In today’s digital work, automation plays a crucial role in all kinds of business. From a SaaS company to a company selling shoes to customers, everyone needs automation to fasten up the process.
eCommerce stores are no different, with the right strategy and tools you can automate eCommerce marketing and bank some real cash.
In this article, you will discover the basics of eCommerce marketing automation, why to use it, and some tools you can use to do the same. So let’s take it from the top.
Outline
- What Is Ecommerce Marketing Automation?
- Types Of Ecommerce Marketing Automation
- Email marketing automation
- Omnichannel automation
- Customer analytics automation
- Automated workflows for ecommerce business
- Creating landing pages to get leads automatically
- Why Use Ecommerce Marketing Automation?
- Reduce human error
- Easy to scale
- Increase efficiency
- Better job satisfaction for employees
- Increase in sales
- Enhacing customer experience
- Things To Look For In An Ecommerce Marketing Automation Platform
- Ease of access
- Integrations with third-party software
- Pricing
- Personalization
- How does marketing automation software work?
- How To Choose The Right Ecommerce Automation For Your Business?
- 3 Best Ecommerce Marketing Automation Software
- Conclusion
I. What is eCommerce Marketing Automation?
Essentially, marketing automation is a set of tools that optimizes the overall marketing strategy by managing time-intensive and repetitive tasks. This leaves the merchants to focus on other pressing things that drive a company’s growth and efficiency.
Tasks like sending emails, lead management, and social media posting are monotonous. It can be frustrating and a waste of time for the person who handles it. Switching to automation helps in achieving efficiency and the overall ROI while boosting the job satisfaction of employees.
Apart from that, eCommerce automation enhances the customer engagement experience. Handling customers’ queries with a chatbot is an excellent example to showcase that.
II. Types of eCommerce Marketing Automation
Some most popular marketing automation campaigns used by eCommerce businesses are:
01. Email marketing automation
Email marketing automation lets business owners send personalized messages to customers at a scheduled time. It saves extra efforts of online marketers from creating and sending new emails each time a customer shows interest in a brand or for marketing promotion purposes.
For example, sending automated emails giving recommendations of similar products the customer has bought from a site or giving a reminder to the customer who has placed an order but forgot to complete the purchase.
It’s a tested way to personalize your user’s experience. With email automation, you can create a segmented mailing list to build a stronger relationship between your customers and your business.
Studies have shown that around 60% of customers prefer email as a medium of communication, making it the most effective tool for lead generation and brand engagement.
Email automation enables businesses to create their segmented email list of subscribers based on Customer Relationship Management data. This allows eCommerce marketers to convert prospects into customers maximizing both sales and revenue.
02. Omnichannel Automation
Omnichannel automation is a unique marketing strategy where the customer is put at the center of all campaign activity rather than the brands.
It’s a holistic multi-channel strategy that involves the seamless integration of both digital marketing channels like email marketing, SMS, and social media posts, and offline touchpoints to create a more personalized user experience.
The primary purpose of omnichannel automation is to help customers engage with the brands on their terms regardless of the medium.
It has been often seen that customers begin their shopping journey from one medium and then they move on to another.
Omnichannel strategy creates a unified experience by creating an interconnected process that allows the brands to engage with customers regardless of the channel.
For example, if a person begins to shop on a brand’s mobile app, the brand’s website, its social media page, and even its retail store will recognize that. Moreover, the customer will be reminded even several days later across all platforms on leaving the purchase unfinished.
03. Customer Analytics Automation
It’s the process of collecting and analyzing the user’s data across various channels. These analytics give actionable insights necessary to formulate strategies around products and services that customers from a specific segment are looking for.
The automated customer analytics tool can be helpful in:
- Retaining customers
- Better customer engagement
- Targeting the right audience
- Minimizing acquisition costs
Identifying customer preferences is one of the most important aims of any successful business regardless of its medium. Customer analytic tools enable businesses to visualize data in real-time and learn more about their customers.
04. Automated Workflows for eCommerce Business
Setting up automated workflows that run behind an eCommerce store can sort out various backend operations which can 10x a company’s efficiency.
Automated eCommerce workflows can perform tasks like:
- Customer support and complaints
- Approving vendor supplier onboarding
- Refund claims and payment-related issues
- Order approvals
Workflow automation for eCommerce sites helps in boosting efficiency by automating redundant tasks. For instance, data entry of orders can be daunting and mundane to do repeatedly. However, order management software can automate the entire task accurately.
Another advantage of workflow automation in the eCommerce sector is tracking and rewarding customers based on their engagement with the brand. This step is essential for customer retention and creating a healthy brand image.
05. Creating Landing Pages to Get Leads Automatically
Creating an effective landing page is putting a final nail in the coffin.
Automating a landing page allows the automatic transfer of users’ details on the landing page form to CRM and email automation systems.
It helps in avoiding redundant tasks like sending individual emails repeatedly and customer data entry. That way you can focus on other vital domains of your business.
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III. Why Use eCommerce Marketing Automation?
Using marketing automation tools for your eCommerce business can be a game-changer in several aspects.
With recent developments in the field of AI and machine learning, more and more businesses are turning to these tools to set themselves apart from other players.
In addition to that, there has been a rise in personalized purchases, making automation tools inevitable for online businesses.
Here are some more benefits of using eCommerce marketing automation:
01. Reduces Human Error
While doing repetitive and boring tasks, errors are inevitable. These could be either small or large depending on various factors. Thus to reduce that, it’s necessary to use automation software that can do boring tasks repeatedly without any errors.
02. Easy to Scale
Giving menial jobs to humans is doing injustice to their creative juices.
While you can assign these tasks to the automation tools, employees can take on more important work needed for the growth of the company.
That way, it becomes easier to scale a company to sky-rocket the revenue in no time.
03. Increase Efficiency
Automation tools are optimized to take care of workflows and can handle all the information far better than humans. This saves a lot of time that drives a company’s efficiency and further growth eventually.
04. Better Job Satisfaction for Employees
Employees are more likely to get bored of their jobs while doing menial and non-productive work for a longer time.
This can cause burn out and they tend to get dissatisfied with the work they do. Assigning those tasks to automation software frees the employees from taking on such tasks leaving them to indulge in creatively gratifying works.
This results in better job satisfaction and overall healthy employee growth.
05. Increase in Sales
Marketing automation tools use targeted approaches to engage with the specific needs of the consumer. This helps the companies drive more sales as they are reaching out to people who are more interested in their products.
In eCommerce, it’s usually called behavioral targeting.
Aside from more sales, the overall advertisement budget also comes down thus increasing the ROI.
06. Enhancing Customer Experience
Customers love the feeling of an effortless and smooth shopping experience be it online or in retail stores. They expect a quick way to find what they’re looking for.
Marketing automation tools have enabled eCommerce stores to provide an amazing customer experience with the help of AI and chatbots.
These provide customers with useful recommendations, seamless navigation through the site, and completing the order hassle-free.
IV. Things To Look For In An eCommerce Marketing Automation Platform
01. Ease of Access
The best automation software platforms should feel intuitive while navigating through.
It allows the marketer to spend less time on the software while it begins assigning and monitoring tasks.
Simple User Interfaces, contextual pop-ups, and smooth management of tasks are the things to consider while looking for an eCommerce automation tool.
02. Integrations with Third-Party Software
It’s essential to identify various services customers will use and examine the third part alternatives corresponding to that. For example, adding a secure payment gateway for your eCommerce store will allow customers to pay in a safe and timely manner.
The shipping gateway is another third-party integration that can’t be overlooked. This will take the hassles of delivery of products leaving the customer with a smooth shopping experience.
Integration of live-chat mechanisms can be beneficial in providing fast and accurate information to people, making it useful for enhancing the customer experience.
03. Pricing
While some automation service providers are free to set up, some come at a cost. You must be aware of the onboarding cost and how soon you are going to be profitable with that in the upcoming future. Moreover one should also consider the size of the enterprise and potential buyers while purchasing an eCommerce automation plan.
04. Personalization
All businesses have turned towards personalization. Personalized automation software allows you to make changes as per your targeted customers.
For example, customizing the customer’s reaction based on whether the user watches a video or clicks on a call to action, can make email marketing more personable.
How Does Marketing Automation Software Work?
Marketing automation works its way ahead on several behavioral triggers that people do to engage with a brand. For example, if someone buys a video game from an eCommerce store.
The marketing automation system, corresponding to that trigger, will inform the customer about the next release of the game.
Automation software creates space for employees to focus on significant tasks like planning and design, building a stronger brand image and many more.
Let’s have a look at how this software work:
- A/B testing: A/B testing helps refine your market efforts by giving you insights depending on the customer's engagement. With the right information in your hands, it becomes easy to segment customers.
- Segmentation: Marketing automation software segments your leads and old customers based on different criteria like demography, location, industry, and other relevant information. It helps in funneling down the potential customers required for giving personalized engagement.
Here’s an example:
- Suppose you send emails inviting new leads to attend a virtual session about the release of your new course on marketing.
- Upon clicking, the leads will be directed to fill out a basic form about their details. Here comes the marketing automation tool in action. All those who have agreed to register for the course will be narrowed into a new mailing list.
- Moving ahead, everyone included in that mailing list will start receiving emails at a scheduled time. It can consist of topics you are going to study or the prospects of the course you are about to take.
- Then those leads are further funneled down analyzing the conversion rates. And in the end, these users are automatically followed by the sales team even if they are inactive for some time.
This exemplifies how email automation works especially for small businesses. However there is more to the automated software than emails like customer analytics, lead nurturing, and managing other vital elements in the backend.
V. How to Choose The Right eCommerce Automation For Your Business?
01. Define Your Business Needs
Identifying your business needs will give a clear idea about what kind of automation you are going to use for your marketing.
For example, deciding your marketing channels is one way to do that.
Deciding whether you want to sell your products via a single website or through multiple selling channels will help in choosing the right automation tool for your business.
02. Cost
Choosing the most effective and affordable marketing automation software for your business is the ideal thing to do.
Many vendors charge hidden fees for additional features which you may not be needing.
To be on the safer side, weigh your automation tools properly so that it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket.
03. Company Size
Most business owners tend to overdo things and they buy premium-priced software which could be more than what their company might need. There is no need to purchase a gigantic subscription model when you’re a small business.
04. Customer Support
In case of any discrepancies which can arise from time to time, choosing an automation software with a high-quality customer support system is imperative. It enhances the overall customer experience by solving their issues in real-time.
Enough about the what and how, let’s list down three ecommerce marketing automation tools you can use for your eCommerce store and optimize the workflow.
VI. 3 Best eCommerce Marketing Automation Software
01. Active Campaign
Active Campaign is a cloud-based ecommerce marketing automation platform that offers software for email automation and building automated marketing campaigns.
Features
- Communication-based on past behavior helps in a more personalized engagement with the customer
- Integration with more than 870 popular apps like Shopify and WooCommerce to grow your business
- Seamless connection across all the channels helps create a consistent brand image
- Robust service and support system by texts, emails, and live chats to keep you updated about your orders
- Smart marketing automation to target the right prospects and better experiences
Pricing: Active Campaign has four plans to choose from - Lite, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise. The cost of these plans range from $9 - $549 per month, depending on the number of contacts you have.
02. Ortto
Ortto is another marketing automation software that simplifies the eCommerce journey of a customer. It also provides solutions for B2B and B2C businesses to acquire and retain their customer base.
Features
- Powerful customer segmentation allows the online marketer to target specific audiences based on demographics and behavior
- Two-factor authentication along with SOC2 compliance and enforcement of GDPR and CCPA as standard
- Build sales and marketing campaigns to get new customers on auto-pilot
- Omnichannel marketing automation enables to send highly personalized messages to customers across emails, social media, and more
- Comprehensive analytics encourages the marketer to make informed decisions
Pricing: Like Active Campaign, Ortto also has four plans you can choose from - Campaign, Professional, Business, Enterprise. The prices of each plan ranges from $29 to $299 per month.
03. Omnisend
Omnisend is one of the best omni-channel ecommerce marketing automation platforms that provides all-in-one marketing automation and help you create automated email campaigns, sales funnel creation, and more.
Features
- Provides an all-in-one eCommerce automation solution like marketing automation, web push notification, and audience segmentation
- Platform learns about customer preferences with reports and analytics tool
- Built-in audience sync enables to sync contacts into Facebook and Google
- Pre-built workflows and messages save time to do other tasks
- Advanced reporting tools keep track of what's working and what’s not
Pricing: The platform has three plans: Free, Standard, and Pro. The pricing of Standard and Pro plan depends on how much
VII. Conclusion
Automation is the soul of the eCommerce business. It ensures meaningful and personalized customer interaction along with delegating monotonous tasks to highly efficient software.
This keeps the online marketers on top of the game by boosting conversion, acquiring and retaining customers, and enhancing the approach toward marketing.
Follow the right ecommerce marketing automation ideas, choose the software wisely, and you will see your business grow in no time.
