We are now in the e-commerce marketing optimization era. To maintain growth, businesses need to innovate their approach to e-commerce marketing. Stay up to date with the latest sector trends
It's not a surprise that this year's trending e-commerce strategies and tactics all center around making online shopping experiences and comms more persuasive. In 2021, e-commerce retailers need the tools and techniques to stay competitive and defend their market share. That's why we've put together our free retail e-commerce marketing 2021 trends guide for e-commerce marketers to optimize their marketing across the customer lifecycle. As always, we've integrated these trends across our popular RACE Framework of Reach, Act, Convert and Engage.
While online sales continue to grow in importance, the days of easy double-digit, year-on-year growth (as online shopping grew in popularity) are ending. In the era of e-commerce marketing optimization, retailers are rapidly scanning the marketplace to outpace their competitors.…
No holiday shopping season is the same, but this year’s trends can help you prepare next year’s tactics
Despite being a US tradition, “Black Friday” kicks off the official holiday shopping season for buyers around the globe. But marketers know the promotional season starts much sooner, and what happened this year can be helpful in planning next year’s strategies.
Thanks to Thanksgiving’s late date this year, 2019 has six fewer shopping days than 2018 and three fewer than 2020. November 29th is the last possible date for Black Friday to fall, giving marketers six extra days to promote Cyber Week and pre-BFCM (Black Friday/Cyber Monday) deals.
The Cyber Week peak
‘Tis the season for retail email - 68% of consumers say they pay more attention to email during the holidays.
While early November promotions have trended in the past several years as marketers compete more and more aggressively for inbox attention,…
Should you invest resources and budget to attract new customers on Black Friday?
Acquiring a new customer is up to seven times more expensive than keeping an existing one.
You’ve likely heard the stat quoted before and it should hopefully have resonated. But have you done anything tangible to address it?
Perhaps you have, but traditionally acquisition is prioritized over retention. We put more budget, resource and scrutiny on how we attract new customers.
72% of small businesses say that they put the majority of their marketing budget on acquisition. So only 28% are spending more on retention despite it being more cost-effective.
Who can really blame the 72%? Acquisition is often viewed as the major lever for growth but the numbers may suggest otherwise.
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According to Bain and co, a 5% increase in customer retention could increase profitability by up to 75%.
Impressive right?…
Black Friday saw a 41% uplift in sessions over the Black Friday weekend period and 59% more conversions
With another Black Friday and Cyber Weekend done and dusted, we’ve crunched the numbers to uncover how retailers performed and the key trends for 2018.
This year once again saw record online sales, with Adobe announcing that US consumers spent $7.9bn online on Cyber Monday alone.
Across Croud’s global retail clients, the numbers matched up to this trend, with an average 141% year-on-year uplift in online revenue. In line with this, there was also a 41% uplift in sessions over the Black Friday weekend period and 59% more conversions.
Conversely, average order value (AOV) increased by only 0.5% on average, suggesting that more customers are taking advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Weekend promotions.
Cost-per-clicks down on 2017
Across Croud’s retail clients, shopping costs-per-click unsurprisingly increased week on week over the Black Friday weekend, but, when compared with…
Chart of the Day: Black Friday and Cyber Monday Cart Abandonment Rates Jump to 68%
Cart Abandonment is the scourge of e-commerce retailers everywhere, and this year it seems to be on the increase, particularly where there are promotions. New data emerging from the two busiest ecommerce days of 2016 (Black Friday and Cyber Monday) shows extremely high cart abandonment rates across the board. These are particularly high on mobile devices, where 78% of carts are abandoned.
E-commerce retailers should be asking themselves, are 4 out of 5 people abandoning their carts because they're having second thoughts about purchasing, or is it because the checkout pages aren't properly optimized for mobile? If a customer has to use fiddly forms that are hard to complete on a Smartphone they are far more likely to abandon their cart.
It's not all bad news though. Although the cart abandonment rates are huge, many of these customers can be nudged…
Chart of the Day: 74% of Black Friday weekend consumers are planning to shop on the big day.
Black Friday is finally here, whether you love it or hate it, there is one undeniable fact - Consumers spend big during this period.
Consumers in America are buzzing to see the deals online and high street retailers have on offer during the biggest shopping weekend of the year. An estimated 137.4 million people are considering hitting the shops this weekend, that's 59% of the population.
While there is plenty of competition for consumers attention across the whole weekend, the days with the highest potential for your business is on Black Friday and Saturday. With most Black Fridays sales lasting from Thanksgiving (Thursday) to Cyber Monday (and beyond), which day will drive the most sales for you? An annual survey from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics shows that less than half are planning to shop…
Automating your marketing is key in such a busy marketing period, find out how RedEye’s Head of Future email suggests it is done
Summer is long gone and the Bank Holidays have been exhausted for the year. While ‘normal’ people start to stress about when to put their central heating back on, us marketers are in full planning and panic mode. Two key events loom before us: Black Friday Weekend, and of course the run up to Christmas. It’s all become rather stressful.
With more and more focus on the few weekends left of the year before sales season takes over, it’s more crucial than ever for brands to implement perfectly executed, strategic marketing experiences for shoppers on the approach to Christmas. Brands are not only at war with their competitors, but with the expectations from previous years’ performances and their customer’s expectations (all searching for the next big bargain).
Take a little…
The key trends emerging from this year's Black Friday marketing campaigns
Total consumer spending on Black Friday has consistently increased over the past few years, to reach heights so dizzying that many retail businesses have realized they can't afford not to get involved. Over 80% of retailers plan to participate in Black Friday, and it has become an E-commerce phenomenon. This year for the first time ever Black Friday E-commerces sales are set to outpace in-store sales for the first time ever. Many retailers, such as AO.com in the UK are now running campaigns over a full week, or in Amazon's case, several weeks. Yet, despite the hype, some retailers who have reviewed the profitability of their Black Friday campaigns, or rather lack of it, have decided to stop their campaigns in favour of other tactics where they can get more impact at higher margins.
The infographic below provides some interesting background to the Black…
How to win at Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Black Friday is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. It kicks off the critical holiday season. The holiday shopping season is crucial for the economy because around 30% of annual retail sales occur between Black Friday and Christmas. For some retailers, such as jewellers, it's even higher -- nearly 40%.
Having roots in the retail sector, there is still a part of me that gets that toe-curling feeling when hearing those two words together – Black Friday. It is infamous with chaos, carnage and that primal, possessive part of our brains. There are those who have opted out of the chance of being trampled, losing teeth and other appendages and getting into car park fisticuffs, but have instead opted for waging this warfare online.
The premise of Black Friday was to be a purely retail experience with rock-bottom deals on majority stocks in…
If you haven’t started your holiday planning yet, it’s time to push the panic button.
Email marketers often don’t get pulled into the planning process until the end and then it’s often an afterthought or emergency: “Yeah, just send another email”. When email is an afterthought instead of the engine, you’re setting yourself up to fail.
Don’t sit on the sidelines and wait for the coach to send you in. Develop your own plan, including copy and contact strategies. It should fit into the overall brand strategy, but it needs to be your design because you have your own revenue and goals to meet.
Develop your Black Friday strategy now
Although many consumers have already started shopping, Black Friday is still the official kick-off for the season. Locking down your strategy now gives you time to test it and have it in place. You’ll be ready to start building your base of subscribers from the fresh…
