18 growth hacks for ecommerce

You can generate faster and higher returns by using proven ecommerce growth hacks. These effectiveness of these tricks comes from their creativity and different approach instead of huge spending on ads or price manipulation.

In my previous post on this subject, I shared 21 quick growth hacks that help to build your mailing list. This time, we’re focusing on ecommerce, so if you run or are thinking about running an online store, take notes!

Email marketing

1. Get email addresses before a purchase

It’s important to get email addresses from visitors to your site as soon as you can after they arrive. Even if someone doesn’t make a purchase, you’ll have the possibility of contacting them and starting to build a relationship going forward. This is a basic idea you should pursue from the very start. Otherwise, you’re watching potential customers leave you behind, possibly never to return.

2. Using behaviour in marketing automation

Automation lets you follow and use customer behaviour for marketing purposes in your online store. It’s enough for a subscriber to arrive on your site through a link with a special tag that you send.These tracking codes, or integration with Google Analytics, let you plan strategies that can be carried out by FreshMail when the behavioural data is gathered.

An example of the use of Email Marketing Automation is automatic reminders about abandoned carts or personalised content based on viewing histories.

3. “Buy again” campaigns for products with short shelf lives

If you’re dealing in products that are bought on a regular basis because they have a short shelf life or frequently replaced for whatever reason, use your knowledge of purchase histories to time your offer just right. You can also use this same hack in other contexts when customers may want to buy the same product as a spare or a gift. Try adding a CTA along the lines of “Maybe a friend could be interested?” and a social media share button to make it easy to spread the word.

4. Campaigns with complementary products

You can suggest products that match or complement purchases at any time, not just when it’s time to check out. It often happens that customers don’t think about buying related products they might need or could be useful as an add-on to what they’re buying so use this as a campaign idea. Discounts can be particularly effective and the cost of future delivery on a separate purchase can be another reason customers can not be in the mood to buy now. Get attention with a small price discount and make the sale now!

5. Personalised promotions on different occasions

Sending an email with birthday or Christmas wishes is a common practive but rarely gets results. Your subscribers surely get lots of such mails and probably don’t even open them.
If, however, you have a good subject line and you have personalised content inside, you can get very different results.

6. Reactivation campaigns

FreshMail lets you segment your database and create a group of subscribers who haven’t engaged with your messages in some time. Send them a campaign to “wake them up” and get them in interested in your message again. Use the best special offer you can to show them it’s worth opening and reading your mails.

7. Coupons and discounts in exchange for an email address

This is a popular strategy because it gets results. In ecommerce, the main reason for newsletter signups is the promise of getting discounts. It doesn’t have to be huge - just enough to encourage someone to make a purchase. Make the idea of shopping with you easy and attractive and you will see results.

Website and product pages

8. Sharing product page

Never ignore the power of recommendations and the desire to share status with others. People often want to share information about a promotion with others but don’t know how or don’t want to copy links. They also like to share what they’ve bought with friends. Make everything on your site shareable and easily accessible.

9. Wish lists and reminders about what’s on them

Wishlists like those made famous by Amazon are a great tool for driving sales. Having a customer’s email address, after setting up an account, means you can send them emails with information about products on the list or to remind them that they’re still available for purchase.

10. Reminders for when products become available

If visitors are looking for a product that you don’t have in stock, they are likely to agree to sharing their email address so you can let me know when the product is available. You can add consent to receive commercial information or sign-up for your newsletter to the address form. Not only do you have a potential sale when the product comes in, but your increase your subscriber database by keeping contact with them.

11. Exit intent popup

A popup window that displays when a visitor to a page wants to leave or moves to another tab can “save” a potential client. Such a popup can be the last chance to get an email address so use it to display something that will get attention and interest in signing up for your newsletter.

For a great example of this kind of popup in action, go to gleam.io. When you’re on their page, nothing happens but when you move to another tab, the gleam tab says “Hey, come back!” This is a great technique and succeeds not only in getting attention but charms users as well.

12. “Customers who bought this product also bought…”

If you haven’t done it already, use a recommendation system on your site that works on the basis of what combinations of products were bought by other customers. It often happens that customers will buy products together with related accessories. Showing customers what others have bought can increase sales without more ad spending.

13. Social proof

I’ve already mentioned social proof before in a post about growth hacking your way to a bigger subscriber database. Social proof is also important in ecommerce because people often decide to buy under the influence of the opinions of others. This is often more powerful than a low price, which is sometimes associated with lower quality.

Social proof is created by showing how many satisfied customers you have:

Use opinions and comments too:

14. Scarcity - don’t miss out!

Remember how you felt the last time you were trying to get something done and time was running out? It’s stressful but motivating at the same time. Using this feeling can boost your conversions because emotion takes over and forces us to act. Scarcity can be used in a few ways. First of all, show that there is a limited supply available for certain products so act now or miss out!

Another way is to show that if a product is ordered before a certain time, it can be sent out that same day:

One of the most effective tools to sparking this fear of losing out and motivating customers to make a quick decision is a countdown clock to the end of a promotion. Remember that the clock has to countdown to the actual end of the promotion, like this:

15. Social sharing buttons on product pages

People like to share information about things they like. Make it easier by placing social media sharing buttons on every product page. This is especially important for big promotions when visitors are more likely to want to share the news with others.

16. An “invite someone” plugin in email

Give subscribers an easy way to share products and info with friends through email. It’s more personal than social media and a mail from a friend has a better chance of being opened and read. Remember that you can’t add any addresses entered to your own mailing list for your campaigns unless they consent to receiving such messages from you.

17. Giveaway

Running a store means you have a lot of inventory somewhere. A giveaway is a kind of contest that requires an email address a purchase to enter. The rules are simple - everyone who participates needs to share their email address or buy something but only one or a few of them will win a prize. This is a great way to boost your mailing list and spark sales but you first need to have a community focused around your brand.

18. Progress bar for the buying process

A progress bar is useful for times when a customer has to go through several stages or sub-pages to complete a purchase. Keep in mind that you should always make the checkout process as short and easy as possible. Letting buyers know how close they are to finishing their purchase tells them how much time and effort is left and reduces the chances that they will abandon their carts.

Use these growth hacks in your online store if you haven’t already. They can each help build an address database and increase sales and putting them into place is a snap!