We help engineers stay in a state of flow by removing a lot of the nonsense associated with traditional software development (like installing dependencies, requiring some specific OS, or needing some weird secrets). We’re a series B dev-tool startup with ~40 employees backed by some pretty sweet people in the tech space like RedPoint, Founders Fund, GGV, and a bunch of fantastic advisors to help us along the way!
Think back to the last time you made a big online purchase. If you’re like most consumers, there’s a good chance you interacted with the brand multiple times on different channels using different devices before you paid.
The customer journey isn’t straightforward anymore (if it ever was). It’s a meandering path where customers visit brands on different platforms before converting. To successfully target and convert consumers across every channel and platform, you need a unified marketing strategy. That’s the crux of an omnichannel e-commerce marketing campaign.
This article walks you through precisely what omnichannel e-commerce looks like, why it is crucial for e-commerce brands, and how you can create your own killer omnichannel e-commerce marketing campaign.
What Is Omnichannel E-commerce?
Omnichannel e-commerce is a marketing approach that creates a unified customer experience across multiple platforms. Specifically, omnichannel retailers deliver the same experience across every channel and create a seamless experience that transcends individual platforms.
This is different from multichannel e-commerce, where brands sell across different channels but offer different experiences. While consumers may be able to shop on social media, a website, and a brick-and-mortar store, they can’t move seamlessly between them.
There is one other form of commerce: single-channel e-commerce. This is when brands only sell through one channel. That could be a traditional store, an online shop or a marketplace like Amazon. This approach limits brands to just one platform, which can be devastating if that platform makes changes.
With omnichannel e-commerce, customers hop from device to device, or platform to platform during the conversion process. As a brand, you need to keep up.
Why Is an Omnichannel E-commerce Strategy Important?
An omnichannel e-commerce experience sounds better than a multichannel or single-channel experience, right?
That’s reason enough to adopt an omnichannel approach, but it’s not the only reason you should. Omnichannel e-commerce provides a better customer experience and allows your brand to take advantage of new platforms, increase customer retention rates, and boost sales.
Omnichannel E-Commerce StrategiesProvide a Better Customer Experience
Google reports that 85 percent of online shoppers start the purchase process on one device and finish it on another. Why does that matter?
Convenience rules when it comes to e-commerce; just ask Amazon. It’s not enough to offer a great selection, competitive pricing, and next-day delivery, however. Brands must show up where their customers are and offer a seamless experience when they switch devices or channels.
Take off your marketer’s cap for a second and remember that most consumers don’t view their shopping experience as separated. It’s all one journey to them, and that’s exactly how an omnichannel e-commerce experience approaches it.
As you can see from the infographic by Invesp below, customers can use an omnichannel experience in several different ways. They can:
check the availability of products
reserve or buy items and pick them up in-store
have constant access to their profile information
enjoy a personalized shopping experience regardless of platform
Omnichannel Is the Future of E-commerce
Want to future-proof your brand? Omnichannel is the way to go. Statista found e-commerce accounted for 14 percent of omnichannel sales in 2019, but it accounted for a whopping 63 percent of omnichannel growth—which means omnichannel is growing fast.
According to BigCommerce’s Omnichannel Retail report, consumers shop fairly evenly between different online stores, even though the bulk of spending happens on marketplaces like Amazon and large retailers.
Increase Customer Retention Rates and Sales
An omnichannel marketing strategy isn’t just good for customers; it can be incredibly profitable.
Customers keep coming back to stores that offer an omnichannel approach. A survey by Aspect Software finds organizations that leverage an omnichannel strategy see 91 percent better year-over-year customer retention rates than businesses that don’t. If you’re serious about generating repeat online sales, omnichannel marketing is the way to go.
Omnichannel customers are better customers in the long run, too. IDC finds these consumers have a 30 percent higher lifetime value than single-channel shoppers.
Research also shows 47 percent of shoppers who engage with brands on 10 or more channels purchase from their favorite brands at least once a week. That’s compared to 21 percent of shoppers who engage across one to four channels.
8 Tips for Building a Successful Omnichannel E-commerce Marketing Campaign
Here’s what it takes to run a successful campaign.
Identify Each Channel’s Opportunities
Every channel is important in an omnichannel e-commerce strategy, but they play different roles. Begin by identifying where your customers spend the most time, how they interact with these channels, and the types of products they normally buy there.
Some channels are more suited to advertising particular products, while others may be better for customer service. For example, an enterprise software company probably won’t get many direct conversions from Twitter, but they can still engage prospective customers there.
Keep in mind, your omnichannel strategy shouldn’t include every single marketing platform. If none of your customers use TikTok, there’s no point creating a presence there. Omnichannel should focus on the channels your customers use.
Understand Your Customer’s Needs
An omnichannel approach should put your customers front and center. Every business likes to think they know their customers, but how much do you really know about them? Now is the time to find out.
Think about the channels where your customers hang out. What content do they like to see on those channels? When are they most likely to convert? These are the questions you have to answer.
You can use data to understand how customers interact with your brands across each channel, but don’t be afraid to speak with them directly through surveys and polls. This may help you uncover things you didn’t know about the buyer’s journey.
Personalize Ads and Messages
Customers expect more than an omnichannel experience; they expect personalization at every touchpoint on every channel. They want to land on your website and see the products they frequently buy. They expect the emails in their inbox to contain offers and marketing messages relevant to them.
The trouble is, 67 percent of marketers are not providing customers with contextual, personalized messages.
You don’t need to personalize your messaging for every individual customer, however. Instead, segment your audience into smaller groups that have the same traits. These traits can include:
demographics
shopping patterns
favorite channels
favorite products
spending amounts
Personalization strategies can even be implemented in stores. It may be a little more complicated recommending related products online, but setting up kiosks or equipping shopping assistants with mobile devices can help bring the online experience in-store.
Keep Your Brand Voice Consistent
Apple, Nike, Wendy’s; there are some companies with instantly recognizable brand voices. Why? Because they have an unfailing commitment to maintaining consistency across every channel.
It doesn’t matter if you see an Apple ad on TV or in print, read the copy on their website, or even watch one of their product launches. The language and tone of voice are exactly the same. That’s the secret to developing a great omnichannel e-commerce marketing strategy. The more consistent your messaging and tone of voice are, the less likely consumers are to get confused and fall out of your marketing funnel.
At the same time, they’ll find your message much more engaging. It’s one thing to be hit with a promotional message in an email. It’s another thing to see that same message on social media, your website, and in-store.
Your promotional strategies should also be consistent. It’s not an omnichannel marketing strategy if you’re running separate promotions in-store and online and aren’t allowing either shopper to use the other channels’ promotions.
Make Each Channel and Touchpoint Shoppable
With an omnichannel experience, customers should be able to purchase wherever they interact with your brand. Your online and brick-and-mortar stores are a given, but can they make purchases on social media channels or your app?
This wasn’t possible a couple of years ago. Thanks to some pretty significant updates on the major social media platforms, it is now possible to drive sales through Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Don’t stop there, though. Consider expanding your reach to marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy, if appropriate. As we saw in the breakdown of omnichannel e-commerce spending above, marketplaces have the second-largest share of shoppers and drive the most sales.
Sure, in an ideal world, it’s better if customers buy your products on your own website. But having customers purchase on Amazon allows you to engage with them and bring them to your website.
Keep Testing and Gathering Data
Your omnichannel e-commerce marketing campaign will need to evolve over time. Consumer habits change, new channels emerge, and existing platforms become less important. That’s why gathering data and continuing to test and refine your campaign is so important.
More data allows you to better optimize your campaign, and, ultimately, be more successful. Test your campaign as a whole and run live A/B tests on your personalized messaging to each customer segment. Tweaking headlines, body copy, and images can dramatically improve engagement and conversion rates.
Back It Up in the Back Office
There’s no point in developing a killer omnichannel marketing campaign if your backend operations can’t follow through on your promise.
Specifically, inventory visibility and management should be top of the list. Use an inventory management system that centralizes inventory across warehouses and physical storefronts, so no customer orders an out-of-stock product.
Shipping, fulfillment and returns are also important. Customers should have the ability to purchase their products in several ways, whether that’s having purchases delivered to their door or picking them up from their nearest store. The same goes for returns. In-store and online returns are essential components of a true omnichannel approach.
Conclusion
Omnichannel marketing for e-commerce stores is becoming the norm. Customers expect a seamless experience when switching between devices and channels, and it’s your responsibility to deliver it.
Omnichannel marketing significantly improves the customer experience, but it also drives better engagement, creates better customers, and leads to more sales. That puts it up there with some of the biggest factors of e-commerce success.
If you want to succeed with e-commerce, omnichannel marketing isn’t a strategy; it’s a requirement.
Want help setting up your marketing campaigns to align with your omnichannel e-commerce strategy? Let us know and our agency can help.
Which are the most important channels for your omnichannel e-commerce marketing campaign?
You want to get your products in front of the people who are going to buy them. When you get your products on eBay, you’re putting them in front of an audience of 185 million people, but with competition from over 1.7 billion listings, how can you make sure you stand out from the crowd?
One way to ensure you’re getting your products in front of the right audience is to make use of eBay ads. These are extremely easy to set up and can help propel you to the top of the search results, even in the most competitive categories.
How Do eBay Ads Work?
eBay ads can boost the visibility of your products by allowing them to feature at the top of the listings. With millions of products on the platform, eBay is a competitive place, and if you’re competing against hundreds of sellers all selling the same product, it can be difficult to stand out.
This is where eBay ads come in, allowing you to pay for your listing to feature at the top of the search results.
In this sense, it’s a lot like advertising on Google. You set up your ads, and your product can be featured higher in the search results, based on the quality and relevance of your listing and how much you bid.
One interesting difference with eBay’s main ad option, promoted listings, is you only pay if your ad is successful. Unlike many platforms where you pay every time your ad is clicked, with eBay, you only pay for your promoted listing if it results in a sale within 30 days of someone clicking the listing.
This allows sellers to get a clear picture of their return on investment (ROI) and is a big benefit of selling on eBay.
3 Types of eBay Ads
eBay offers a few different types of ads to suit your business needs.
Promoted Listings
Promoted listings are used by over 940,000 sellers and are the most common way of advertising on eBay. They’re an excellent way to get your product listing to the top of the search results.
To be eligible for promoted listings, you must:
be in good standing (meeting eBay’s terms and conditions)
have “above standard” or “top-rated” seller rating
have recent sales activity
One of the most important aspects of selling products online is getting people to view your listings, and this ad type is a great way to gain access to eBay’s 185 million active users. By featuring at the top of the search results, you will bring more people to your product page, and then it’s up to you to optimize your product page to make the sale.
eBay offers great analytics to help you get the most out of your advertising, and the nice part is you only pay for your promoted listings once you’ve sold an item.
Display Ads
eBay now runs display ads across its network, giving you another way to reach your target audience. Similar to the display ads you can run on Google Ads, eBay’s display ads allow you to target users with interests in certain categories to drive more traffic to your listing:
business, office, and industrial
cars, motorcycles, and vehicles
clothes, shoes, and accessories
computers, tablets, and networking
garden and patio
health and beauty
home furniture and DIY
This expands your advertising options, meaning you’re not just limited to reaching people through the search function.
Display ads aren’t available through the seller hub; instead, you can speak directly to eBay about this option.
Classified Ads
Classified ads are a good option for people who want to take advantage of eBay’s reach but sell a product that isn’t necessarily suited to selling on the platform.
These ads are available in several categories:
business, office, and industrial: $9.95 for a 30-day listing
specialty services: $9.95 for a 30-day listing
travel: $9.95 for a 30-day listing
real estate: $150 for a 30-day listing
Your ad is shown, the user clicks on it, and then eBay puts you in contact with the buyer to negotiate the sale outside of the platform. This means you’re paying only for the ad, not the fees for selling on eBay, but it also means you don’t get any of the protections you get as an eBay seller.
eBay Advertising for Large Brands
eBay also offers a more bespoke advertising service for large brands.
This option offers big advertisers branding solutions to help optimize their product pages and acquire in-depth insights into customer motivations to help brands get the most out of the platform.
This option might offer great benefits, but it requires a big commitment to advertising spend to be accepted. If you’re a large brand looking to make eBay advertising an essential part of your marketing, then it’s worth reaching out to the eBay team and exploring the option further.
How to Set Up Your eBay Ad Campaign
Setting up eBay ads is quick and simple. In just five steps, you can create promoted listings and boost your product’s visibility at the top of the search results.
1. Log in to Your Seller Hub
Your seller hub is where all your product listings live, and this is where you can create your eBay ad campaigns. Go to https://www.ebay.com/sh/, select “Marketing,” then “Promoted Listings” from the sidebar.
2. Click “Create Your First Campaign”
If you’re new to promoted listings, you’ll be brought to a landing page that explains what they are and how they work. Click “Create Your First Campaign” to get started.
3. Choose How to List Your Promotions
You have three different ways to list your promotions:
Simple listing selection: This allows you to promote your products individually, making good use of eBay’s smart recommendations.
Bulk listing selection: This option is for people who want to promote lots of products with consistent stock and low turnover rates.
Creating rules: Rules allow you to automatically promote current and future products. This option works well for sellers with dynamic inventory and high turnover rates.
4. Apply Your Ad Rate
This is where you choose how much you wish to pay for your eBay ads. Represented as a percentage of the total sale value, you’ll notice that eBay gives you a recommended ad rate for your product.
These are normally a good place to start, but if you want to change it, you can use the slider to set it to anywhere between 1-100 percent of your sale’s value.
5. Review and Launch
Lastly, you need to name your campaign and review the details. You can also set a date for the campaign to begin and end. Once you’re happy with everything, click “Launch.”
Tips for Creating Effective eBay Ads
As with any form of advertising, it’s important to have a good return on ad spend (ROAS), and the way to achieve this is through optimization. It doesn’t matter how many people your ad reaches if you’re not using the right keywords or your listing is of poor quality. There are several elements you need to get right.
Use Relevant Keywords
Choosing the right keywords to reach your target audience is extremely important. People don’t always search in the ways you expect they might, so you need to understand your audience and do your keyword research.
As with Google Ads, it’s important to match user intent with your ads, which means getting the right keywords in your titles, descriptions, and throughout your product listings. Slight differences in your keywords can make a big difference in the success of your ads, so make sure you’re optimizing to meet the demands of your target audience.
While it’s important to make sure you’re using the right keywords, it’s also important to remember not to keyword stuff. eBay’s algorithms are smart, and they understand when you’re using language naturally and when you’re stuffing keywords solely for SEO purposes.
When someone walks into a shop and buys a product, they get to see it with their own eyes and feel it in their hands. When they buy online, they don’t get this benefit. Instead, they’re reliant on your images and words to give them a good feel for your products. This is why your images are so important and can make a significant difference in the success of your ads.
High-quality images are likely to get more clicks and help boost your conversion rate.
Promote the Items That eBay Recommends
eBay faces huge competition for your advertising money. If it doesn’t deliver results, it knows you can easily go to Google, Amazon, Walmart, or any other number of advertising platforms to boost your sales.
To ensure this doesn’t happen, eBay uses its vast amount of data to recommend which items you should think about advertising. These “handpicked” recommendations are the products eBay believes are most likely to benefit from a promoted listing and have a “Recommended” tag next to them in your campaign manager.
Perfect Your Listing Title
When someone sees your ad in the search results, they don’t have a lot to go on. All they see is your title, a thumbnail image, pricing, and some details about shipping.
There aren’t many opportunities to earn someone’s click.
This means small details can make all the difference, and your title is a huge part of this. If you can create concise titles that match user intent, you can give yourself a much better chance of getting the right people to click your ad.
Sometimes people create product listings or blog content, and the title is an afterthought, but this is the first thing everyone looks at. They might just be a few words, but titles play a massive role in whether someone clicks your link and reads through your product listing.
Review Your Performance
One of the great things about advertising online is you have access to so much data. Information is power, and when you make the most of your analytics, you’ll find ways to optimize your eBay ads.
Head to the “Performance” tab in your promoted listings dashboard and make use of metrics such as impressions, clicks, and sales to evaluate how your eBay ads are performing. If you’re not getting the results you want, consider making changes to your titles, product page, bid price, and images. Make sure you keep checking the performance until you find the formula that works.
Conclusion
eBay ads give you an excellent opportunity to reach a targeted, engaged audience of buyers.
However, as with any e-commerce platform, there’s a ton of competition, and you need to be able to find ways to stand out from the crowd. eBay ads give you this opportunity, but you’ve still got to be creative with your titles and make sure your product listings are perfectly optimized to create sales.
For most sellers, promoted listings are going to be the best option to allow them to reach more customers, and they’re easy to set up and very effective. One of the nice things about this ad format is that you don’t pay until you see results, so you’ve got plenty of opportunities to optimize your process and make sure your eBay ads are working for you.
If creating your own ad strategy and optimizing your product descriptions or website isn’t up your alley, reach out to our agency. We can help!
Can You Get a Credit Card Cash Back for Your Business?
Are you looking for a credit card cash back? It is possible.
We researched lots of company credit cards for you. So, here are our choices.
Per the SBA, business credit card limits are a whopping 10 – 100 times that of personal credit cards!
This shows you can get a lot more money with company credit cards.
And you will not need collateral, cash flow, or financials to get small business credit.
Business Credit Card Benefits
Benefits can vary. So, make sure to pick the benefit you would prefer from this selection of alternatives.
Getting cash back might not make sense if you have to pay too much per year for a card – or if you don’t use its perks. So think it over carefully.
And always check rates on the appropriate website.
Get a Terrific Credit Card Cash Back
Credit Card Cash Back with Flat-Rate Rewards
Capital One ® Spark® Cash for Business
Check out the Capital One® Spark® Cash for Business. It has an introductory $0 yearly fee for the first year. Afterwards, this card costs $95 per year. There is no introductory APR offer. The regular APR is a variable 20.99%.
You can get a $500 one-time cash bonus after spending $4,500 in the initial three months from account opening. Get unlimited 1.5% cash back with Cash Select.
You will need great to outstanding credit to qualify.
Credit Card Cash Back with Flat-Rate Rewards and No Annual Cost
Discover it® Business Card
Check out the Discover it® Business Card. It has no yearly fee. There is an introductory APR of 0% on purchases for one year. After that the regular APR is a variable 14.49 – 22.49%.
Get unlimited 1.5% cash back on all purchases, with no category restrictions or bonuses. They double the 1.5% Cashback Match at the end of the first year. There is no minimal spend requirement.
You can download transactions quickly to Quicken, QuickBooks, and Excel. Note: you will need good to outstanding credit to qualify for this card. https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/business/
Check out the Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card. It has no yearly fee. There is a 0% introductory APR for the initial year. After that, the APR is a variable 13.24 – 19.24%. You can get a $750 one-time cash bonus after spending $7,500 in the initial 3 months from account opening.
You can get 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases at office supply stores and on web, cable, and phone services each account anniversary year.
Get 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent in combined purchases at gasoline stations and restaurants each account anniversary year. Earn 1% cash back on all other purchases. There is no limitation to the amount you can earn.
You will need exceptional credit to qualify for this card.
Credit Card Cash Back with Boosted Cash Back Categories
Bank of America® Business Advantage Cash Rewards MasterCard® credit card
Have a look at the Bank of America® Business Advantage Cash Rewards MasterCard® credit card. Get an 0% introductory APR for the first 9 billing cycles of the account. Afterwards, the APR is 12.24% – 22.24% variable. There is no annual fee. You can get a $300 statement credit offer.
Get 3% cash back in the category of your choice. So these are gas stations (default), office supply stores, travel, TV/telecom & wireless, computer services or business consulting services. Earn 2% cash back on dining. So this is for the initial $50,000 in combined choice category/dining purchases each calendar year. After that earn 1% after, with no limits.
Get an Outstanding Business Credit Card Cash Back with No Annual Fee
No Yearly Fee/Flat Rate Cash Back
Ink Business Unlimited℠ Credit Card
Have a look at the Ink Business Unlimited℠ Credit Card. There is no yearly fee for the first year. Then pay $250 per year. There is no introductory APR deal. If you pay your bill early, you get a 1.5% discount, with no cap on what you can earn back.
Earn 5% cash back at office supply stores and on cellular and landline phone service, internet, and cable TV; 2% cash back at gas stations and restaurants; and 1% cash back on everything else.. 5% and 2% cash-back bonus rewards apply only to the first $25,000 spent on the corresponding bonus categories each account anniversary year. You will need exceptional credit scores to get this card.
Business Credit Cards with a 0% Introductory APR – Pay Zero!
American Express® Blue Business Cash Card
Also have a look at the American Express® Blue Business Cash Card. Note: the American Express® Blue Business Cash Card is identical to the Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express. Yet its rewards are in cash as opposed to points.
Get 2% cash back on all qualified purchases on up to $50,000 per calendar year. After that get 1%.
It has no yearly fee. There is a 0% introductory APR for the initial 12 months. After that, the APR is a variable 13.24 – 19.24%.
You will need great to excellent credit to qualify.
Flexible Financing Credit Cards – Check Out Your Alternatives!
The Plum Card® from American Express
Check out the Plum Card® from American Express. It has an introductory yearly fee of $0 for the first year. Afterwards, pay $250 each year.
Get a 1.5% early pay discount cash back bonus when you pay within 10 days. You can take up to 60 days to pay without interest when you pay the minimum due by the payment due date.
But you will need excellent to exceptional credit scores to qualify.
Unbeatable Cards for Jackpot Rewards That Never Expire
Capital One® Spark® Cash Select for Business
Take a look at the Capital One® Spark® Cash Select for Business. It has no annual fee. You can get 1.5% cash back on every purchase. There is no limit on the cash back you can earn. Also earn a one-time $200 cash bonus as soon as you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months. Rewards never expire.
Pay a 0% introductory APR for 9 months. Then pay 13.99% – 23.99% variable APR after that.
You will need good to exceptional credit to qualify.
Article URL: https://www.algolia.com/careers/senior-software-engineer-distributed-systems-paris/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26669523 Points: 1 # Comments: 0 The post Algolia (YC W14) is hiring to enhance its search engine appeared first on ROI Credit Builders. The post Algolia (YC W14) is hiring to enhance its search engine first appeared on Online Web Store Site. The post Algolia (YC W14) is hiring …
If you’ve spent any time learning about marketing analytics, you’ve probably come across the term “funnels.” What exactly are marketing funnels and why do they matter? Marketing funnels are a useful tool to help you visualize the path customers take from first finding out about your brand to converting. Understanding them provides useful insight into …
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at the end of the first year. There is no minimal spend requirement.