subscription price for their fans to be able to access exclusive content.
• TikTok – They have committed to spending £231 million over the next 3 years on the Creator Fund. This program has been set up to reward creators on the platform who have at least 10,000 followers and have achieved at least 100,000 video views during the last 30 days. Individual creators can also receive gifts and tips from their fans which translate into monetary payments for their work. 
• Twitter – The platform has already rolled out a subscription model called ‘Super Follows’ where followers can pay a monthly fee to their favorite influencers in exchange for exclusive content. The platform is continuing to invest in helping creators become more professional and manage their earnings with the launch of their ‘Creator Dashboard’ which is currently being tested. 
• YouTube – During 2021 and 2022 YouTube will spend $100M rewarding top creators through the YouTube Shorts Fund. In 2022 YouTube has also announced plans to bring in ways for fans to shop directly via Shorts and integrate fan-funded features like ‘Super Chat’. 

With additional opportunities to supplement their income, we’re seeing more users working full-time as content creators, with even more means to hone their craft. This is great news, as brands are seeing even greater talent rise through the ranks while the industry continues to mature. 

These top 7 trends for influencer marketing in 2022 show how the industry is adapting to the fast acceleration of eCommerce and social commerce. 

We can see how brands are putting authenticity first when it comes to recruiting new channel partners and looking to their own network of organic advocates as the way to drive the most conversions. 

Creators have proven themselves to be valuable partners not only to brands but also to social media platforms who are now taking the lead in funding and training the next generation of influencers. 

This blog was contributed by the team at Upfluence, the leading influencer marketing platform for eCommerce.

The post Top Influencer Marketing Trends for 2022 appeared first on TINT.

The lockdowns and remote working forced corporate event planners to re-evaluate how to proceed with meetings and activities. People quickly realized that there are virtual conferencing tools available today that can host any meetings or team-building activities online. 

But now the question is: where do we go from here? Will we stick to online meetings, or is there a chance for everything to go back to in-person and physical events? What will corporate meetings look like in the future?

The answer is hybrid corporate events. In fact, 62% of event planners believe that hybrid events are the future and plan to continue catering to a virtual audience in tandem with a live one. 

Keep reading to find out 7 strategies to prepare for virtual corporate meetings of the future.

1. Get the Right Team

Most of us have gotten used to conducting meetings online. However, with the shift to hybrid events, we’ll need to continue to learn and grow. The virtual events industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of more than 23% between 2020 and 2027. Since much of the space is still uncharted territory, the first thing you need to do is get the right team to navigate it. 

Regardless of how much automation you introduce, it’s up to the human team to make it a success or failure. You need to have the right team consisting of trained and highly skilled personnel.

A possible team could include:

• A digital event strategist who is experienced at conducting digital events and is familiar with the costs, physical requirements, and overall management of the event.
• A tools expert who is trained at handling the software and all the technical aspects.
• A moderator who knows how to handle a live audience and virtual attendees together at the same time.
• A content manager who will be responsible for creating all the virtual and physical content for the event.

2. Choose the Right Platform

We might be familiar with certain online meeting platforms, like Zoom, that we use for daily continuity of business. However, there is no guarantee that these platforms will work effectively for hybrid events. Hybrid corporate events will require a unique platform that allows the virtual attendees, as well as the in-person audience, to interact seamlessly. 

Depending on the type of event or corporate meeting, the platform will need to have additional features as well, such as private rooms, customization, flexible resource sharing options, etc. Choosing the right platform can make a big difference in how the meeting goes and how successful you are in accomplishing the objectives of the meeting. 

Fortunately, as virtual and hybrid events gain more traction, companies are working hard to develop advanced online software that meets the demands of hybrid events today. There are many great options out there such as Bizzabo, ON24, Hopin, SwapCard, 6Connex, and more. 

3. Adapt Your Content

A corporate event planner or events agency will need to work on adapting the content to the new kind of corporate meeting. A few years ago, you could get by with a simple presentation with photocopies for everyone, then everyone expected a PDF, then attendees wanted hyperlinked and media-rich versions of all presented content. 

Things are different now. You can change the content to better satisfy your audience’s wants and needs. With hybrid events, people tend to have a shorter attention span, so the content will have to be engaging yet concise. 

Likewise, the content will have to be adapted according to the physical audience, too, so that the message or key takeaways from the meeting can be relayed properly. Include more Q&A sessions to get the audience involved or even include short physical activities to get everyone moving and break the inertia. 

4. Send Out Agendas in Advance

Hybrid events are still something very new for many people out there. If event planners want the virtual corporate meetings to be a success, they need to ensure that the audience knows what to expect.  Otherwise, they will just spend the whole meeting in confusion.

Sending out an agenda outlining the whole event and its objectives for everyone will help the attendees get familiar with the event pattern as well as the expectations. 

5. Engage Everyone

Event agencies will also have to think outside the box and come up with different strategies to keep all participants engaged, whether they are online or present in person. They can break the meeting into several parts to keep everyone focused and prevent them from zoning out. In those breaks, they could hold polls or surveys on different topics to get the audience’s opinion and keep them engaged. 

Similarly, the organizers can hold Q&A sessions where the online speakers and live audience can interact directly and ask each other questions or direct the questions to the speaker. 

6. Use Event Insights to Perform Better Next Time

One of the great things about online events is that it offers a lot of opportunities to track and gather data about the event. Even the most rudimentary video chat tool can capture basic metrics. More advanced software can score things like screen time, attention to content, downloads, and unique engagement criteria.

Insights to consider tracking:

• Which sessions or speakers in the meeting attracted the most audience or had the highest engagement?
• Which demographic had what kind of behavior throughout the event?
• When did people start clicking away?
• When did people change tabs or navigate away from a session?
• When did users ask the most questions?

Using this data to draw meaningful insights and then applying them to future virtual corporate meetings can help make them more successful. 

7. Amplify Event Content

Events are places where industry experts share ideas, trends, and research. Even when creating a hybrid event, there will be people who want to see the content but are unable to attend in-person or virtually. Work to capture top-tier event content and promote it through brand channels.  You could turn them into webinars, make video clips for social media, or use them as lead magnets by gating them in your CRM.  Don’t let great event content die at the show.

Final Thoughts

Whether it’s team-building events or corporate meetings, there’s no doubt that the norms and best practices are constantly changing. As a result, if event planners and businesses want to remain effective and efficient in their online events, they need to strategize and prepare for these changes beforehand.  Think about hybrid corporate events as your plan your field and web marketing strategies.

Whether your event is online, in person, or both, TINT creates tools that engage and delight attendees. Start with vibrant social walls, then move into the TINT Experience Builder to create social media-driven activations that will keep your attendees engaged- wherever they’re participating.  Learn more and chat with our events team today. 

Author Bio
Sarah Hill is a content writer at Seven Events Ltd, a leading event organizer offering virtual event solutions and venue finding services in the UK. She started her career in the events industry almost a decade ago as time progressed she became an avid event blogger sharing her insight on corporate event planning.

The post 7 Strategies to Prepare for Hybrid Corporate Events of the Future appeared first on TINT.

Strategically using social commerce is critical to ensuring that your brand can attract and retain customers. More and more people are shopping online and nearly every social media platform has made online shopping features available.

What is social commerce? 

Social commerce considers the entire customer lifecycle as it happens on your social media channels. People can discover your brand, explore products, and even purchase directly on the app – no need to redirect them to your website to buy.

It’s no secret that making your customers’ purchasing experience as easy as possible leads to more sales. If a potential customer needs to go through too many steps to purchase, they might give up on the whole idea and not buy.

That’s what makes social commerce so convenient. Customers go through minimal steps, experience minimal friction, and still discover and purchase from your brand. 

Why should you care about social commerce? 

Social Commerce is here to stay. The world has shifted and eCommerce now accounts for almost a trillion dollars in annual spending in the U.S. alone. Combine that with a major increase in the expansion and usage of social media in the aftermath of 2020.  While your website is part of the shopping experience, social commerce gives you another platform to convert customers. Websites and social commerce go hand-in-hand in creating a five-star experience for your audience.

An omnichannel approach, including social media, websites, and maybe even hosting a webinar or creating a video, will help you reach all of your audiences’ shopping personalities – from the impulse buyers watching an Instagram video to the analytical shoppers that need to study every detail on your website before they purchase a product.

Nearly every social media platform has a way to include commerce as part of your marketing strategy. From Facebook Shops to Instagram Checkout, the possibilities are almost endless on how you can use social media to promote your brand.

Let’s not forget that an active and engaged community on social media can lead to customer loyalty. After all, 53% of Americans who follow brands on social media are more loyal to those brands.

Don’t underestimate the power of customer loyalty. Ensuring a strong relationship between you and your customers on your social media channels can lead to more revenue for you. 65% of your company’s business comes from existing customers, so it’s not a relationship you can afford to lose.

How can you make new customers into lifelong fans using social commerce? 

While social commerce can be used for awareness, consideration, and conversion stages of the customer lifecycle, it can also be used to retain customers (and turn customers into raving fans). 

Let’s take a look at 2 different strategies you can use to boost customer loyalty.

1. Encourage UGC

User-generated content (UGC) is key to recognizing your customer’s experience and providing social proof to your audience that your product is well-liked by people like them. 93% of marketers agree that consumers trust content created by customers more than content created by brands. People trust people. 

UGC can expand your audience to new people. When someone posts about your product on their Instagram story, there’s an opportunity to reach potential customers. Now that a new audience is aware that you exist, the next step in their journey would be to check out your brand’s Instagram profile. But that might only happen if the original sharer tagged you in their Instagram Story in the first place. So how can you encourage people to tag you?

Re-sharing UGC on your profile can encourage your customers to tag you in their posts. When customers constantly see that you interact with your audience and share their content, they will be inspired to join in on the fun.

You could also promote a specific branded hashtag and ask followers to use it. This can make it easier for you to find posts that contain your brand and interact with your existing customers.

Let’s take a look at ModCloth, an online clothing retailer. The brand’s Instagram account asks followers to put the branded hashtag #MyModCloth on their social media posts. This strategy encourages people to take Insta-worthy photos of themselves in ModCloth clothing. In return, ModCloth features these UGC photos on their Instagram story.

2. Implement a loyalty program

Social Commerce Specialists know it’s not enough to get new customers. They need a plan to earn more revenue through their existing customers. These strategies usually include repeat purchases, upsells, and cross-sells. But there’s one strategy that stands out because not only does a business get more revenue, but it leaves your existing customers feeling appreciated.

Enter the customer loyalty program. Implementing a loyalty program amongst your existing customers encourages them to return to your business. This often forgotten piece of a marketing program is a phenomenal way to use social commerce to boost loyalty.

A customer loyalty program rewards customers for purchases or engaging with your brand. One popular option is for customers to earn points which can then be redeemed for discounts, free gifts, or exclusive access to new products. 

To automate this process, you could use different social media tools, which also help with data and analytics tracking to make sure your social commerce campaigns are actually working – or adjust accordingly. Here’s an example by one of the most well-known examples by Starbucks.

Starbucks has one of the most popular loyalty programs. The coffee company makes sure that their customers are using it though. It implemented “Star Days” for a whole week and every day had a new reward for customers using the Starbucks loyalty program.

Star Days built on the current relationship with their customers – whether or not they were participants in the loyalty program. Notice how the social media post had two call-to-actions; the first is asking existing customers in the loyalty program to check out the app, and the second is encouraging people not in the loyalty program to join.

The strategy was to continue to build relationships with their customers and encourage them to participate in the loyalty program. It’s fair to say that Starbucks has many happy and returning customers.

Final thoughts 

Attracting new customers is important, but you could earn far more revenue by using social commerce to boost loyalty among your audience with a unique ability to blend building relationships while selling products at the same time.

You can use these strategies to reward your audience with recognition, five-star customer service, and loyalty program benefits. They will pay you back in kind with glowing reviews, user-generated content, and lifelong loyalty. Request a demo today to learn more

About the Guest Author
Raul Galera is the Partner Manager at ReferralCandy and CandyBar, two tools helping small and medium businesses run customer referral and loyalty programs. He’s been working in the tech sector for the past seven years and regularly writes about marketing, eCommerce and tech.

The post Using Social Commerce to Boost Customer Loyalty appeared first on TINT.

In many cases it has provided the opportunity for marketers to re-evaluate content strategies and adapt to remote content creation.

The following are 5 lessons learned doing content marketing during COVID-19 that can continue to inform your strategies moving forward.

1. Flexibility is a must

The usual strategies may not work as expected, which means you now have a great opportunity to switch up how you create content.

Engaging your audience is more important than ever. We know that people are at home more often and bored, so give them something to engage with.

Online experiences and events are all great ideas for engaging with your audience. Also, visual content garners more engagement, as customers remember 65% of written content that includes visuals versus 10% of posts that only include text.

“Written content is undoubtedly useful but today visual materials such as infographics or videos are outperforming for content repurposing and they will continue to be one of the most frequently used content marketing strategies for 2020,” said Rameez Ghayas Usmani, Digital Marketing Executive for PureVPN.

2. Content isn’t only about sales

In addition to sales content, focus even more on your audience and avoid greed, one of the major “sins” of content marketing.

This is an excellent time to foster trust with your target audience. 62% of people in a study identified quality content as a factor in their loyalty to a brand.

Work on building trust with your audience and they’ll be much more willing to spend money on your product or service.

3. Empathy is key

Understand how your audience is doing, what they care about so that you can connect on an authentic level. In doing this, you build a connection with your customers because they’ll feel that you get them. If they believe in what you’re doing, you’ll get their support in spreading your message (i.e. your content).

With many changes in the market, now is when empathy matters. Customers everywhere are feeling the stress. Find ways to be helpful via your content and amplify the voices of your customers and community.

Take Patagonia for example: when they reopened the brand’s back to business message didn’t focus on announcing new seasonal clothing favorites or sales. Instead, they opened up with a thoughtful message, then went on to appreciate public servants, healthcare professionals, and others who are helping their communities.

4. Community matters

Find the content that resonates most with your community. If your business is helping or has helped those in need, let your audience know. Make a big deal about customer success stories and provide emotional content while highlighting positive news.

Collecting and sharing community led creative content that takes into account what the world is going through at the moment and relating it to your business objectives is an excellent approach to end content stagnation. For instance, budgeting, DIY, working from home, and homeschooling have been salient topics. Then there’s always a good dance challenge and other fun content on platforms like TikTok.

In plain words, look out for your community.

5. Balance is Important

With so much worldwide focus on COVID-19, an overload of pandemic content can be overwhelming. Develop content topics outside of solely focusing on the pandemic, making sure the content itself is informative and engaging.

The idea here is to be helpful while remaining connected. Your audience needs to know that your business is staying relevant.

Understand what your readers expect from you now and deliver it. Your adaptations may not be related to topics alone but could be related to tone. Readers may want a more compassionate tone or content type.

It’s more important than ever that you focus on finding out what your audience wants and engaging them with informative, relevant, and engaging content.

Crafting quality content takes time, so don’t just churn out as usual. Embrace your audience’s concerns, relate with your community, and show that you’re willing to adjust your trajectory to support them.

We’re here to help with your content strategy. Schedule a demo to speak with our experts.

Prafull Sharma is the Founder of content marketing agency LeadsPanda.com and author of the One-Page Content Marketing Blueprint. He shares tips to 2x your content marketing results on the LeadsPanda blog. Connect with him on twitter @prafullsha.

The post 5 Lessons Learned Doing Content Marketing During COVID-19 appeared first on TINT.

Although Google’s traffic can be one of the highest converting sources for online purchases, it’s essential to spread your conversions across several channels. This is one highly effective way to balance risk.

If organic traffic goes down, your social traffic or paid ads are still working. You can rely on these until you recover your organic visibility.

Optimizing your conversion rate by traffic source is critical. With the average eCommerce conversion rate at 2%, according to BigCommerce, you have to optimize your store for sales.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re driving prospects and customers to your online store via paid ads, affiliates, content marketing, referrals, etc., you have to make it count for every visitor.

If they leave without taking the right action (e.g., buy a product or sign up for your newsletter), it’s a missed opportunity.

Here are 9 proven ways to optimize your eCommerce store’s conversion rate by traffic source:

1. Share Posts Relevant to Each Social Media Demographic

Every social media network has a demographic or specific demographics they serve. Facebook and Instagram might be owned by the same company, but they serve two different demographics.

You can successfully post written content on Facebook and get results, but that won’t work on Instagram. Instagram is a visual social platform (the largest demographic is below the age of 25) — where users share pictures, videos, and other user generated content.

When sharing posts on LinkedIn, recognize that you’re targeting professionals, business owners, and business executives (not entertainers).

So if you’re using LinkedIn to promote shoes or clothing on your online store, share posts that are relevant to that audience. Here are some examples:

• 5 Modern Suits to Wear on a Board Meeting

• How to Dress to Impress Investors Every time 

Pinterest users comprise 80% of women, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter have diversified demographics, while Reddit is mostly dominated by males.

2. Use Retargeting to Re-engage Visitors from Different Traffic Sources

Users who have visited your online store are often more qualified than users who haven’t interacted with your content or brand before.

If you advertise to the former and also track where the new ads, leads, and sales are coming from, you’ll instantly lower costs and boost sales.

Myfix Cycles, a Canadian Bicycle retailer earned $15 for every $1 spent on its Facebook retargeting campaigns. That’s 1,529% Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

When retargeting, you can offer appropriate incentives for each traffic source. For example, offering a coupon to users who came from social media channels can increase sales. Just make sure that the retargeting content, the visuals, are relevant to your audience.

Also, offering free shipping can put your eCommerce business ahead of the competition. These incentives and rewards work well — especially if the potential customer is looking for a great deal online.

3. Create a Dedicated Landing Page for Each Traffic Source

To increase your online sales, design specific landing pages for product pages, sales pages, and customer success stories, for each traffic source.

For example, if you’re getting organic traffic from Google, then you should create dedicated content-rich landing pages for these users with visuals relevant to them. The same applies if you run a Facebook contest or YouTube video campaign.

Make sure there’s a ‘Message Match’ between what you shared on a platform and what users see when they visit your landing page. 

If you offered a discount code on your Google ad, for example, then make sure it’s also present on your product page. This will significantly increase the number of buyers you attract and help you make more money.

4. Identify Purchase Intent for Each Traffic Source

All traffic sources to an eCommerce store aren’t created equal. The quality of the traffic and purchase intent will likely vary based on where the users are coming from.

For example, if you drive traffic from Google organic search to your online store, you can expect high conversion rates — especially if you’ve done an SEO audit and optimized yoru pages for buyer keywords. Customers know exactly what they want when searching on Google.

Of course, you still have to optimize your landing pages to squeeze out every conversion from this audience, but the ‘search intent’ matters most.

On the other hand, if you’re running Facebook ads and targeting potential customers on Facebook, you have to remember that people use Facebook and other social networks to ‘socialize.’ Part of socializing is getting rewards, incentives, you name it.

So when you recommend products, offer clearer incentives as well. This will motivate users to buy or at least, subscribe to your newsletter. Then you can follow up via email to get them to buy the ‘said’ product.

5. Adjust Your Ads Goal Based On Your Product

What product are you selling? Are you running Facebook ads already?

Okay, this might be the right time to adjust your Facebook Ads Objective. Providing maximum value to users should be the focus. Everything else is secondary, including making sales.

For example, if your product is new and you want to Create Awareness for your product, then you can drive clicks directly to your social galleries where they can learn more about the product and see other real people using and enjoying it.

Here’s an ad from Snag Tights with real people (UGC!), specifically for creating awareness.

On the other hand, you should choose “Conversions” if you want people to see your product ad and buy. In this case, you’ll want to offer coupons, free shipping, and other incentives to encourage social users to buy.

It’s also important to create a dedicated page that will highlight product features and benefits. For example, iNECTA, an eCommerce brand that offers food ERP solutions to Seafood merchants created a dedicated page that caters for seafood traders only.

You’ll increase your eCommerce store’s conversion rates if you adjust your advertising objective based on what you’re selling.

6. Improve Page Speed For PPC Traffic

Page speed matters everywhere, and especially in eCommerce space. Online shoppers don’t want to waste time on a slow-loading online store.

If you’re a new eCommerce marketer, you may want to save money and invest in page speed tools.

Hence, it’s important to optimize for page speed, especially when you’re running Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads. Many online shoppers use Smartphones and Tablets. They want your product page to load quickly, Otherwise, they’ll switch to your competitor.

According to research, there’s a 90% chance that a shopper will bounce if a mobile page loading time increases from 1 – 5 seconds.

Of course, your landing page design, logo placement, product features, and curated customer content are all important, none of these matter if your page doesn’t load quickly. Work on your page speed to increase conversions from PPC traffic.

7. Build A Strong Social Media Presence

It’s easier to attract a broad audience to your eCommerce site if you’re actively marketing on social media.

With billions of people already enjoying social media, it’s become pretty easy to reach tens of thousands of people with your unique message and content.

And you don’t have to waste time with manual tasks, use a platform to plan your day, organize your calendar, then automate posting and tracking.

There’s a chance that potential customers will find you on social media networks by seeing your content, then enter your product name or website on Google search box to learn more/buy your product.

8. Make it Easy for Customers to Reach You

Regardless of what channel (such as social, organic search) customers came from, they want their questions answered on time and their objections addressed.

They want to access the right products on your site or store without struggling. Hence, it’s important to provide clear contact information.

One example is Infinite Recovery, a rehab center that also sells therapy kits. They display their phone number and contact form, making it easy for people to reach them via any means.

Making your contact information visible is proof that you’re legit. People will feel more confident to buy from you.

After all, your phone number, email address, online ticket system, physical address, etc., are visible and valid. Integrating live chat support can also make a big difference in your online sales.

9. Improve your Conversion Rates with User-Generated Content

If your brand is known for delivering high-quality products and great post-purchase experiences, you’ll be generating word of mouth.

This happens primarily when happy customers spread the word about your products on social. According to Nielsen Global Survey of Trust and Advertising, “recommendations from friends is the most credible form of advertising among online shoppers.”

It’s important to encourage and harness this social content to put it to use for your brand across every touchpoint. One study even found that UGC can increase conversions by 74%!

Conclusion

eCommerce conversion rates vary from one sector to the other.

However, given the dynamic nature of the web, where one traffic source may work well today and fizzle out tomorrow, you need to diversify and invest in several traffic channels (such as Facebook ads, Google ads, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, blogging).

While organic search (mainly from Google) still provide some of the highest conversions for eCommerce stores, it’s important to continue experimenting with different traffic sources (e.g., Affiliates, Facebook ads).

We’re here to help optimize social commerce. Schedule a demo to speak with our experts.

Burkhard Berger is the founder of awesomex. You can follow him on his path from 0 to 100,000 monthly visitors on www.awesomex.com. His articles include some of the best growth hacking strategies and digital scaling tactics that he has learned from his own successes and failures.

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