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Any well performing eCommerce store is built upon well-actioned basics. Here is a refresher of the absolute musts for success in a crowded market
In the world of eCommerce, where trends come and go with dizzying speed, there is one timeless truth that remains constant: mastering the marketing basics will always be the clearest, smoothest, and most straightforward path to greater and greater success.
Excelling in the fundamental aspects of your business isn't just best practice, it's essential for sustainable growth and long-term success. The basics are the foundation upon which your business stands. They are the core processes and strategies that, when executed well, create a robust and resilient framework capable of supporting your business as it scales. Put simply, when we experience rapid growth, it can be easy to get distracted by newer ideas.
But, in the kind of business environment that is crowded with competitors and ever-evolving consumer expectations, coming back to, and paying meticulous attention to these foundational elements can be what sets you apart, which means your brand not only survives but thrives.
When you focus on doing things well at a fundamental level, you create a ripple effect that elevates every aspect of your business, driving growth and building a culture and reputation of excellence. Now, let's explore the essential, foundational strategies that will help you scale your eCommerce business in 2024.
A seamless user experience (UX) is vital for keeping customers engaged and reducing bounce rates. An intuitive design that guides visitors effortlessly, coupled with fast loading times, especially on mobile devices, is crucial for user satisfaction and SEO rankings. 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if a page takes longer than three seconds to load. Think about that for a second. More than half of your hard-earned traffic almost immediately jumps out if they don’t see what they want to in the first few seconds.
One way to combat this loss of traffic would be to analyse your website's current performance using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights. This tool allows you to identify areas for improvement, such as optimising images and leveraging browser caching, to enhance the overall speed and responsiveness of your site.
To enhance your website's UX, consider conducting user testing sessions with well-chosen focus groups to identify pain points. Tools like Hotjar can be invaluable in gathering real-time feedback, allowing you to make data-driven improvements. While your strategy meetings likely aren’t too focused on the small, nuanced data and analytics of your web content strategy, especially if you’re in a period of fast growth, you should make sure someone is looking at this kind of data regularly. That’s where hiring an external team can come in handy. We’re proud to partner with Hotjar and have a team of experts on hand to keep an eye on the finer details for you, so that you keep your focus on the bigger picture.
Our guess is you already know that effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is crucial for increasing organic traffic to your site, but just how well is your SEO performing? When it comes to truly optimising your organic search rankings, of course consistency is important, but you should also be prioritising recency, as what worked for your brand in the earlier days may not be working as well now. Regularly update your strategy to reflect the latest search engine algorithms. Concentrating on thorough keyword research on a regular basis, and spending some serious time writing high-quality content or optimising the content you currently have are great ways to enhance your visibility in search results.
By understanding how your customers are behaving today, you can quickly adapt to meet them where they are, and be the people who show up when they search. We are regularly noticing things that our clients’ customers are searching for and adapting our SEO strategy to reach them. Something as simple as changing a meta title or meta description to more accurately line up with what your customers are searching for can make a world of difference. Effective search engine optimization is low-hanging fruit for eCommerce websites. But, despite the fact that SEO has one of the highest ROIs of any eCommerce marketing strategy, many online stores are put together with little to no consideration of search engines.
Something you can implement right away is conducting a comprehensive SEO audit of your website. This will identify a number of areas for improvement, such as updating meta titles, enhancing image alt texts, and creating content around trending keywords relevant to your niche.
Data and analytics help you understand customer behaviours and preferences, which is crucial for making informed decisions. Data-driven organisations are 23 times as likely to acquire customers, and six times as likely to retain customers.
Not only that, but with a scaling eCommerce brand, you are likely managing multiple paid ads & performance marketing campaigns across multiple platforms at any one time. Understanding how your customers are interacting with your brand from their very first impression down through to their conversion is absolutely essential for maximising your advertising spend. If this isn’t something you or your team are reviewing on a regular basis, we would advise reconsidering your approach as soon as possible.
Over the last four years of collaboration and growth with our partner & client, P&Co, we've supported them to see exponential growth year-on-year. With our most recent focus on optimising every single one of our paid ad funnels to get the most of every pound spent on advertising.
The difference in results after just 12 months were unprecedented.
2023 Vs 2022 - eCommerce Metrics:
Without the effective monitoring and understanding of customer behaviour, and analysing the data at each point of the funnel; while simultaneously cross-referencing that data with stock analytics, we would never have seen as much success.
The questions to ask yourself here are things like:
Are you that founder who knows email marketing has extremely high ROI but the only thing you do is send a sales blast once every few weeks when you have new products go live? Successful email marketing doesn't work that way.
Email marketing remains a powerful tool for eCommerce businesses going into 2024. For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $44. It's a direct line to your customers and can be highly personalised, so if you have a sense you’re not getting as much of a ROI as you could with this channel, now is a good time to reassess. An essential first step is to segment your email list for more personalised communication. Similarly, creating email content that actually feels like a conversation with your audience, one that brings them further into your world is an absolute must. And, for an eCommerce brand, automating this process is what will really get your engine revving.
You can also learn lots from the emails that you send out. For example, setting up automated email sequences for cart abandonment not only recovers lost sales, but gives you insight into why they may have abandoned their cart in the first place, and allows you to rework your store as a result. Using an email marketing platform like Klaviyo to automate welcome series, cart abandonment emails, and personalised product recommendations is a must. Did you know our team are Klaviyo experts, too? Give us a shout with any of your email marketing questions.
Scaling your eCommerce business in 2024 doesn’t necessarily require shiny new, complex strategies; it requires excelling in the basic, tried and trusted ones. By focusing on these essential strategies and implementing them effectively, you can lay a solid foundation for sustainable growth and success in 2024 and beyond.
And, if you want to find a team that can think about most of this for you, you know where to find us.
Chris has been at the forefront of eCommerce and a pioneer of online retailing since the early 00s. A 5-time Drapers Award winner, Chris has extensive experience in developing fashion brands online.
Chris founded Cake in 2016. Based in Birmingham, with offices nationwide, Cake specialises in helping fashion brands understand their market online and then helps to develop appropriate strategical direction to achieve their plan, all backed by his 20 years of operating in the retail market.
