Easy ways to find out if your ecommerce marketing strategy is working

Posted on 9:19am Friday 26th Aug 2022

Brands really are competing with other publishers so they can get more page views. For this reason, it can be incredibly tempting to try and follow their lead and just look at organic website traffic when measuring your ecommerce marketing strategy.

However, you have to remember your incoming leads aren’t the only measurement of your marketing success. There are other things you can check to see if your marketing efforts are working.

Let's explore some of the factors other than your website traffic which prove your strategy is successful.

Easy ways to find out if your ecommerce marketing strategy is working

Why bounce rate is an important measure of ecommerce marketing success

While a lot of organic traffic might look like your marketing strategy is working, you need to dive deeper into the analytics of this traffic to determine its success. If 1000 people land on your site, but leave immediately, then this traffic is pretty useless for an ecommerce store.

You need these visitors to hang around and explore your shop and products, and hopefully buy something!

To see how valuable your traffic is and whether these visitors are actually hanging around, you can check your bounce rate in Google Analytics.

The bounce rate is a metric that measures the number of visitors to a website who view only one page, or "bounce", before leaving. The higher this number, the more likely it is that your marketing strategy isn't working. The lower this number, the more users are visiting more than one page when they land on your site.

It measures the effectiveness of your site’s content and whether it’s enticing enough to keep people looking around your webiste. Analysing this figure and which pages are being bounced off can be used to determine if your marketing campaign is effective and what you need to fix in order to improve it.

The first thing you should do is look at the bounce rates for different pages on your website. You will be able to see what pages are not working as well as others and make changes accordingly.

Some of the reasons that might lead to a high bounce rate are:

You have clickbait titles and your landing pages don't match users intent
Your site is too hard to navigate
Your site has poor design
Your products don't match your audience
Your prices are too high
Your website loads too slowly
You have too many popups or ads

If you want a good rule of thumb then a bounce rate of 45% or under is fantastic, but if you have a number over this then you need to try and get that number down.

How to improve bounce rate for an ecommerce store and keep customers on your website

Improving bounce rates will help increase conversion rates because customers are more likely to buy products if they stay on your website for a longer time period. Here are some methods to try:

Make sure your site is mobile friendly

The most common cause of high bounce rates is that your site is not mobile friendly. A Google study found that 61% of users abandon sites if they are not mobile friendly.

This is an issue because mobile traffic now comprises the majority of all internet traffic.

Understand your customers

Figure out what content and products your visitors are looking for. Make sure that your content is relevant, interesting, and informative.

Make your website user friendly

Create a website that is easy for visitors to navigate. Have a search bar. Have menu items and sub categories.

Create a web of links

If you've taken a digital marketing course from Google you will know how important it is to have links throughout all of your content.

When creating your pages, try and make sure that you have links that go to all of your ecommerce pages. For example, every page that you have on your site should have a link to one of your products. And your product pages should have links to other similar products that the customer might be interested in.

Improve your homepage

Have a featured products section on your homepage and links to popular categories, informational pages the customer might want to read (i.e. shipping costs, delivery info, returns info). Make everything easily accessible from the homepage. Display contact information clearly incase your customers have questions about your products.

Don't neglect your business blog

If your site has a blog then you will know how great this can be for driving traffic to your site.

The main thing that you have to remember about your blog is that it is there to drive sales. Make sure you are recommending products you sell and linking to them from the blog posts.

Check these metrics (and not just website traffic) to see if your ecommerce marketing strategy is working

As well as the bounce rate, there are other ways you can check if your marketing is working and improving. Make sure you look at the following metrics or ask your marketing agency to share these stats with you so you know how your business is progressing. If you don't understand how to improve your marketing strategy yourself then you might want to hire a company. Choosing a digital marketing and advertising company who specialises in ecommerce can help take this part of your business off your hands.

The number of new customers:

This metric will show how many new customers are coming to your store. If this number is going up, then it means that your marketing strategy is working. Of course, you want to retain your existing customers and keep them coming back, but you also want to grow your business by reaching new customers and enticing them to your store. More leads equal more profit.

Sales conversion rate:

This metric will show you how many people who visit your store make a purchase. If this number is going up, then it means that your marketing strategy is working. If a lot of people visit your website but they don’t convert, then something is not right and you are not providing what they are searching for, or your website is not easy to use. Work out why they aren’t converting. Maybe your prices are too high? Perhaps they can’t navigate your website quickly?

Average order value:

This metric (AOV) will show you how much money the average customer spends on their order when they visit your store. If this number is going up, then it means that your marketing strategy is working. To get this number up you need to be marketing the products well and have lots of options to buy more related products. Have similar items on each product page or show what other customers purchased.

Abandoned basket rates:

This is important to check as if lots of people abandon the basket at checkout then you need to know why. Maybe you aren’t displaying the shipping costs clearly and it’s putting them off? Maybe you don’t deliver to their country and this is not clear? Maybe the price suddenly puts them off? Maybe the checkout process isn’t easy, quick or clear. Maybe you don’t accept their preferred payment method?

Final word

There are a number of ways to measure the effectiveness of your ecommerce marketing strategy. One way is to look at the traffic to your website, but this is not always the best metric.

If you are running an ecommerce business, then you need to look at metrics like conversion rates and revenue generated. If these metrics are going up, then it means that your marketing strategy is working!

You also want to keep an eye on your bounce rate to ensure your website is well designed and your content is onpoint to keep people browsing your website for longer. A lower bounce rate is what you need to aim for.