2024 is a huge year for ecommerce, with retail giant Amazon celebrating its 30th anniversary and the internet itself turning the grand old age of 35 (feel old yet?!).
It’s official: ecommerce is all grown up, and as it enters its fourth decade, it’s bigger than ever.
There’s no denying that the value of ecommerce is continuing to rise. In fact, the amount people spent shopping online grew to $2 trillion worldwide in 2022. But over the years, things have changed.
It’s no longer just about electronic payments and internet sales – nope, in today’s customer-centric world, the secret to ecommerce success is all about delivering personalised, seamless experiences that delight your customers, whether they are buying their first product or their 100th.
Now for the bad news. Despite rising customer expectations, many organisations are falling short, with a multitude of companies appearing successful from the outside, but actually struggling to come out on top.
The question is, how can businesses reach maximum ecommerce profitability? Well, enticing customers to do business with you is key to running a successful business – and when it comes to attracting customers, we all know the answer: marketing.
So, if you want a piece of the ecommerce pie, read on to discover the new rules for ecommerce profitability in 2024 and beyond…
How to reach maximum ecommerce profitability in 2024
1. Use your data to get to know your audience
As we said above, the concept of ecommerce is shifting from a simple sales transaction to a personalised, interactive experience. If you’re going to maximise profitability, one of the first things you need to do is get to know your target audience.
Targeting the wrong audience is a huge waste of money and can eventually lead to a substantial drop in revenue. To positively impact your profits, you need to segment your customers and truly get to know your audience.
Let’s face it, we all want to feel special – and your customers are no different. In fact, 84% of people say that being treated like a person rather than a number has a huge impact on which brands they support. You need to make your campaigns as customer-centric as possible if you’re going to maximise profitability.
By utilising your data, you can understand your audience’s needs, buying habits, what drives their decisions, and what makes them tick, whilst also getting to grips with which media channels they consume – all of which enables you to make smarter decisions that are underpinned by insight and driven by data.
Basically, by dedicating yourself to understanding your customers’ interests, preferences, behaviours, and buyer motivations, you can make better decisions on everything, from the products you offer to how you market your brand.
2. Use precise targeting for more efficient marketing
Having used your data to understand and segment your audience, you can then use precise targeting to tailor your campaigns accordingly and ensure you target each customer segment.
Doing so means you can not only deliver clever marketing campaigns that hit the mark (resulting in increased trust and a boost in sales), but you can also ensure that your campaigns are reaching the right people at the right time.
Engagement is a key metric when analysing the impact of a campaign. Precise targeting ensures your campaigns reach recipients whose interests and behaviours correlate with your product. This means you can be confident your campaigns are being received by your ideal audience, maximising the opportunity for conversion.
This type of precise targeting not only allows you to get the most out of your marketing spend, but can also enable you to target customers interested in high-margin products to help you get the most out of your investment and increase profitability.
3. Offer an omni-channel experience
Did you know that 80% of people prefer brand experiences which are delivered by blending digital and physical channels? Or that campaigns combining print and digital drive 25% higher responses than digital campaigns alone?
In today’s digital world, there are more avenues for marketing than ever before, and the power of omni-channel campaigns cannot be denied. If you want to reach maximum profitability, it’s important to ensure you use a truly multi-channel approach.
However, today’s customers want a unified, seamless experience, whichever channels they are engaging with. 90% of customers demand a frictionless transaction when shifting between communication channels.
It takes as many as 60 touchpoints with a consumer before you make a sale, so it’s clear to see why omnichannel campaigns and clever digital media solutions will continue to be essential to ecommerce profitability in 2024.
4. Test and hone your marketing
Finally, if you’re going to continue to reach maximum profitability, it’s crucial to continuously test and hone your marketing to improve your strategy over time so you can ensure your campaigns have a significant impact and that you focus on best-fit acquisition channels.
By using data analysis to track the results of your campaigns, you can review past performance, assess engagement levels, and see what has worked and what hasn’t. You can then keep your finger firmly on the pulse and ensure you are consistently meeting your customers’ needs and refining your user experience.
Additionally, by identifying the best performing channels, you can ensure maximum ROI and recycle and reuse effective campaigns for the future, enabling you to minimise spend whilst maximising results – and we don’t know about you, but we’d call that a win-win!
Ready to join the dots and reach maximum ecommerce profitability?
If you’re ready to harness the power of your data to inform your marketing decisions and boost your ecommerce profitability, look no further than our fabulous team here at Join the Dots.
As an award-winning media agency, when you work with us, our data-led planners will create powerful, customer-centric, omni-channel campaigns that are driven by data across print, broadcast, and digital channels.
By ensuring we understand your audience and using your data to inform our digital media solutions, we will ensure your marketing hits the mark, entices customers to your brand, and keeps them coming back for more so you can enjoy maximum profitability in 2024 and beyond.
Want to find out more about how we do it? Contact us today to find out more about how our clever media solutions can help you increase your ROI.
