How to Begin Advertising for Your Online Store

• How to promote my online store?
• What is the best way to advertise my eCommerce business?
• How to bring new customers to my online store?

Whether you’ve just created your eCommerce store or are trying to find effective ways to advertise it, these are the most popular questions that blew up your mind. With online advertising gaining more traction over the last few years, it may be challenging for brands to stay competitive among the flood of other businesses. But only if you don’t follow the rules. In this article, our digital marketing experts will educate you on how to advertise your online store, where to start, and share unique ideas for successful advertising. Fasten your seatbelts, we’re taking off.

Online Store Advertising and Why You Should Care?

You may ask yourself why you need to put effort into online promotion. The answer is quite simple — people love buying online, and the number of online retail shoppers is ballooning yearly. Just look at the recent high-level sales statistics below.

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According to Statista research, around 2.14 billion people shop online. That makes up 27.6 percent of the 7.74 billion people in the world. In 2020, this number was equal to 2.05 billion people. Given the rising trend, there’s a huge potential for an eCommerce store. So if you’re an eCommerce store owner, online store promotion is an excellent opportunity to connect with digital buyers and sell your products and services worldwide.

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The Benefits of Digital Advertising for Your eCommerce Store

Businesses choose to invest in digital advertising for multiple reasons. Let’s discuss a few of them:

1. 1. Easy tracking analyticsIf you’re running a digital marketing campaign, you can quickly find out what’s working and what’s not and extract necessary data immediately. For example, you can monitor how many times a particular ad has been clicked on and compare it to how many times it has been viewed. The analytics dashboard will allow you to see all important metrics, including CTR, CPM, etc.
   2. Targeted natureYou’ll have complete control over your ad and make sure it’s displayed to those visitors who’re really interested in it. Another added benefit of online store promotion is its unlimited reach. You can be located anywhere in the world and still reach out to people to sell your products or services. Such global impact is especially valuable for small businesses previously limited by borders.
   3. Cost-effectiveCompared to traditional advertising, digital advertising is more affordable. And for small businesses, this is a huge advantage. Even if you decide to invest in Facebook Ads or Google Ads, the cost per 1,000 impressions or cost per click will be less expensive than paying for a print ad or a billboard ad. And the reach will be immense. You can check our case studies to know what we’re talking about. Also, there’re some instances where digital advertising will not cost you a dollar. For example, posting on social media platforms can be completely free, and if your post is unique and interesting, it can attract enough views and shares.
   4. Easy to updateThis is especially helpful if you want to make any changes to your campaign. All you need to do is to update your ad copies through your ad platform (Facebook Ads manager or Google AdWords). With traditional advertising, you can’t implement these changes immediately. There’s no turning back once you send out your ads.
   5. Fast and easy to planThe turnaround time it takes to set up a digital advertising campaign is much quicker than traditional marketing. All that is required is to click on a few buttons, and you can choose from a banner ad, display ad, or retargeting ad campaign. Going digital always allows you to make quick changes anytime if needed. Being able to save time means higher opportunities to get digital marketing ROI much faster.

How to Advertise Your eCommerce Store?

Marketing your online store isn’t necessarily an expensive venture. Before jumping into paid advertising options, consider these free promotion opportunities to find new customers.

Free Online Store Promotion

1. 1. 1. BloggingIf you haven’t already set up your blog, you’re missing out on an amazing opportunity to boost your brand performance and engage with your readers. A blog is a perfect way to show your expertise and authority, convert readers into leads, build awareness around your brand and increase the number of backlinks. Be sure to adjust your blog posts to your target audience. Write blogs that will help them and choose the writing style accordingly. If you have a large audience and good website traffic, it’s best to conduct a short survey or ask your readers for feedback regarding what else you can do for them.Another step is categorizing your content to make your business’ blog easier to navigate and more organized. You can assign specific categories to each post and use tags at the bottom of your blogs. It will be easier for readers to find what they’re looking for, what type of business you’re in, and what products and services you offer. Once you set up your blog, it’s not always guaranteed that people will find you through organic search. You must ensure that your online store is optimized for online searches.
      2. SEO optimizationOrganic search remains one of the main sources of relevant traffic: it brings 53% of organic traffic to your website. And guess what? 33% of eCommerce visits are generated through organic searches. To make the most of search traffic, think about SEO optimization in the beginning. Its architecture should be based on your keyword research. Then switch to on-page SEO and optimize your HTML tags, headlines, and images.
         • • HTML tags and meta descriptions These elements are essential not only for SEO. They help users to understand what the page they’re visiting is about. Add target keywords to the title and descriptions to make them look more understandable and precise. Formulate page titles close to what users are browsing for and insert unique meta descriptions for each page.

         

         • • Image optimizationAdding alt tags into the code of your image is a step forward to make images comprehensible for a search robot. Each tag should be readable and describe the main characteristics of the promoted product — images with properly formatted alt text rank higher on the SERP.

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           • Link buildingIt’s all about getting backlinks to your website from external resources. Link building can also be internal when you interlink pages within your website (e.g., linking to a previous blog post or a particular landing page). If you’d like to market your online store, try to get backlinks from ratings, reviews, and similar posts on other websites. This is a good idea to get a higher ranking in search results because search robots consider your website a reliable source if many other platforms refer to it.When link building, use a high-authority website with a high domain ranking score (DR). Usually, these are websites with lots of backlinks. To analyze the website’s authority, use special tools like SemRush or Ahrefs. If you’re lucky to get a backlink from a high-authority platform, it’ll give more weight to your website than several backlinks from unknown websites. Internal linking can benefit as well. The main recommendation is that the top-ranking page should be the donor, and the pages that need a boost should be the link recipient.

         

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         Adding keywords to your URLs is another tactic to make your eCommerce store visible. Make sure your consumers and search engines easily understand your URLs. Don’t include numbers or irrelevant letters in URLs. Remove such stop words as “more,” “they,” or “an,” and don’t overstuff your URLs with keywords. Choose a single keyword and let the content on the page drive the rest of the conversation. To develop a more consistent experience across your website, create a standard process for naming URLs that can be applied to any of your pages and posts. This will make navigation across your website simpler and more functional for visitors.

      3. Email campaigns Email marketing is not dead. It remains one of the most high-converting ways available to small businesses. There’re 4 billion daily email users, and the email marketing revenue is estimated to reach almost 11 billion by the end of 2023.

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         You can start conversations with your audience in their inboxes or grow a list of subscribers you can reach as long as you have an email address. To start growing your list, you should give them a reason to sign up. It can be a downloadable gift guide, exclusive invites to visit a workshop, or a small discount code for next purchase. Another idea is to produce weekly newsletters highlighting your products with high-quality images, persuasive content, and links leading directly to your product for easy purchasing. And make sure you send emails from a dedicated professional email address. Customers will feel more trusting.

      4. Easy customer journeyIf you want to market your eCommerce store, try to shorten your customer’s journey — the fewer steps your customers need to take, the higher chances that they’ll make a purchase. Let your prices be visible right in the posts. If possible, use shopping tags on Instagram. When users tap on the sticker, they will be immediately redirected to a product page with pricing, a description, and a link to an eCommerce website. Also, add payment options on social media pages or Messenger chatbots. This will help ease the buying process because many customers fall off trying to redirect to a website.

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      5. Social media marketingDepending on your industry, different social media channels may work better for promoting your online business. Try to focus on the channel where you currently have the largest audience to leverage and work towards other platforms if you feel the need. Regardless of which platform fits best, link directly to your eCommerce store in your profiles so that new customers can easily click through and make a purchase. Another idea is to ask your followers to post pictures of wearing or using your products at home and include your branded hashtag.
      6. Online forums Build an online community around your online brand, or if you don’t have any, start it now! Forums are a great opportunity to connect with people with similar interests or needs. They’re more likely to be interested in your online store. A few online forums allow you to advertise your online store for free. But make sure to contribute positively to your online community before putting your online marketing efforts there.
      7. Business partnership Networking between companies is beneficial to both sides. Besides encouragement and mutual respect, forging great relationships will bring many opportunities to gain awareness around your brand and promote it. Building relationships with other entrepreneurs lays the foundation for future partnerships. These partnerships are professional cross-promotions aimed at increasing potential reach. Unpaid partnerships usually center on mutual support between business owners rather than product advertisements. Before choosing such a partnership, think about your mission, vision, and values associated with your brand. Since your name will be connected to theirs, ensure it’s a relationship that fits your business.
      8. Video tutorials, or behind-the-scenes shotsPeople love videos. They’re easy to share and can add clarity and depth to your products and help them gain popularity amongst your target market. When you’re done, share these videos on Youtube and all other social media platforms you’re on. Another idea is to make use of Facebook Live. Consider live videoing product demos or showing some fun behind-the-scenes videos.

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Further reading: Create Highly Engaging Instagram Stories

Paid Online Store Promotion

If you’ve already tried the methods above, it’s high time to jump to paid promotion. Paid eCommerce store promotion can complement unpaid marketing, especially targeting people unaware of your product or online shop. With the right combination of algorithms and keywords, paid advertising will help you reach the ideal audience.

1. Google Ads campaigns

Google Ads effectively drives good-fit customers to your business, searching for products and services like yours. Google Ads allows you to create and share well-timed ads among your target audience. Your brand will show up on the SERP when your ideal customers look for products or services via Google Maps or Google Search. There’re many types of ad campaigns with Google Ads. They include:

1. 1. • Search
      • Display
      • Video
      • Shopping
      • App
      • Smart
      • Local
      • Discovery

In this section, we’ll talk about the most important campaigns. Let’s start with Google Ads Search campaigns. These ads are usually shown on top, on the right side, and at the bottom of SEPR when users search for items. For example, when you google “leather boots,” you can see ads from brands that sell these boots and leather items in general.

Before launching a Google Search campaign, you must choose relevant keywords to meet people’s queries and negative keywords to prevent irrelevant traffic. Search ads are effective as they are shown when the demand is high. People are searching for something they’re interested in, and ads campaigns help to show them your answer. You can also focus on search Network campaigns. They’ll be especially valuable for marketing eCommerce stores that sell products that are needed regularly and are of low cost.

Similar to Google Search campaigns, Google Network campaigns are launched from Google Ads, but there’re some differences. The audience of the Google Display Network is colder than the one you can target through Search ads. But it has many advantages instead. One of them is an opportunity to launch not only text ads but add interactive elements and media and launch remarketing campaigns. It’s also useful when you need to warm the consumers up because you can interact with them multiple times through different channels. As a rule, Google Display Network provides broad coverage for a lower CPC and CPA than search campaigns. So it will be especially beneficial to new brands that a large audience must recognize.

Further reading: How to Expand to New Marketing Using Google Ads

You still there? Then try to add your goods to Google Merchant Center. It helps you get your store and its products into Google. Once ready, users can see everything about your eCommerce store and products while looking for something relevant. With a Merchant store, you can provide prospects with up-to-date information about prices and availability, show products on paid and free channels, get insights on merchandising pricing, and much more.

If you’d like to move further, launch a Shopping campaign. This is an advertising option designed for eCommerce. All you need to do is to add your product data with Google Merchant Center and create a campaign in Google Ads.

Shopping campaigns have automated targeting. They’re based on the product characteristics you added in your data feed and shown on relevant searches. The ads can pop up on partner websites, SERP, and Google Display Network (Gmail, Google Discover, and YouTube).

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2. Social media advertising

Spending money on social media advertising might be scary, especially if you haven’t done it before. Of course, not every social media platform might be a good fit for your business, considering your budget, marketing goals, and target audience. But you can easily stick to two types of ads and gain results — Facebook and Instagram Ads.

Facebook and Instagram Ads

Photo ads are one of the most popular types of ads on Facebook and Instagram. They feature a single image, some ad copy (text), and a clear CTA to promote your eCommerce store. Here’re two types of photo ads on Facebook and Instagram.

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Further reading: Facebook Shop: An Easy Set-Up Guide & Best Practices in Advertising

Remember to launch a retargeting ad campaign on Facebook and Instagram and retain users who have already visited your website. If you’re unsure how to do it properly, visit our detailed guide.

TikTok Ads

Although TikTok is relatively young, it’s one of the most popular video-sharing social media platforms. TikTok has about 800 million active users spending time on the app, and 45% of TikTok users are 18-24. So if your target audience is within this range, you should consider TikTok advertising agency.

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The list of TikTok ad types is numerous. Not all add types are available in all areas, so check out the TokTok ad specs before launching your ad campaign.

#1 Image ads

They include an image, brand or app name, and ad text and run only in TikTok’s News Feed aps.

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#2 Video ads

They’re available for TikTok itself or the TikTok family of new apps. Each ad includes a video, brand or app name, an ad display image, and ad text.

#3 In-feed ads

You can create these self-service ads through the TikTok Ad Manager interface.

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#4 Carousel ads

They include up to 10 images with unique captains per ad and can be run only on TikTok News Feed apps.

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#5 Spark ads

Spark Ads allow advertisers to boost their organic content. With Spark Ads, businesses can grow through real connections with TikTok community by delivering native content for greater authenticity.

LinkedIn ads

Yes, we should admit that LinkedIn advertising is not for every business. But that doesn’t mean that it’s useful. There’re a lot of B2B marketers who leverage LinkedIn campaigns to spread brand awareness and market their eCommerce stores. This is the largest stage for business-minded social interactions. If you advertise on LinkedIn, you first need to have a LinkedIn company page to publish content. Once everything is set up, you can plunge into the specifics of LinkedIn Ads. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you. First, make sure to check our recent articles:

1. 1. • How to Create Effective LinkedIn Ad Campaigns
      • LinkedIn Hook: Create Ads that Hit Your Target Audience

If you’ve read our guides and still have unclear points, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. In our free consultation, we’ll discuss your pain points and identify what can be improved.

Twitter ads

Besides being the go-to platform for engaging and breaking news, Twitter has been on of the most popular social media platforms since its launch. Twitter advertising offers two options for brands. They’re:

1. 1. • Twitter Ads. They’re objective-based. You first must choose your business objective, and Twitter will bill you only for actions correlated with your goal.
      • Quick Promote. The platform automatically promotes Tweets to your target audience. All you have to do is to select a promotable tweet and specify your target audience.

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Snapchat ads

You can also promote your eCommerce store with Snapchat Ads. Their 10-second full-screen vertical videos pop up between watching friends’ stories. People can swipe up to engage with your ad, and you, as an advertiser, can set the swipe up to install an app, link to a particular website, or make them watch a langer video. Snapchat ads are a good choice for eCommerce businesses that target a younger audience. Also, they help you to reach an untapped market.

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Pinterest ads

Pinterest is a highly visual platform and one of the ideal places for social media advertising. Promoted pins are easily weaved into the Pinterest boards without distracting users. The platform is especially beneficial for eCommerce retailers because Pinterest has a highly targeted search engine that allows online businesses to advertise their eCommerce stores by promoting their highest-performing pins.

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3. Influencer marketing

Influencers are often more approachable candidates for paid partnerships than celebrities. Many of them still have vast audiences. And they’re open for paid advertisements to contribute to their content. Unlike an unpaid partnership, your business benefits from its promotion, while influencers benefit from the monetary investment. Both parties see a return on investment from the engagement. Today many influencers list their business emails for advertising purposes. Their dedicated managers often manage these addresses, who can get you started with an advertising partnership.

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4. Podcast ads

Marketing doesn’t always have to be visual. Many eCommerce businesses have successfully used podcasts to promote their online stores. Also, podcasts are a great way to reach your target audience because it’s geared toward specific customer groups. When creating podcasts, explain why your product is valuable and worth buying. Choose a suitable platform to place your podcast, explain your brand values, and discuss fees.

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5. Website design

No matter your digital marketing strategy and your marketing method, it’s worth investing in attracting potential customers with an interactive and engaging website. Your eCommerce website is the heart of your online marketing strategies. Invest in website design to create a positive impression on your audience and build better brand awareness.

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Marketing Your Product Online: Is It Worth It?

Advertising your online store can seem challenging, but if you know the right tool, promoting your eCommerce website will be much easier and bring many perks. If you still need help marketing your online business, engage with a digital marketing agency. They’ll advise you on your online business promotion and develop working strategies for growing your sales.