Introduction
If you have been in the eCommerce industry for quite a long time, you are already aware of the hype of marketing automation. And this hype is totally worth it.
The traditional marketing approach boxes you into certain challenges like limited targeting, inability to personalize, and limited interactivity with customers. On the other hand, eCommerce marketing automation provides complete flexibility to improve customer experience and drive better ROI.
But how? In this article, we’ll show you exactly how marketing automation is changing the eCommerce industry.
But first……
What is eCommerce Marketing Automation?
E-commerce marketing automation refers to the process of integrating marketing software or technologies to automate repetitive, time-consuming manual tasks for enhanced efficiency and better customer service.
E-commerce marketing has many moving parts - product positioning, lead acquisition, email marketing, social media marketing, conversion rate optimization (CRO), and more. While some of them are repetitive, some need closer manual intervention. But, all of them require attention for steady business growth.
The eCommerce marketing automation software takes care of the time-consuming tasks, so you and your team can invest valuable time in more important aspects of your business. Not only that, these tools can understand user behavior and provide personalized offerings to each customer. Plus, they can also provide data-driven insights to help you create accurate business strategies.
8 Ways Marketing Automation Has Changed the eCommerce Industry
A recent research report by Ascend2 says that 91% of marketers have achieved their objectives through marketing automation. This means automation has transformed the years-old business approach and opened up some new ways to strengthen marketing efforts.
In this section, we’ll look at how eCommerce marketing automation is uplifting the game.
1) Enhanced customer experience (CX) and customer retention rate
Gone are the days when businesses used to struggle to know their customers on a personal level because of limited data availability. Today, the scenario is completely different.
With the power of marketing automation, you can gather customer data from various touchpoints, including website interactions, email engagements, purchase history, and more. This data helps understand the customers’ behavior and, most importantly, what they want from a brand. As a result, you can fulfill their needs in a more personalized manner. For example, you can:
- offer customized product recommendations based on shoppers’ past purchases and interaction
- send targeted promotional materials
- reward customers at each milestone
- personalize communication with each customer
In a nutshell, it has bridged the gap between a brand and its customers with precision and personalization.
This not only provides an out-of-the-box shopping experience but also creates a sense of credibility among your consumers and makes them feel valued. Once they feel they are getting prioritized, they are more likely to buy from that brand next time.
2) Improved workflow management
E-commerce marketing involves hundreds of manual, repetitive tasks. Think of sending that “Thank You” mail every time customers purchase something from your store or the burden of manually entering data into your CRM systems.
Not only are these tasks repetitive, but also they eat up a considerable amount of your valuable time. Marketing automation platforms can take care of these daunting tasks while you can focus on other important workflows - say, creating a new business strategy.
All you have to do is to set up automation workflows. For instance, you can configure a “Thank You” email sequence and let the system handle the rest. This way, you can manage all the tasks - ensuring no important work falls through the cracks.
3) More personalized marketing strategies
As 66% of customers want the brands to understand their individual needs, personalization has become even more critical and unignorable. With eCommerce marketing automation tools, you can create more targeted campaigns that directly resonate with the intended customer base.
How? E-commerce marketing automation software can reveal the customer behavior on your website or app. Google Analytics, for instance, can capture total page visits, assess bounce rates, and provide customers’ activity trends over time. Likewise, tools like Klaviyo can segment your email list so you can identify inactive customers.
These customer-centric data help craft specific marketing messages that win buy-ins faster.
4) Automated lead nurturing across various channels
In the past, lead nurturing was generic and often an unsuccessful process. Since the whole approach was manual, marketers struggled to build a cohesive brand presence across multiple platforms. It led to inconsistent follow-ups, difficulty in lead scoring, and delayed adaptability to marketing changes.
Automation has made this traditional lead nurturing process more effective with unified customer profiles. Tools like Salesforce can consolidate customer interaction data from various platforms. These include your brand’s social handles, website, emails, etc.
Likewise, if any targeted customers engage with your social posts, the automation tools can trigger a personalized email in their inbox or send a push notification. This means you can effortlessly automate omnichannel marketing campaigns and move a shopper down to the sales funnel.
5) Reduced cart abandonment rates
Needless to say, cart abandonment is a nightmare for eCommerce business owners that can cost around $18 billion/year. Fortunately, you can now reduce the cart abandonment rate to a great extent with the help of automated emails.
As these emails are personalized and triggered by specific customer’s actions, they have a higher opening rate than typical marketing emails. As per a study by Moosend (an email marketing tool), more than 40% of cart abandonment emails are opened by customers.
Plus, these emails also provide upselling and cross-selling opportunities that further boost your overall revenue. See how Adidas retrieves the buy-ins with clever personalized emails:
6) Predictive analytics for a customized shopping experience
Predictive analytics is the use of data, statistical algorithms, and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities to forecast customer demands or market trends. For example, whenever you visit an online store, it shows you products as per your tastes. It’s a commonly employed use case of predictive analytics.
That’s just a sneak peek!
In eCommerce marketing, this predictive analytics can be used in multiple ways. With it, you can anticipate customer preferences, assess product demands, and even optimize your pricing strategy. In fact, you can also reduce the churn rate by analyzing customer behavior.
Let’s take the example of JCPenny - a well-known retail brand. They used this predictive AI model to identify site visitors’ behavior and potential cart abandonment possibilities. As a result, they were able to reduce the cart abandonment rate by 18%.
7) Advanced analytics and reports
Before the eCommerce automation era, creating reports and analytics was quite a time-consuming task. On top of that, as it was a manual process, it was error-prone and generic.
Now, the eCommerce marketing automation tools have leveled up the process. You can obtain real-time and accurate reporting without any human intervention. For example, you’ll get specific insights on various metrics that indirectly determine your business success. These include:
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): How much profit you’ll make from a single customer.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): How much you spend acquiring a customer.
- Returning visitors: The number of satisfied customers you have.
- Time on site: How long they are spending on your store.
- Sales Conversion Rate (CVR): The percentage of potential audience who take an action.
- Average Order Value: Average spent per customer transaction
This way, you can get detailed information at every touchpoint of your business. Most of the time, online platforms like Shopify already come with built-in analytics. You can also integrate third-party tools to get more sophisticated and detailed information.
8) Reduced operational costs
Not only does automation fine-tune business strategy, but also it has made a significant impact in reducing operational costs.
Let’s say you have to craft an email marketing campaign. For that, you’ll have to hire email marketers, content creators, and other marketing teammates. However, an automated email marketing tool can take off 60% of their work.
As a result, you can significantly cut your operational budget and invest it in other important tasks.
5 Game-Changing Use Cases of Marketing Automation in eCommerce to Win More Revenue
You have already got a detailed picture of how marketing automation is changing the eCommerce industry. So, let’s explore some real-life use cases of marketing automation that you can adopt to drive better results.
1) Send automated emails
Automated emails are one of the best ways to stay in touch with your targeted audience. In fact, it’s also a great way to improve the conversion rate. According to a study by Hubspot, email marketing can increase revenue by 80%.
So, here are some common types of emails you can consider sending to your customers.
- Thank You emails
- Cart Abandonment emails
- Welcome emails
- Cross-sell and upsell emails
- Personalized emails on festivals and birthdays
2) Integrate chatbots
It may get difficult for your customer support team to be available for each website visitor 24/7. It becomes even more difficult when you have a small team. So, let the automation handle all the customer queries in real-time until it needs manual intervention.
This way, you can assist each customer personally and improve shoppers’ experience. Peleton, an eCommerce fitness brand, has integrated a chatbot into its website that solves customer queries instantly.
3) Provide product recommendations on a branded tracking page
This is an underrated yet useful way to leverage the power of eCommerce automation. Product recommendations on the store are a common technique, and almost every brand does that.
So, you can take a step beyond and offer a branded tracking page with customized product recommendations. Plus, you can also personalize it with your brand logo, color, and theme. It’ll not only provide you with a cross-selling opportunity but also help you improve customers’ post-purchase experience.
💡Pro Tip: ClickPost can help you offer a branded tracking page similar to AfterShip to your customers. On that page, you can either configure which products to show or let the engine provide some suggestions based on that customer’s past purchases. This, in turn, will help you win their impulse buy-ins.
Below is an example of how Puma acquires more sales with personalized product recommendations on its branded tracking page.
4) Fetch customer feedback via automated messages
Fetching feedback from each customer is time-consuming. But it’s a necessary step at the same time. So, why not send automated messages to customers for feedback? On one hand, it’ll take off an important task from your plate; on the other hand, it’ll make the customers feel like you care for them.
ClickPost can help you in this case, too. Once the order is delivered, it automatically sends a message to the customer on how much they like your brand. As a result, it helps build customer loyalty and improve Net Promoter Score (NPS).
Here’s an example of how it can be pulled off:
5) Set up an auto-replenishment subscription
Auto-replenishment is a subscription model that delivers products to customers at scheduled intervals without them having to reorder every time. As it eases the shopping process, it’s a great opportunity to establish a reliable customer base over time.
Plus, it also encourages repeat purchases, which boosts your yearly revenue. Brands like Amazon and Dollar Shave Club use this model to boost their sales. You can also provide offers to nudge customers for subscriptions.
Grow Your Business to the Next Level with eCommerce Marketing Automation
Marketing automation, when implemented strategically, can be a game-changer for eCommerce businesses - not only because of its ability to speed up the process but also because of its efficiency in understanding customers better. So, it’s time for you to delegate all the manual tasks to automation and take charge of the most important activities that need the utmost attention.
In this process, you can opt for ClickPost to grow your business with a branded tracking page and automated NPS flow functionality.
FAQs
1) How do you use marketing automation for eCommerce?
You can use eCommerce marketing automation in various ways. These include automated marketing campaigns, post-purchase follow-up, pricing strategy, customer support, and social media marketing.
2) Why is automation important in eCommerce?
Automation can shift the whole marketing game with its efficiency and speed. As a result, you can reduce manual work, enjoy a superfast process, and improve shoppers’ experience in a more personalized way. And these are the pillars to build a successful eCommerce business.