According to our recent survey of 1,000 U.S shoppers, asking their opinion(s) on private label brands, 43% of respondents say private label quality has significantly improved, offering comparable or even better quality than national brands in many categories. 

Some of the biggest names in retail like Target, Sephora, and Walmart all invest in the development and marketing of their private label products — and see massive success. 

The retailers that push the limits of their private label branding will be the ones that continue to elevate their status and change the generic stereotype. To do that, you’ll need to focus on branding, value, quality, and insights. Discover what your retail business stands to gain from offering store brands and how to develop a winning strategy.

Chapters:

1. What are private label brands?
2. The private label branding opportunity
3. How to create a thriving private label brand in 6 steps
4. Private label brand strategy examples
5. Improve your private label branding with customer insights

What are private label brands?

Private label brands, also known as store brands, are products owned by retailers and sold along with other brands in their product catalog. The retailer is often the sole developer of the brand and its products, or it may come from a third-party wholesale partner.

Some of the most successful private label brands include 365 by Whole Foods Market, Amazon Basics, and a ton of Target brands. 

The private label branding opportunity

The newfound interest in private label brands directly correlates with a struggling economy, an influx of higher-quality store-owned products and options, and an increase in private label-based rewards programs.

Consider these stats from our private label research:

• 40% of respondents say their perception of private labels is positive, they offer good value and they trust the store branding — another 42% haven’t noticed any significant differences in quality between private labels and national brands
• 36% of respondents plan to purchase more private label products next year compared to previous years
• Over half of respondents (56%) have switched their preferred brand for a private label product based on a loyalty program or reward

That’s to say, when it comes to the private label branding opportunity, it’s no longer a “nice to have.” The overall increase in positive sentiment, value, and quality, have made them difference makers for any retailers bottom line.

In terms of specific industries, the most popular categories for private label products are:

Besides a thriving private label branding market, there’s other business benefits for retailers who offer store brands. Some top advantages include:

• Product ownership: In addition to literally owning private label products, retailers also have control over the product design, materials or ingredients, and other manufacturing details
• Higher profit margins: Because retailers own their private label brands, they don’t have extra supply chain fees or higher cost of products from a national brand. This makes their product costs lower, allowing a bigger profit margin — not to mention the added benefit of keeping customers happy with lower prices
• Branding: Just as it owns the product design, the retailer also has creative control over the private label branding, from the aesthetics to the voice and promotion

Leading retailers are leaning into the private label apparel category specifically and partnering with luxury designers, like Walmart’s collaboration with Brandon Maxwell.

How to create a thriving private label brand in 6 steps

Now that you know the potential of private labels, find out how you can breathe new life into your owned brands, or successfully launch new ones, with the following tactics.

1. Build a strong retail brand identity

To have a thriving private label brand, first, you need to have a strong overall retail brand. 

When you earn brand loyalty and the positive public perception that comes with it, consumers will naturally trust and gravitate to your owned brands. 67% of the respondents to our private label research strongly or somewhat agree that the quality and range of a retailer’s private label products positively affect their overall perception of the retailer’s brand and reputation.

So, how do you build brand trust and loyalty to attract customers to your private label products? Some essential methods include:

• Appealing to your target audience’s values and interests
• Providing great customer service
• Offering deals and discounts

But, of course, these community-building efforts will only work if your products are unique, valuable, and serve customers’ needs. Our own research validates this approach, given that the top two reasons shoppers gave for selecting private label products are that they love them and they are well-priced. 

With the right practices in place, your customers will come for your retail experience and stay for your private label brands, creating a sustainable cycle that propels your business forward.

2. Devise a smart product strategy 

Once you have a solid foundation for your retail brand, you can begin to develop your own private label products. Your products need to meet the essential criteria to hook shoppers from the beginning and keep them coming back for more. To make your store brand the preferred alternative to the national name brands, make sure its value proposition is unique.

a) Develop your concept(s)

The formula for creating your store brand concepts is simple. Find the gaps in your inventory selection — what missing products could fulfill a customer need, price point, or variety? That white space will determine what and how many private label products to develop. This will guide your entire product strategy. The process could look something like the following steps:

1. Start by sorting your target customers into different segments and define the needs of each one
2. Research the price points and product features that make sense for each industry category
3. Research your competitors’ products in each category
4. With those insights, analyze your current product catalog to find what’s missing
5. Determine what alternative products your retail business can produce at a lower cost but that are equal to or better quality than the name-brand options

If your business is new to private label branding, you might want to start small with one to a few options within your bigger product categories to test the performance. Once you’ve decided which products to pursue, define the guidelines for your supplier and company stakeholders to follow.

This will ensure that your costs are accurate to fit your price point and profit margin — and that the materials used, functionality, and quality all meet expectations. 

b) Pricing and variety

Since value is the top consumer driver of store brand sales — lower price compared to national brands is the main purchasing influence for 72% of shoppers, according to our private label research — the key is to offer a price that is lower than your competition, while maintaining your target profit margin.

Identify the leading competitors in your store-brand product categories to base your pricing and quality criteria. 

In addition to pricing, variety is a key component of your product strategy. What flavors, pack sizes, format sizes, and other differentiators can you offer in each category? Use an internal system to keep track of your pricing and variety architecture so you can gradually fill in gaps with your store brand offerings.

c) Packaging

Early private label branding strived to mimic the presentation of its national brand rivals. But now, the industry leaders are aiming to stand out rather than blend in. Packaging plays a huge role in purchase decisions, so this is an important area to focus on. The design should ideally be distinct and include the unique and attractive features of the product, whether that’s easy functionality, sustainable ingredients, or something else. 

For example, the packaging for retailer ShopRite’s store brand, Bowl & Basket, stands on its own with a prominent font, clean design, striking product photography, and a pleasant and soft color palette. It has a simple and clear product description that draws the consumer in. 

d) Innovation

The best way to generate interest in your private label brands and be a progressive outlier in the space is to consistently innovate. To pull this off, you need to leverage your store brand as the solution to your customer’s wants and needs.

If you look at leading private label brand retailers, many of their owned products are “value-added lifestyle items.” This is a niche to focus on that will lead to innovation, like Trader Joe’s iconic Everything But the Bagel seasoning.

Sourcing is another point of leverage for innovation. For example, locally sourced ingredients that benefit underserved communities can help your products stand out and satisfy consumer preferences.

3. Collect authentic reviews of private label products 

Product reviews are one of the most effective ways to win consumers’ trust. According to the 2022 Bazaarvoice Summit, 94% of shoppers report needing at least 10 reviews to “consider the product credible.

The recency of reviews is also a top decision-making factor for most (85%) of shoppers. So, you need to actively source reviews to grow your volume and keep them up to date. Luckily, there’s a variety of different ways you can generate authentic reviews. Just ask your customers!

• Request a review with a review request email
• Send an SMS message after a customer’s order is delivered
• Direct customers to leave reviews via your social media channels
• Offer customers a discount on a future purchase in exchange for a review
• Utilize a sampling campaign and exchange free product samples in exchange for honest reviews 

Ratings and reviews don’t just have a huge impact on e-commerce but on in-store sales, too, based on the 40% of shoppers who claim to read online reviews before buying offline. Helpful, descriptive, and substantial reviews are essential, but those featuring media can go even further. Customers’ photos and videos of product purchases make 62% of shoppers more likely to buy.

Reviews also have great search engine optimization (SEO) value because they contain a lot of the same descriptive keywords that shoppers are searching for. So, not only will reviews increase conversions when shoppers land on your e-commerce site, but they can also be the vehicle that gets them there. 

Reviews communicate the value that customers find in your products and the features that are important to them. They give your customers a platform to express their own opinions about your brand, which resonates with other shoppers.

4. Grow awareness and interest with targeted product sampling

Whether you’re launching a new private label brand or product or rebranding an old one, product sampling can help it take flight. We’re not just talking about a taste of kombucha in a paper cup or a cheese cube on a toothpick, but a custom product sampling package delivered to your target audience.

Renowned brand Petco recently rolled out a sampling campaign specifically to bolster review volume for its private label brands and increase SEO impact.

To date, the campaign has led to a 48% increase in revenue per visit (driven by a 28% increase in conversion rate and 15% increase in average order value) for sampled products and an 80% increase in clicks from organic search. Not to mention, that data that sampling provides.

We’ve really seen a positive impact on visits, conversions, and improving the discoverability of new products. From a results standpoint, it’s been a positive experience to see that we can get 10-15 reviews for new products quickly

Hannah Kredich, Category Specialist at Petco

First-party customer data also provides tons of useful information you can use to plan a product sampling campaign. Let’s say you notice customers buying a lot of the same national-brand products in one category, you could send them a sample of your store-brand alternative or a complementary product from your store brand. 

And if you’re starting from scratch with a brand-new product launch, sampling is a great upfront investment. In a survey of over 6,000 Influenster members who have been recipients of a product sampling campaign, 63% purchased the product they sampled. Many also reported buying additional products from the brand and recommending the product to family and friends.

Lastly, another huge benefit of product sampling is the user-generated content (UGC) it can produce in the form of product reviews, images, and videos. This is especially important for new product releases so you can be equipped with the customer reviews necessary to give other shoppers confidence right from the launch. 

5. Optimize your product pages for conversions

One common concern for retailers is the lack of rich content, including product reviews, across all of their product pages on their e-commerce websites. This can be particularly challenging for retailers with an extensive product catalog. This is why it’s crucial to encourage customers to write reviews so you can enhance your product pages with UGC. 

You can set up those reviews to post directly on the product pages they correspond to, which will make a huge difference in sales — nearly 40% of shoppers won’t make a purchase if UGC is absent from the product page. And that includes visual UGC too. As part of our recent Shopper Experience Index, we asked 7,000 shoppers:

Additionally, almost half of shoppers specifically look for customer photos on product pages when considering purchases. Encourage customers to upload their own photos and videos of their purchases to your product pages with a hashtag campaign.

To optimize your private label product pages to their full extent, include: 

• Star ratings 
• Review categories based on product features, positive reviews, and negative reviews
• Detailed product descriptions that highlight your product’s best attributes
• Professional product photos
• Customer-submitted product photos and videos 

6. Attract more customers on social media

Whether it’s Gen Z on TikTok, millennials on Instagram, or older demographics on Facebook, social media is a critical marketing tool for your private label growth. 

Social media content supports a more modern, cutting-edge, approachable, and innovative perception of your store-brand products. Consumers come to social media to discover brands and be entertained, and there’s a ton of features and content types you can leverage to appeal to them. That includes short-form video like TikTok and Instagram Reels, quick and temporary content like Instagram Stories and Snapchat, and even livestream shopping on a number of different channels. 

Influencers have proven extremely successful for brand marketing, and social media is the perfect platform for an influencer partnership. Collaborating with influencers to promote your store brand is another way to drive demand through a public figure whom consumers trust. 

You can also use social media as a tool to generate more visual UGC that you can feed to your product pages. Encourage your followers to share their purchases on social media and tag your brand profile. This will supply you with more content and introduce your products to a wider audience.

Not only can you market your private label products on social media, but you can also sell them, too. With social commerce features such as Like2Buy and social media shops, you can upload your products and sell them directly on your social media channels. 

Private label brand strategy examples

As private label brands have evolved over the years, there’s plenty of retailer examples to draw inspiration from. Take notes from some of these trailblazers who are shaking up the store-brand category. 

Target’s Future Collective

Target might just be the pinnacle of store-brand potential, neck and neck with Amazon. Target has multiple private label brands, but as the retailer says, their Future Collective brand is the “first of its kind.” This fashion-forward apparel brand is “co-designed with a rotating roster of style and cultural influencers with diverse points of view in fashion.”

This innovative approach enables Target to leverage different guest designers and influencers to bring in different perspectives on fashion, while offering a continuous stream of fresh variety for customers. The brand is dedicated to inclusivity, offering something for everyone.

Thrive Market

Thrive Market is a successful e-commerce retailer that specializes in health-conscious products, including name brands and its own store brand. 

Not only is Thrive an excellent private label brands example, but also a great example of how to develop products that meet the needs of target customers. For example, one of its best-selling private label products is its coconut milk. What makes its particular coconut milk unique is that it leaves out a commonly used ingredient, guar gum, which isn’t Paleo diet friendly.

This solved a problem for its Paleo customers, who make up a big chunk of its clientele. 

Foxtrot

Foxtrot, a fast-growing specialty convenience store chain, is another example of a retailer going above and beyond with its owned products. Foxtrot’s goal for its store brands is to beat the well-known national brands in all categories, not just price. 

Just as Target partners with influencers for Future Collective, Foxtrot partners with industry leaders for its food and beverage products. As an example of this, the company has a hot chocolate mix developed by an acclaimed pastry chef and a bourbon made in collaboration with a beloved local Chicago cocktail bar. According to the Washington Post, Foxtrot’s profit margins for its private label products are 10 – 15% higher than those of its external brands.

Improve your private label branding with customer insights

One of the most important steps you can take as a retailer to grow your private label brands and business as a whole is to listen to your customers. Pay attention to the insights revealed in your product reviews, customer satisfaction surveys, customer support conversations, social media interactions, and anywhere else you can find them. 

What do your customers like and not like about your products? What are they saying they need that you don’t currently offer? This invaluable information can help you make store-brand product modifications and improvements that will provide more value for your customers. 

Once you’ve established your private label branding, it’s time to take it to the next level. Learn how to position your private label for continued market success with our new on-demand masterclass: How to leverage new customer insights for private label success.

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4 strategies to achieve private label success

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Let’s channel your inner Don Corleone and learn how you can make consumers an offer they won’t refuse.

Chapters:

1. What is a lead magnet?
2. What makes a good lead magnet in e-commerce?
3. 10 lead magnet ideas for your e-commerce website
4. Optimize your e-commerce website for better lead magnet results

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is simply a trade where you offer something valuable in exchange for contact information or another action. 

Let’s paint a picture for you: you’re browsing online, not quite ready to buy, just casually looking. Then, something catches your eye — a guide on how to choose the perfect pair of running shoes, offered for free. All it asks for in return is your email. That’s a lead magnet in action, a sweet little nudge designed to turn you from a casual browser into an engaged potential customer. 

And once you have that information, you’ll do something with it to further engage the leads and turn them into paying customers. So this interaction is also the first hello in what you hope will be a long conversation. It’s where you start to build trust and show your value to potential customers. 

What makes a good lead magnet in e-commerce?

For starters, your lead magnet should offer immediate value. People have to be able to use it right away so they can experience the benefits of engaging with your brand without delay. This immediate gratification will satisfy the desire for quick rewards (because who doesn’t love those?) and make a positive first impression.

Ideally, what you offer should also solve a problem that your audience is facing. A lead magnet that tackles a real issue provides value and also positions your brand as helpful and authoritative. For example, a “5-Minute Meals for Busy Parents” recipe book from an online food store hits right at the heart of time-crunched families.

Lead magnets should showcase your expertise or the quality of your products. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate why your brand is trustworthy and knowledgeable. Say, a lead magnet like “The Complete Guide to Sustainable Fashion” from an eco-conscious clothing brand can establish thought leadership in that space.

Finally, the best lead magnets encourage future engagement. It doesn’t just end with the download or the discount but rather marks the start of a relationship. 

10 lead magnet ideas for your e-commerce website

There’s a lot of room for creativity where lead magnets are concerned, but we have the top 10 ideas that are tried and tested to get people through your digital door.

1. Discount codes

It’s a classic for a reason. Discounts are simple, yet effective — a percentage off, a fixed amount discount, or exclusive deals in exchange for an email sign-up or another small action. Because of the instant value they provide, discounts make the decision to engage with a brand a no-brainer for most shoppers. 

Why they work:

• Everyone loves to save money. A discount code taps into this universal appeal, offering immediate savings on future purchases

• For those on the fence because they never bought from your brand before, a discount can be the incentive they need to make their first purchase

Best practices:

• Make it exclusive. Your discount should feel special. If products on your website are always on sale, this type of offer could lose its appeal

• Set a time limit. Create a sense of urgency and encourage quick action by making the discount available for a limited time

2. Personalized consultations

Personalization is a lead magnet necessity. Personalized consultations are a golden opportunity to connect with your audience on a deeper level. They allow you to demonstrate your expertise, understand your customers’ unique needs, and provide tailored advice that can make a real difference in their decision-making process.

Why they work:

• Engaging directly with customers establishes brand trust, an essential ingredient for any successful relationship. 

• By tailoring advice to each individual’s situation, you show a level of care and attention that generic information just can’t match

• A consultation is an active, engaging process. It invites potential customers to interact with your brand, creating a memorable experience

Best practices:

• Streamline scheduling: Use an easy-to-navigate booking system to minimize friction in setting up consultations. The simpler it is to book, the more likely people are to go for it 

• Prepare and personalize: Before each consultation, gather information about the customer’s needs to offer the most relevant and helpful advice

• Follow-up: After the consultation, send a personalized email summarizing the advice you gave and suggesting next steps. A follow-up keeps the conversation going and nudges consumers towards a purchase based on the problems you identified

3. Early or exclusive access

There’s plenty of ways to give your potential customers the VIP treatment — chief among them, access to early sales and product drops. This strategy plays on the human desire to be part of an elite group and enjoy privileges that aren’t available to the general public. 

Why they work:

• Knowing they have access to something others don’t elevates the customer’s perception of the value you’re offering 

• The wait for early or exclusive access to products or sales can create buzz and excitement around your brand 

• Customers who receive special treatment are more likely to feel a stronger connection to your brand, helping you build that oh-so-coveted brand loyalty

Best practices:

• Clearly define the offer: Make sure your audience understands what they’re getting access to and why it’s valuable. Whether it’s a pre-sale, a limited edition product, or early access to content, the offer should be compelling 

• Deliver on your promise: Don’t falter. The early or exclusive access experience should be smooth and rewarding. Any hiccups can damage trust and diminish the perceived value of your offer

4. Free shipping

The people have spoken — they want free shipping. So much so that 62% of consumers won’t buy from a retailer if they don’t provide that option. Offering potential buyers the chance to unlock free shipping removes one of the biggest hurdles to completing an online purchase (added costs) and appeals to virtually every shopper’s desire to get more value out of their purchase.

Why they work:

• High shipping costs are the top reason for abandoning shopping carts. Eliminating this barrier can significantly increase your conversion rates

• Shoppers perceive free shipping as an added value to their purchase, making the deal seem much sweeter (there’s that honey again) 

• Often, free shipping is tied to a minimum purchase amount, which can encourage customers to add more items to their cart to qualify and increase average order value

Best practices:

• Set clear thresholds: If your free shipping offer requires a minimum purchase, make sure this threshold is clearly communicated and easily achievable

• Promote widely: Highlight your free shipping offer on your homepage, product pages, and during the checkout process. Also, mention it in your marketing emails and social media channels

• Test and analyze: Experiment with different thresholds for free shipping to find the sweet spot that increases average order value without hurting your margins

5. Free samples

Who doesn’t love free stuff? Offering free samples as your lead magnet is a tried-and-true method to introduce potential customers to your products with no strings attached. This approach not only allows customers to test and fall in love with your products but also demonstrates your confidence in the quality of what you’re selling.

With a product sampling marketing campaign you can even ask consumers to provide user-generated content (reviews, images, or videos) in exchange for the samples. Using UGC to populate your social media feeds and product pages is the best way to generate consumer trust in your brand and lift conversions, so there’s a lot to gain here besides contact information. 

Why they work:

• Free samples allow customers to try before they buy, reducing the perceived risk associated with buying new products

• By getting your products into the hands of potential customers, you’re increasing brand awareness and the likelihood of future purchases

• Offering something for free can create a positive association with your brand, fostering goodwill and a sense of reciprocity

Best practices:

• Easy redemption: The process to claim a free sample should be straightforward and require minimal effort from the customer

• Collect feedback: Use the opportunity to gather feedback on the sampled products and get your hands on valuable insights for product development and marketing strategies. 

• Follow-up: After sending out the samples, follow-up with an email offering a discount on the full-sized product to encourage a purchase

6. Contests and giveaways

The anticipation of possibly winning something cool is thrilling. That excitement is precisely what makes contests and giveaways such effective lead magnets. They speak to people’s natural love for competition and the allure of getting something for free. 

And you win too. By offering a prize that your target audience finds irresistible, you can significantly increase engagement, grow your email list, and boost social media followers, all while creating a fun experience for your audience.

Why they work:

• The interactive nature of contests and giveaways encourages active participation from your audience

• Participants often share contests with friends and family, which helps increase your brand’s visibility and reach 

• You can make following you on social media a mandatory requirement to enter the contest, so you can grow your presence on these channels while generating leads

Best practices:

• Leverage user-generated content: Encourage participants to share their own content related to the contest (e.g., photos using your product) to increase engagement and generate content for your brand

• Reach out to every participant: After the contest, send a thank you email to all participants and offer them a consolation prize, such as a discount code, to encourage them to make a purchase

7. Interactive quizzes

Quizzes are the best of both worlds. These lead magnets combine entertainment with personalization, offering instant gratification in the form of results that feel tailor-made. They keep potential customers engaged in a unique way and provide valuable insights into their preferences and behaviors. What’s not to love?

Why they work:

• Quizzes keep users clicking, engaged, and interested from start to finish, significantly increasing the time spent interacting with your brand

• With personalized results, quizzes make every participant feel seen and understood, enhancing their connection to your brand (and likelihood they’ll buy something based on the outcome of the quiz) 

• Quizzes are an effective tool for collecting zero-party data on your audience’s preferences and needs, which can inform future marketing strategies. With the collapse of third-party cookies upon us, this is a welcomed benefit.

Best practices:

• Shareable results: Make the results easily shareable on social media to increase the participant’s engagement and extend the quiz’s reach

• Follow-up with personalized recommendations: Use the data collected from the quiz to follow up with personalized product recommendations or content, turning engagement into conversion

• Optimize for all devices: Your quiz should be mobile-friendly to get users to engage with it on their smartphones (where they spend a lot of time. Seriously)

8. Exclusive members club

We already talked about the allure of exclusivity, but you know what’s better than early access to a product? Being part of an exclusive members club that continuously offers perks, special deals, and insider information. 

This type of lead magnet elevates the concept of exclusivity to a whole new level, as it creates a sense of belonging to a special community. It’s not just a one-time offer — it’s ongoing value.

Why they work:

• Humans are complex creatures, but when it comes to belonging, they’re actually quite simple. People love feeling like they’re part of an exclusive group, and members-only clubs deliver on that innate desire for community and recognition

• Contrary to a one-off download or discount, a members club offers continuous reasons for shoppers to engage with your brand

• Members are more likely to become repeat, loyal customers, thanks to the ongoing perks and the emotional investment in the brand

Best practices:

• Update, update, update. Regularly add new perks to keep the membership exciting and valuable. Stagnation is the enemy of engagement (Confucius didn’t say it, but he might as well have) 

• Exclusive, but inclusive: While the club should feel exclusive, make joining achievable for your target audience – it’s a lead magnet, after all

• Communicate regularly: Use email newsletters or a dedicated members area on your website to keep people informed about new perks and offers

9. Virtual events

Virtual events have surged in popularity, offering a unique way to connect with audiences from the comfort of their own homes. They entertain and inform, drawing in people with the promise of unique insights, valuable knowledge, and interactive experiences that they can’t get anywhere else.

Why they work:

• Virtual events allow for real-time interaction between the guests, moderators, and viewers, making the latter feel more connected to your brand

• They can attract a broad audience by offering valuable insights, entertainment, or access to experts, depending on the event’s focus

Best practices:

• Promote early and often: Use all your channels — email, social media, your website — to build anticipation and encourage sign-ups well in advance of the event 

• Offer exclusive content: Make sure the event provides unique value that can’t be found elsewhere, such as live Q&A sessions, behind-the-scenes tours, or first looks at new products 

• Make it accessible: Ensure the platform you choose is user-friendly and accessible to people with varying levels of tech-savviness

• Interact post-event: After the event, send out an email to attendees with key takeaways, additional resources, and a CTA, such as a special offer or invitation to sign up for your newsletter

• Record and repurpose: Not everyone who’s interested will be able to attend live. Plus, you’ve put a lot of effort into producing the event, so you should milk every drop of content out of it. Offer a recording to those who registered but couldn’t attend, and consider using parts of the event in future marketing materials

10. Free trials 

Subscription businesses might find it harder to send out samples of their products. Free trials solve this issue, as they allow potential customers to test your service in all its glory. Just like with samples, free trials are effective because they remove the risk from the customer’s decision-making process. People get to see firsthand if your service fits their needs and lifestyle before committing financially.

Why they work:

• Customers can try out your service without any financial commitment, making them more likely to give it a go

• Unlike a demo or a sneak peek, a free trial gives customers access to the entire service, allowing them to experience its full benefits

• By offering a free trial, you’re expressing confidence in the value of your service, which in turn builds trust with potential subscribers

Best practices:

• Clear communication: Make the terms of the free trial clear, including its duration and what happens when the trial ends. Transparency is key to trust

• Engage during the trial: Use the trial period to engage with users, offering tips on getting the most out of the service and highlighting features they might not discover on their own

• Seamless transition to paid: Make it easy for trial users to become paying subscribers, with a simple upgrade process and a compelling reason to continue beyond the trial

Optimize your e-commerce website for better lead magnet results

Your lead magnets are the hook that draws people in, but your website is where the magic really happens. It’s one of the places where initial interest turns into lasting relationships and, ultimately, sales. 

By focusing on both attracting customers with compelling lead magnets and providing an optimized online shopping experience, you lay the groundwork for e-commerce success. 

So, don’t let the momentum stop with the honey. Continue your journey to e-commerce excellence by ensuring your website is as optimized and as effective as your lead magnets. 

Okay, okay, maybe we’re being a bit hyperbolic. Nothing’s as bad as trying to find a half-decent potato while your least favorite Christmas song blares over the store sound system. However, we do know customers love the convenience offered by online shopping. Nearly 70% of consumers factor site speed into their willingness to purchase from an online retailer. And a majority of online shoppers expect a page load time of 3 seconds or less.

If you haven’t given your website a performance checkup lately, it’s well past time. Here’s how to evaluate your current performance, plus some steps anyone can take to optimize an e-commerce site for a speedy shopping experience. 

Chapters:

1. Why website performance matters
2. The 7 main website performance metrics
3. How to measure your website performance
4. How to improve your e-commerce website performance
5. Website performance is all about the need for speed

Why website performance matters

Does it really matter if you don’t hit that 3-second load mark? Yes, it does. Failing to prioritize website loading speed decreases the quality of your user experience, and that’s bad in multiple ways.

First and most obvious, higher load times mean an increased bounce rate. Even users who stick around through the first few slow page loads may give up on your site before making a purchase.

Lower initial conversion rates are likely to be matched by lower loyalty overall. Customers who remember their suboptimal shopping experience are less likely to return for another try — and they won’t want to follow links that direct them to your site. 

Bad website performance also affects your Google SERP rankings. Because the search engine’s algorithm prioritizes user experience, pages with a slow loading speed are pushed down in the search results. Smaller outlets competing for attention might lose out to their faster competitors. 

The 7 main website performance metrics

Page load time isn’t a standalone website performance metric. It’s an overarching assessment that rolls together multiple metrics. Four of these metrics are Google’s Core Web Vitals:

• Largest Contentful Paint measures the loading speed of the largest page element users can see “above the fold” — that is, without scrolling down
• Interaction to Next Paint measures a page’s responsiveness to interactions, such as clicking an “add to cart” button or typing information into a form
• First Input Delay measures the time gap between when a user interacts with your website (say, clicking that “add to cart” button) and when their browser starts to process that request
• Cumulative Layout Shift measures how often page content moves while a page is loading

Google considers these aspects most important because they have the biggest effect on user experience. However, there’s four other metrics that also capture important parts of the user experience: 

• Time to First Byte measures the speed at which your DNS provider starts delivering your website content after receiving the request
• Total Blocking Time measures how long it takes for a web page to load enough that a user can interact with it (as browsers that are in the middle of loading pages cannot process interactions)
• First Contentful Paint measures how long it takes for the first of your website content to render

If you want to dive deep into any of these metrics, Google’s web.dev site explains more about why each one matters and how to measure them. Or, you can just keep reading as we discuss measuring your site’s performance. 

How to measure your website performance

Measuring your site’s performance is easy with Google’s free PageSpeed Insights. This tool assesses your site on the metrics listed above and ranks it as good, needs improvement, or poor. You’ll also get notes on your site’s performance, accessibility, use of best practices, and SEO. 

There’s an option to view how your site performs on mobile vs. desktop devices and tips to help you optimize your site. You get a lot of help for the low price of living in Google’s web ecosystem, and let’s face it — that’s already happening. 

When you’re looking at your report, you may notice Total Blocking Time is excluded from the “Core Web Vitals Assessment” box. Scroll down to the Performance box, then look at the Metrics table to see your results.

PageSpeed Insights makes it easy to understand why your site earned the rankings it did with color-coded graphics and personalized tips. Go ahead and run a test now — all it takes is a few seconds — so you can get a baseline of your site’s performance and see where you have room for improvement. 

How to improve your e-commerce website performance

If you’re still here, we’ll assume your Core Web Vitals Assessment showed you have some work to do. There’s no shame in that. Even Google’s web.dev site doesn’t pass the assessment! Here’s our best tips to help you improve the performance of your e-commerce website and the tools you need to make it happen. 

1. Cut down on HTTP requests

HTTP requests exist at the core of loading web pages. You don’t need to know the technical specifics here — only that a browser must make these requests to load CSS files, scripts, images, and other content on your page. Each request requires the browser to send a message to your web host, which then has to respond with the appropriate content.

The more HTTP requests you have, the longer it will take to complete them all. Imagine if you went to a restaurant and first asked for water and then, when your waiter returned, ordered a soda. When they brought the soda, you asked for an appetizer. And finally, after the appetizer arrived, you had decided on your entrees. It would take a long time for you to get and finish your meal, no matter how fast your server worked.

Give your (web) server a break by cutting out unnecessary HTTP requests. If you don’t need a script or CSS file, don’t reference it in your page’s header. You can also try to cut down on multimedia content to increase your page load speed. 

2. Use HTTP/2

Not all HTTP requests are made equal. HTTP/2, a standard that debuted in 2015, comes with capabilities that help your web pages load faster. For one, it allows developers to prioritize which elements load first, so you can tell browsers to request light resources before larger scripts. It can also serve multiple resources at once. To return to our restaurant metaphor, HTTP/2 allows you to give your whole order at once so the waiter can get your food to you more quickly.

KeyCDN has a free HTTP/2 test to determine whether your site supports the HTTP/2 protocol. Or, if you want a closer look, open your browser’s developer tools, navigate to the network tab, and look for the “Protocol” column. (You may have to right-click the list of columns and add Protocol.) 

HTTP/2 support is determined by your web host, so they’re the resource to turn to if you need to enable the protocol. The process is different for each provider. 

3. Eliminate unnecessary redirects

Many companies employ redirects to bypass link rot during website overhauls. However, each time you redirect a user to a new page, you’re forcing them to sit through another page load. Especially redirects that lead to another redirect — no thanks! By the time the user reaches the actual URL, they’ll already be ready to close out of your page.

Redirects have a habit of piling up over time. That means you need to audit them periodically; it’s especially important to do so after any redesign or re-architecting of your website.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider can help you check your entire site for redirects and even detect redirect chains and loops for you. You could also use the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar to check page-by-page, but we wouldn’t recommend this. Unless you have an obligation you really want to get out of.

4. Limit external scripts

Most developers use third-party scripts to add functionality they don’t have the resources to code in-house. Incorporating external scripts is always risky in terms of page speed, though. You don’t have control over the code, so you can’t do anything if the script is slow to load.

Slow-loading scripts make pages take longer to load and can cause problems like content jumping (measured by the Cumulative Layout Shift metric). 

Check each page to make sure no unnecessary scripts are loading. For instance, you may have a reviews feature enabled on your site as a whole, but you don’t need that script included on pages made for browsing. You may also ask yourself whether you really need that modal to collect customers’ emails or if it’s turning off more buyers than it’s bringing in.

More bells and whistles aren’t always better. A simple website with a good user experience can muscle out an overdesigned store.

5. Enable lazy (asynchronous) loading

When a browser renders a website, its default is to process each request in order, only moving on to the next command after finishing its current task. Large scripts slow up the entire process, as a browser must load the entire file before it can move on to rendering the rest of the content.

Avoid this delay by directing the browser to load your scripts asynchronously — that is, while continuing to render the webpage. Simply add the async attribute to your script tags (your code will look something like this: <script src=”my_script.js” async></script>).

Some experts recommend adding your <script> tags near the bottom of your body content as older browsers may not be able to read the async attribute, but there’s no need to do this. You’d be hard-pressed to find a browser in the wild that couldn’t handle the async tag. 

6. Use mobile-first designs

Website performance optimization needs to include mobile-first thinking. Smartphones are now the source of nearly four in five e-commerce website visits and two in three e-commerce purchases. Unfortunately, the mobile web is still a drag. Most sites have much longer load times on mobile devices. With over 50% of mobile visitors ready to jump ship if a site takes longer than 3 seconds to load, e-commerce retailers are likely losing out on a lot of business. 

Almost every website published these days is responsive, but designers who code for desktop and then later optimize for mobile may be going in the wrong order. Using mobile phone emulators to design for small screens puts the needs of this growing audience front and center. 

Plus, it’s easy — Google Chrome’s Dev Tools allow you to enter “device mode” to view what your site will look like on smaller screens. 

Designing for mobile phones also requires you to make the most of limited screen real estate, which may mean you opt for fewer decorative elements that can slow down a page. You’ll also want to simplify navigation and interactions rather than going for flashy or unique experiences that require external scripts and plugins. 

If you’re working with an existing site, you probably can’t implement this practice right now. Just keep it in mind for your next redesign. 

7. Compress text-based files with gzip

HTML and CSS files may not seem too onerous to load, but when you’re counting in milliseconds, every byte matters. Compression reduces the size of text-based files so they can make the trip from your server to a customer’s browser more quickly. Gzip is the most common compression framework, but Brotli and Deflate also work well to speed up your website. 

This is another feature that’s set up on the hosting side. Most hosts enable it by default, but it’s good to check yours using a free HTTP Compression test. If you find out your content isn’t compressed, it’s time to reach out to your hosting provider. 

8. Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files

Compression frameworks like Gzip aren’t the only byte-savers. You can also minify your text files by removing anything that’s not a key part of the code — things like comments, formatting, or lengthy variable names. Many of these elements are helpful for human developers, but web browsers don’t need them to display your web page directly. 

There’s no need to go through and delete comments and extra spaces and tabs by yourself. Minifier.org offers a free tool that can handle CSS and JavaScript. Google’s web.dev recommends this free HTML minifier. 

If you’re looking for tools that can mass-minify, Google’s PageSpeed Module works with Apache or Nginx web servers and automatically minifies your files. However, installing tools like it or CSSNano may require you to call IT.

9. Optimize images and videos

Multimedia files often decrease website performance simply because they’re so large. E-commerce merchants, who rely heavily on images and videos, must be diligent about optimizing these files to reduce the burden on visitors’ internet connections. 

The easy part of optimizing images is resizing them. No file should exceed 20 megabytes (MB) — but really, only your hero images should be that big. Shopify recommends merchants keep images around 500 kilobytes (KB) if possible, though they allow that some sites need files up to 2 MB in size. You’ll likely have to compress your images to meet these goals. Thankfully, there’s plenty of free image compression tools out there you can use.

Once you’ve cut file sizes down, make sure you’re using responsive design principles to keep things speedy for users loading your site from smaller devices. MDN Web Docs, run by Mozilla, has a nice responsive images tutorial you can follow if you’re new to the subject. 

10. Take advantage of browser caching

Web browsers can store files locally on users’ machines, which speeds up loading times for repeat visitors. Instead of contacting your server for every file, browsers can pull cached assets from the machine’s local memory.

Caching is an excellent solution for most e-commerce merchants, as your assets remain fairly static. If you do a major site overhaul or replace product pictures, you’ll want to make sure browsers have instructions to re-download the new content and replace cached assets. However, this is a rare enough occurrence for most online retailers that setting up caching is the way to go.

Your web host is, once again, the party in charge of your caching settings. You’ll want to find its documentation and follow the instructions to enable local caches and set expiry dates (which instruct browsers how often they should refresh cached assets from your site). 

11. Use a content delivery network (CDN)

Browser caches only help audiences who have come to your website before. Content delivery networks, or CDNs, stash assets as close as possible to each visitor to cut down on load times. 

CDNs don’t rely on local machines to store assets. They simply distribute your assets to a network of servers in various locations. That means instead of having one server in Virginia that answers all requests, you may have a server in Virginia, one in California, one in Illinois, and so on. Companies that serve international audiences can work with international CDNs, so they have servers in multiple countries, regions, and continents. 

Whenever a browser sends a request to load your website, that request routes to the server that’s geographically closer to the user. It may not sound like a huge time-saver, but since page load speeds are measured on a very small scale, CDNs make a noticeable difference. 

12. Regularly audit your plugins

Plugins, add-ons, and extensions are a huge time-saver for most web developers. But, like external scripts, bloated plugins can drag your page speed down. Improve your website performance by revisiting your plugin library to see whether there are any hangers-on that you no longer use. 

Sometimes, you need all your plugins, but your pages are still loading way too slowly. In that case, it’s time to figure out the culprit. Copy your site into a staging environment, disable all your plugins, and test your site load speed. Then, enable plugins one at a time to determine whether a single plugin is tanking your performance metrics. (Make sure you enable, test, and then disable each plugin so you’re not accidentally measuring cumulative effects.)

Thankfully, with so many plugins out there, you’ll likely be able to find a replacement for any sluggish tools. 

One other option is to look for plugins that have been optimized for speed. For instance, our Ratings & Reviews display technology was designed to keep your website running quickly, and our developers shared the steps they took to fulfill that promise. Find tools built in this vein — ones that use best practices like minifying and reducing script files, caching, and lazy loading — to make your audits a breeze. 

13. Remove unnecessary pop-ups

Yes, we’ll say it. Pop-ups are super unpopular. They lead to a bad experience, especially on mobile devices. Even if you think your pop-ups are tastefully done and helpful, internet users are faced with a barrage of modals, overlays, and chat widgets all day long. Everyone has pop-up fatigue, and if you contribute, you’re eroding your consumers’ trust. 

Most pop-ups call outside scripts and reference assets like images and fonts, all of which a browser has to load. Modals that appear conditionally have to gather audience data before triggering, which also takes time. And if your Total Blocking Time is high, users may not be able to close out of these elements as the rest of your site renders. This delay would influence users’ perception of your site speed even if there was no actual slowdown. 

The slowdown is real, though, as is the nearly universal dislike for these tools. Removing them from your site is a win-win. 

14. Choose the fastest services

When a customer clicks a link or types in a URL, they’re telling their browser to query a DNS service to take them to their target site. That DNS service routes the browser to your site’s IP address. Then, their browser starts reading your HTML files and requesting assets from your server or CDN so it can render the website you’ve designed. 

That’s a lot of services coming together to make your site appear. If any one of them is slow, your page speed will be negatively affected. That’s why the cheapest option isn’t necessarily the best option for your technical infrastructure. 

For instance, many base website hosting plans are shared. This means other websites use the same server you do, so a spike of traffic from one of them might slow down your load times. VPS hosting (for growing sites) or dedicated website servers (for those who can afford them) will return better results.

You also want to make sure your domain registrar, which handles DNS hosting, is a high performer. DNSPerf keeps an ongoing log of DNS performance so you can see for yourself how various providers stack up.

Of course, speed doesn’t only matter at the top levels. We talked about finding lightweight and streamlined plugins. You’ll also want to think about services like your security software and other backend tools. Though customers don’t interact with them directly, they can still impact your e-commerce website’s performance. 

15. Monitor website operations

Checking your website performance every once in a while to see if there’s big problems is a smart idea. Constantly monitoring your site so you’re aware the second a problem pops up is even smarter. 

You can invest in tools that collect data on your users’ experience to show how your site performs in the real world. Since many shoppers will be visiting you from setups unlike your own, real user monitoring provides a fresh perspective. 

Other tools pretend to be human visitors, using a series of scripts to navigate your website and test its performance. Synthetic monitoring setups like these are more useful for teams looking to gather data from controlled tests. If you’re in the midst of optimizing your site, synthetic monitoring will help you spot changes that actually make a difference. These systems can also run scheduled tests with the goal of catching major problems before your customers run into them. 

There’s plenty of tools that perform both of these jobs (and more):

• Site24x7 performs synthetic and real user monitoring for you
• LogRocket monitors users and identifies errors and site interactions users typically struggle with
• New Relic is an end-to-end synthetic monitoring system that integrates with just about every infrastructure there is 

Whichever tool you use, make sure you configure the alerts to tell you when something goes wrong. The quicker you can fix the problem, the fewer customers you’ll disappoint. 

Website performance is all about the need for speed

As internet and mobile connections become faster and even more ubiquitous, consumer standards will continue to rise. Providing a fast, convenient experience is a baseline expectation. Companies who can figure out how to excel on mobile and get those loading speeds down to a second or less will have a chance to capture more market share.

The customer experience you provide is directly connected to your conversion and retention rates, and your website’s performance is directly related to that customer experience. Website optimization isn’t a project that can wait for a rainy day. It’s an essential part of bringing customers to your site and making more sales.

Improving your site’s speed isn’t the only way to reach more customers. Check out these ways to increase organic traffic to keep your momentum on the SERP.

LEARN MORE

Masterclass: 3 powerful tactics to increase product page conversion rates

Watch here

But customer acquisition cost isn’t just about direct conversion. It encompasses the total cost to ensure that each stop along the customer’s purchasing journey produces the highest conversion rate possible. 

Chapters:

1. What is customer acquisition cost?
2. How to calculate customer acquisition cost
3. The key to lowering your customer acquisition costs
4. Putting customer acquisition cost on the chopping block

What is customer acquisition cost? 

Customer acquisition cost is the total amount brands pay to obtain new customers and attract a larger audience.

While every brand has varying customer purchasing paths and uses different acquisition strategies, expenses generally include advertising, salaries for marketers, commissions, sales overhead costs, and more.

For example, art and entertainment e-commerce brands with less than four employees have an average customer acquisition cost of $21, while electronic e-commerce brands have an average of $377, according to Shopify. As a result, acquiring new customers is an inevitable and often painful expense for e-commerce brands.

Looking for more efficient marketing strategies is the one of best ways to get the biggest band for your buck. 

How to calculate customer acquisition cost

Calculating customer acquisition cost uses a standard formula. Divide the total cost of acquiring customers (cost of sales and marketing) over a chosen time period by the total number of customers acquired during that time

The formula for calculating customer acquisition cost is:

Customer acquisition cost = (total cost of sales and marketing) / (# of customers acquired)

Make sure to include every sales and marketing expense used (think salaries, ad spend, marketing tools) to acquire new customers and the exact number of new customers acquired. Let’s say your expenses totaled $44,000 and you acquired 1,000 new customers, your customer acquisition cost would be:

Customer acquisition cost = 44,000 / 1,000 = $44

The key to lowering your customer acquisition costs

To make every dollar count, you must identify solutions for lowering your customer acquisition costs. 

Want the key to doing so? User-generated content — content such as videos, photos, and reviews created by unpaid contributors rather than a brand. If implemented correctly, your brand will see a significant return on investment. In other words, by using UGC, you’ll let your brand enthusiasts do the heavy lifting for you. 

You trust the opinions of your friends and family members. So, if you’re like most consumers, your network influences your purchasing decisions more than an ad you see on social media. In fact, 85% of consumers say UGC more influences them than brand content itself. 

Brands that implement a UGC strategy see a 29% increase in conversion. Take Tuckernuck, for example. The US clothing giant saw conversions skyrocket 190% after implementing a gallery of UGC on its website and displaying influencer photos on its product pages. 

UGC is undeniably powerful. But, to make it worthwhile for your brand, you must efficiently find and source content to use for your acquisition efforts. 

Ways to source UGC

Sourcing UGC doesn’t have to cost you a single penny. So where do you source UGC? Here’s some initiatives you can use to start driving more purchasing decisions with UGC. 

Offer incentives 

Consumers love to share their opinion. But sometimes they need a little persuasion. You can easily incentivize customer reviews by offering your shoppers a small reward in exchange for an honest review. The same goes for visual UGC too.

Global luggage brand Samsonite incentivized UGC submissions with a giveaway of $2,500 worth of Samsonite goodies. Using the #takewhatsyours hashtag, they encouraged followers to submit their best OOO replies for a chance to win the prize.

The campaign generated 27,000 submissions, which helped the brand achieve a 254% increase in revenue.

But your contests don’t always need to offer a material prize tied to it! 60% of consumers prefer to share UGC simply to have their content shared by a large brand. 

Ask for it

Spoiler alert: You can literally just ask your customers for UGC. Try a simple customer satisfaction survey, which will not only provide you with valuable UGC but also aid you in improving products going forward.

Or the easiest way to ask for UGC, especially written reviews, is with a review request email. These automated emails enable you to easily solicit feedback from consumers and display it across your channels. Our own research shows that they can lead to a 4-9x increase in review content.

Using customer reviews is extremely useful for lowering your customer acquisition cost, as you don’t need to spend (as much) to win over customers. 88% of shoppers already use reviews to discover and evaluate products, you just need to make sure you have the quantity and quality that consumers want.

When you do ask for reviews, be clear and concise about what you want. 53% of customers want brands to provide clear and concise guidelines for the type of content they desire, yet only 16% of brands do so, according to our research.

Engage with your community 

Building solid relationships with your brand communities doesn’t just happen out of thin air. It takes some effort to engage with your audience. To do so, reply to comments with personalized notes or create some fun banter, so they gain a sense of authenticity and connection. 

Engaging with your audience is purely to build relationships. This way, your followers will be more likely to offer up UGC in the future.  

Identify other ways to gather UGC 

Hashtags and brand-associated tags are great ways to quickly identify and source UGC. However, they’re not only solutions for sourcing UGC. Luckily there’s plenty of other ways to do so, like:

• Reading product reviews
• Editing event photos 
• Discovering YouTube mentions 
• Looking at tagged locations if you have a brick-and-mortar 
• Browsing Pinterest, Twitter, Tik Tok and other social sites 
• Using Google Analytics 

How to distribute UGC

Distributing UGC on social media platforms may seem like the most obvious choice, but there’s countless cost-effective ways to implement your UGC. Plus, repurposing UGC will help you lower your customer acquisition cost. 

Take a moment to identify all of the channels you can use UGC on. Then, pepper a little UGC everywhere you can think of. Here’s a few examples to get you started. 

Carousels and galleries 

Highlighting customizable UGC photo carousels and galleries inspire shoppers to discover products and shop simultaneously. Brands using this type of imagery see a 141% conversion lift and 15% value increase on purchases when shoppers engage with this type of content on their website, according to our research.   

Your brand can quickly build customizable carousels and galleries from user-generated content.

On product pages 

Your product pages are the last thing your customers see before making their purchasing decision. Using UGC on your product pages enhances the buyer’s experience and assists them in making more product discoveries. 

Say your site has a question & answer feature. Pinpoint the most frequently asked questions. This way, you can create a Q&A section on each product page that answers consumers’ most plaguing questions, essentially reading your consumer’s minds and aiding them in the purchasing journey.

As the questions change, you can alter this section of the product page to ensure it’s updated to your customers’ liking and provides more relevant content.  

To take your Q&A to the next level, Bazaarvoice’s Insights & Reports product suite can aid you in identifying common themes without all of the manual labor required for these efforts. 

Ads 

Adding UGC to your Google ad campaigns keeps your brand relevant, relatable, and current. When we spend months and months developing ad campaigns, they could quickly expire and not ensure the happenings within the market. After all, trends change course fast, so UGC can help you keep a pulse on the industry landscape and not waste precious ad spend on outdated content.  

But, always make sure to ask permission before using any UGC in an ad campaign. 

Emails

Consumers crave visual content at every turn. Displaying UGC on email campaigns helps engage subscribers and showcase your products as authentic and unique. After all, shoppers would rather see real people using your products than a model that they can relate to. 

For example, fashion retailer Monsoon started displaying UGC in its email campaigns, which resulted in a 4% increase in revenue and a 14% increase in click-through rate.  

For folks just getting started curating UGC, it’s also wise to learn the best practices for creating and curating your UGC campaigns. This way, you can avoid the mistakes of brands who paved the way for you. 

Putting customer acquisition cost on the chopping block 

Your customers are already creating and sharing content on social media. They’re expressing their thoughts and opinions about your products within their communities, whether that’s friends, family, social media, or wherever.

So why not use this content to your advantage to not only create stronger relationships with your customers and audience but to lower your customer acquisition cost. After all, 75% of shoppers are already making purchasing decisions from products they’ve seen on social media. Your products should be some of them.

If you’re wondering exactly how to compete with Amazon, look no further. In this article, we explore four powerful and effective ways for retailers and brands to compete head-to-head with large marketplaces.

4 ways to compete with Amazon

From embracing social commerce to removing shopping friction, these strategies can help your company build awareness and loyalty in the face of formidable competition.

1. Use social commerce to reach a wider audience 

To compete with giant marketplaces, it’s important to work on expanding your reach beyond your website or physical stores. Enter: social commerce. 

Social commerce allows brands to reach larger audiences, specifically within the social media environment and everywhere social media extends to. Social media platforms boast billions of active users worldwide, offering an enormous potential customer base for your brand. In our recent apparel-related survey, 21% of respondents said social media is one of their main channels for online apparel shopping. 

With advanced features like shoppable posts and integrated checkout processes, social media platforms are streamlining the path to purchase. Customers can seamlessly move from product discovery to checkout without having to leave the platform. These best practices will get you started:

• Be intentional with the platforms you choose to sell on. Not all social media platforms are suitable for every brand. Research and identify the platforms where your target audience frequents the most and that align with your brand’s identity. For example, on TikTok, the largest user age group is 18-24-year-olds, whereas on Facebook, it’s 25-34-year-olds 

• Promote your brand and products through UGC. User-generated content (UGC) includes social imagery, product reviews, and videos created by an individual rather than a brand. Partnering with influential personalities to promote your products can significantly increase visibility and credibility, attracting new customers to your brand. Consider creating an influencer marketing program by identifying influencers whose values align with your brand and reaching out to them about collaborating

• Make your social profiles and product posts shoppable. Many social media platforms offer built-in shopping features. Use shoppable posts, product tags, and integrated checkout options to provide a seamless shopping experience. When you use these features, and someone sees your post, they can instantly explore and purchase your products without leaving the app

When you’re able to harness the power of social commerce, you’re better equipped to level the playing field and establish a competitive edge. Then you can more successfully compete with Amazon and other dominant marketplaces.

2. Leverage first-party data to deliver personalized content

Providing personalized content and experiences has become a crucial strategy for retail businesses to gain a competitive edge against Amazon and other marketplaces. 71% of consumers expect some personalization. Moreover, companies that excel at personalization often see higher revenue than those that don’t.

The key to personalization lies in first-party data, which can offer valuable customer insights into behavior, preferences, and interests. First-party data includes various customer touchpoints — such as purchase history, browsing behavior, and interactions with marketing campaigns — and demographics. Analyzing and understanding this data gives you a comprehensive view of your customers so you can deliver highly relevant and personalized content and experiences.

To leverage first-party data, start by adopting a tool to consolidate all your customer data, like a Customer Data Platform (CDP). A CDP is a centralized system that collects and unifies customer data from different sources to create comprehensive customer profiles for personalized experiences. From there, you can collect and track insights from sources like: 

• UGC posts. UGC provides valuable insights into customer preferences and sentiments. Feedback and commentary left on UGC posts are generally authentic to real-life product experiences. Integrating UGC into marketing campaigns and product pages can significantly influence purchase decisions 

• Website analytics. Analyzing website behavior and interactions provides valuable information on customer preferences, popular products, and areas of interest. This data can be used to optimize website design and content for a more personalized experience

• Email marketing data. Email interactions and preferences offer insights into individual customer preferences. Segmented email campaigns based on these preferences can drive higher engagement and conversion rates

You can also incentivize customers to provide more data voluntarily through loyalty programs, surveys, and ratings or reviews.

3. Use loyalty programs and rewards to encourage repeat purchases

Loyalty programs are structured marketing strategies designed to incentivize and reward customers for their repeat business and loyalty. These programs typically offer various benefits, such as discounts, exclusive offers, early access to new products, or points accumulation for future purchases. 

Loyalty programs cultivate customer loyalty by rewarding repeat purchases. McKinsey found that top-performing loyalty programs see 15% to 25% more revenue annually from customers who redeem their points. Customers who feel appreciated and receive benefits for their loyalty are more likely to stick with a brand over time, reducing churn and boosting customer lifetime value and retention. 

These programs are also flexible for the brands who offer them. You can tailor the program depending on your profit and revenue. For example, Amazon offers a one-tiered paid loyalty program through its Prime Membership. Customers who buy this subscription get discounted two-day shipping on specific items plus limited free access to other perks. 

To compete with Amazon and other marketplaces, you can develop your own loyalty program to encourage customers to keep coming back and bring in a recurring revenue stream:

1. Define clear objectives. Set specific goals for the loyalty program, such as increasing customer retention, average order value, or overall revenue 
2. Design the program structure. Once you set the objective, you can structure the program to meet it. For example, if your objective is to increase overall revenue, consider using a points-based structure where the more customers spend, the more points they get. Or you can offer tiered paid subscriptions where one option is free and the others are paid  
3. Choose the rewards. Determine the types of rewards that will appeal to your target audience. These could include discounts, free products, access to exclusive content, or early product releases
4. Simplify the enrollment process. Make it easy for customers to enroll in your loyalty program, either while they’re checking out or through a simple registration process. If there are too many steps or you ask for too much information, they may be deterred from signing up 

Once you’ve established your loyalty program internally, create awareness about it across different platforms, including your website, email newsletters, social media, and on packaging. Then continuously monitor the program’s performance and gather feedback from customers to improve and optimize the program over time.

4. Remove friction to make shopping more convenient 

One of the reasons it’s so hard to compete with Amazon is because they’ve mastered the art of removing friction from their shopping experiences. With an intuitive app interface, one-click ordering and reordering, and quick delivery options, customers can shop at Amazon with ease. 

Friction points can occur at various stages. Think of a complicated checkout process, lengthy account creation, slow-loading pages, or unclear product information. Frictionless shopping removes these obstacles that can impede a customer’s journey from product discovery to purchase completion. 

Frictionless shopping can even result in less cart abandonment and a boost in overall purchase rates. One report shows that 17% of shoppers have abandoned their carts due to long or complicated checkout processes. But when people can shop with your brand easily and conveniently, they’re more apt to be satisfied with their experience. 

Removing friction from shopping starts with understanding your customers’ journeys. Evaluate the entire customer journey from product discovery to post-purchase support to find where customers are experiencing the most friction. These are points where customers drop off or contact customer service for help.  

Once you’ve identified these friction points, you can work to remove them. Here’s a few ways to remove shopping friction:

• Shorten your checkout processes. Simplify the checkout process by cutting down the number of steps to complete a purchase. Offer guest checkout options for first-time buyers and enable one-click ordering for returning customers

• Make account creation easy. If account creation is necessary, make it quick and straightforward. Offer social media or Google login options so they can quickly sign up with an existing account. If third-party sign-up isn’t an option, try to keep the information needed to a minimum (i.e., name, email address, and password) 

• Optimize website and app performance. If people are dropping off before your web or app pages load, work with your web developers to ensure your website and app load quickly and are responsive across various devices and internet speeds 

• Clear product information. Provide detailed and accurate product information to reduce uncertainty and answer potential customer questions. If people aren’t able to get the information they need from a product page, they may drop off. For example, if you’re an apparel company and your product pages don’t include sizing charts, it’s hard for people to know which size to buy, and they may just opt out

Once you’ve implemented changes, track and monitor their effectiveness. Ideally, fewer customers will drop off from the specific points on your app or website and go on to complete their purchase. 

If you can’t compete with Amazon, join them 

While implementing effective strategies is essential, there’s also wisdom in the adage, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” Rather than compete with Amazon, collaborate with them and other established marketplaces to harness their vast reach and engage a broader audience. 

By combining strategic competition and smart partnerships, businesses can find the winning formula to thrive in the dynamic e-commerce landscape. 

For example, Bazaarvoice Retail Syndication serves as a powerful ally in this endeavor, enabling you to showcase your best UGC at critical decision-making moments, reaching customers where they love to shop. With content syndication across Bazaarvoice’s extensive global retailer network, you can drive channel sales, expand your brand presence, and foster stronger connections with your target audience. 

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Nowadays, global brands are bigger than ever before, most likely due to social media and the boom in online shopping leading to increased demand for products worldwide. The international e-commerce market is expected to total $6.3 trillion in 2023.

By marketing their products on social media and pushing customers to their international sites, global brands can sell their goods to almost anyone, which might not have been as possible 20-30 years ago. But, how can you attract shoppers when you’re only appealing to one segment of people? It’s difficult.

It’s not easy to cater to 8 billion people in one fell swoop. 42% of consumers say they never purchase products and services in other languages. So just as “one-size-fits-most” clothing fits very few people, we know that content marketing is not “one-size-fits-all” across the globe. 

This is where local content can save the day. But, how do you localize your content for international audiences in today’s shopping ecosystem? 

What is content localization?

Content localization is the process of adapting content to be relevant for multiple, local audiences. This means understanding language and cultural differences, symbols, references, colloquiums, and more before going to market globally. Content localization matters because whether you’re already a global brand, or looking to expand internationally, it’s what consumers want to see:

Not only does a content localization strategy require your business to have a strong brand image, but it also demands a rich understanding of various groups and cultures, which you can achieve through education and research. 

If these audiences aren’t kept in mind when creating a marketing strategy, it will be increasingly difficult to show up a cohesive, all-inclusive brand.

Tips for successful content localization strategy 

Are you looking to become a global brand? Or Follow these five proven tips for appealing to multiple audiences with local content and becoming the brand people associate with your product or service.

1. Get social

The more your brand can show up on social media the better — especially when it comes to reaching people far and wide. Shoppers, more than ever, are spending time discovering products, doing their research, and reading reviews on social, so take advantage of this and focus your efforts on your socials.

One way to successfully build a worldwide presence is by spreading out your content across multiple channels and even handles. For example, using different Instagram handles for various locales enables your content to last longer and live in more places. If your business has large communities in the US, Europe, and Australia, consider building separate social accounts for each segment. This way, you can get more specific and tailored with your content depending on the region.

Take Sephora for example – they manage multiple Instagram handles successfully by understanding the intricacies of their global communities. Sephora’s main account, for their U.S. market, mentions U.S. based sales, products, and services. However, their handle dedicated to Australia includes solely Australian based user-generated content (UGC), events, products, and more. By profiling Australian Fashion Week, an event that’s otherwise not very relevant in other countries, Sephora established themselves as a brand that knows how to tap into current events and appeal to their patrons in Australia. 

So, before committing to multiple handles, take time to understand your audiences. How do they shop? What content performs best? What social platforms are they showing up on? Dive deeper into your social analytics and take a good look at the data – it never lies. In doing so, you can develop your specific KPIs and objectives for each audience. 

Your followers will provide you with free market research, as long as you spend the time reading their comments, understanding where their knowledge gaps may be, looking at what gets the most likes, and more. Each region will have different priorities when it comes to shopping – brand trust, convenience of product, price, and more. 

Spend time both surveying and sharing content on your social media platforms. This is how you go from good to great when building a global brand.

2. Get real translations

It sounds like an obvious strategy, but content localization needs to start with translating your content. Translate it, then localize it.

Obviously, translation isn’t the only thing that companies must do to reach a global customer base, but it’s certainly one of the fastest, easiest, and most frequently overlooked.

Nataly Kelly, VP of Localization, Hubspot

Most of us aren’t experts on multiple languages — that’s just how it is. But, language, as we all know, can say a lot, and you want to make sure it’s saying the right thing. 

When it comes to creating local content or translating from one language to another, it’s important to find real people who can translate rather than relying on AI or other online tools. One mishap could cost you a lot or completely misdirect your audience. This is a simple mistake that can be avoided with quality translation. 

KFC went through a bit of a translation fail when their famous “finger-lickin good” slogan got translated into Chinese. If they were to have consulted a native Chinese speaker, this likely wouldn’t have happened and would’ve caused less of a ruckus when a passerby sees this sign. 

Although incorrect translations can sometimes be harmless, it does show you put little care in accommodating to that specific place. Why would someone want to buy from a brand that doesn’t think to even fit into their culture or language?

A good way to collect local content and talk like your customers (wherever they are) is through product reviews. Specifically, transcending borders by translating your product reviews. Your customers are already talking in their own language so they’ll be there ready for new customers in a new location to find.

Brother International, for example, used translated reviews to expand into seven new markets and found that customers who interact with these reviews are 2x more likely to click a call-to-action.

3. Learn social norms

The key part of content localization is, obviously, making your content local. Once you’ve spent the time doing your due diligence on social media, you’ll discover there’s social norms that are quite specific to a region.

Just think about simple phrases that are wildly different in New York versus London — tired vs knackered, elevator vs lift, trash vs rubbish, etc. Or the fact that red is generally a negative color but in Chinese culture is considered lucky. Even time and date formats differ the world over. Specific content localization items to think about include:

When brands are hoping to show up globally, it’s crucial to acknowledge that some content may work in some places and not others. Businesses must carefully consider the visuals of your UGC and promoted posts before going ahead and posting them. 

For example, McDonald’s, arguably the world’s most recognizable fast-food chain, doesn’t reuse ads or marketing assets for all their audiences because, for example, promoting Big Macs with cheese to people in Israel isn’t necessarily appropriate or fitting.

If you go to any McDonald’s around the world, you’ll find region-specific food in each one, and this is something they’re proud of. This is why you’ll see, across their social media, ads, promotional videos, and more, they acknowledge the intricacies of the community.

However, it’s important to educate yourself first before jumping on what you may assume is a social norm. In reality, that social norm could actually be a stereotype that’s dated or inappropriate nowadays. It’s better to loop in a regional source when building your global marketing strategy than just simply guessing. 

4. Tailor UGC on regional sites and marketing campaigns

If it’s winter in Australia, Australians don’t want to see swimsuits and flip-flops, which makes total sense. For this reason, make sure to be tailoring your content accordingly. 

If your e-commerce site is full of UGC and brand-owned content, you’re most likely already seeing incredible lifts in average order value, time on site, and conversion. But, if you’re using the same content over and over across your regional sites, you may be missing out on lots of revenue. 

You can easily distribute and display specific content on some sites and not others with Galleries Localization. Peloton is a fantastic example of this:

Their German website caters to their German audience with unique UGC across their site, including a full page dedicated to their community’s images and videos not found on the American site. 

Galleries Localization can easily be accomplished through the Bazaarvoice Social Commerce platform, and it’s something that will save you time and money. It will help those sales skyrocket because your audience will feel seen and heard wherever they are.

5. Analyze success by region

Monitoring your marketing strategy’s performance enables you to uncover what’s working and what’s not working. When you look at metrics regarding social content, such as engagement, likes, followers, and more, you can determine what’s successful in each region. This goes for content performance and the number of reviews on site, as well. These are all performance metrics that will help you analyze your audiences better.

One thing to note is that different regional strategies can be aimed at achieving different things. It’s all about meeting your customers where they are, and that’s not going to be the same place for all communities. Don’t just evaluate total engagement rate for each localized IG account and call it a day; remember your KPIs for each locale when determining success and return to those KPI’s when you go astray. 

Get global success with content localization

Working across the globe is no small feat, especially as it means understanding more places than just your home or culture. But, showing up globally as a brand can take your business to the next level – it’s all about just knowing how to do so. 

Knowing when to enter into a new region and how to successfully pull that off will pay off in the end. Remember, 72% of consumers said they would be more likely to buy a product with information in their own language. All you need to do is learn how to localize your content. We know — the biggest global brands work with us. 

If you’re looking to expand globally, the best way to get started is with UGC. Learn more ways you can use it engage global shoppers with local content on our dedicated content localization page.

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A well-designed channel sales strategy will deliver optimal results, helping you take your sales to the next level. Specifically, having a rich product detail page full of user-generated content (UGC) will create a higher-trafficked, more-engaging, and higher-performing product page.

And, partnering with retailers will help you reach new audiences. 

What is a sales channel?

A sales channel is where consumers meet your brand, whether for the first or the hundredth time. They’re the sales strategy for your organization, and they include direct sales channels, indirect sales channels, and distribution channels.

While an omnichannel experience boosts customer acquisition, it’s crucial to focus on the channels that work best for your brand. Developing your channel sales strategy and getting your products on retailers’ digital or physical store shelves will deepen connections with your existing shoppers and inspire new ones.

What are the top sales channels?

There’s a number of different sales channels, their importance varying depending on your type of business. Generally, the top sales channels are:

• E-commerce. Any transaction that’s completed online
• Retail. When a business sells through another store, like selling your goods at Samsclub.com
• Marketplaces. These include traditional marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy, or modern marketplaces like social media platforms or Shopify
• Direct-to-consumer. For example, buying Nike shorts directly from Nike’s website
• Wholesale. Selling your products, usually in bulk, to businesses who then retail them

How to boost your sales channels strategy for retail

If you’re a brand selling at retail, you’ll want tips on how to increase sales and drive conversion at key retailers. Here’s the top three ways to optimize your retail channel sales strategy.

1. Use visuals to enhance product detail pages

Product detail pages (PDPs) are the web pages where shoppers go when they want detailed information about a specific product on a retailer’s site. They give shoppers everything they need to know about something so they can buy it with confidence: colors, dimensions, material, shipping details, and a call-to-action, such as a “buy now” button. 

Well-crafted PDPs are where shoppers go to actually purchase. They help build brand trust, generate new customers, and minimize returns and complaints.  

Boost PDPs with UGC photos 

Visual content is a crucial component of a PDP. Professional product photos are great, but photos from real shoppers are better at connecting with consumers. Featuring visual UGC, including photos and videos, gives consumers a glimpse at how products look, work, and feel in real life. 

Based on our own research, visual UGC on product pages can generate a 45% revenue lift, a 31% conversion jump, and a 16% higher order value. And images from social media make shoppers 6x more likely to buy from a PDP. 

So, how do you collect vthis isual UGC? There’s several quick ways to do so, including review request emails, searching social media, and sampling programs.

Use sampling to fill PDPs with visuals

Product sampling — where you give consumers a product to try in exchange for a review — can really boost UGC volumes. With our product sampling campaigns, we’ve found that when they sample something, 63% of consumers purchased the product again, 50% said it became a new staple in their lives, and 87% recommended the product or brand to others. 

From a results standpoint, it’s been a positive experience to see that we can get 10-15 reviews for new products quickly

Hannah Kredich, Category Specialist, Petco

Petco’s Spotted Sampling Program, for instance, delivers crates, pet food, collars, and treats from brands to pet parents in exchange for honest reviews at Petco.com. The campaign has increased review volume by 405%, generated a 9% lift in review ratings, and brought in a slew of adorable pet photos — revving up brand and retailers’ visual UGC. 

Display UGC across channels 

Whenever you collect UGC, make sure the visuals align with your brand and resonate with your consumers across different retail channels. To maintain trust with shoppers, be sure to label any influencer content as such and establish a strategy for moderating content to weed out fake reviews. Or, you can work with a content moderating partner to help. 

Syndicating visual UGC — when you distribute reviews and photos on retailer websites — lets you reach our network of 1.3 billion shoppers with exciting and authentic content, everywhere they are. Our retailers see 20x more shopper traffic with retail syndication. 

Content syndication helps brands elevate shopping experiences. It ensures you have plenty of high-quality content on your PDPs that help shoppers make informed, confident purchasing decisions. Consumers perceive visual UGC as authentic and trustworthy, akin to getting a recommendation from a friend or family member. 

Enhancing PDPs with high-quality visuals can significantly improve your channel sales strategy by increasing conversions, building trust, and providing a better shopping experience across direct and indirect sales channels.

For indirect sales channels like retailers, providing top-notch visuals makes it easier for them to sell your product, improving your relationship and positioning with these partners. It also helps them maintain a level of quality on their platform. 

2. Enhance relationships with online retailers

Maximizing your retail sales channels depends on building and maintaining solid relationships with retailers. Digital and physical shelf space is competitive, and retailers are a crucial player in your success. Their goal is to drive sales and profits, and they do that by having a firm grasp on who their customers are and what they want. 

Remember, flexibility and adaptability are key when collaborating with retailers to maximize the benefits of your partnership.  Most already have decades of experience working with brands and know what works and what doesn’t. 

Use UGC to stand out with retailers 

UGC helps you tell your brand story and shows retailers what you’re all about. Collecting reviews and customer photos, via sampling, social media, and review request emails, helps you gain insights into what shoppers think about you and your products and demonstrates how your products perform. 

Rug and home decor brand Nourison worked to grow its retail partners by expanding and improving the content mix on its PDPs. Nourison relies on UGC to help shoppers make informed decisions, since its customers have unique needs around sizes, styles, and prices. 

Nourison syndicates UGC to 32 retailers worldwide, including Target.com, and brings major value to its retail partners. Since it’s devoted time to strengthening relationships with retailers, the brand has seen a 4x lift in conversions and a 3x lift in revenue. 

Create win-win retailer relationships

Retailer partnerships are mutually beneficial. They increase brand and retailer awareness, for one. When your fans know they can get your products at major retailers, they might pick them up on their usual Target or Walmart run. That’s a win-win. 

You’re helping bring your existing customers to the retailers. And new shoppers will find you while browsing for other things at their favorite stores. 

Another benefit is that retailer relationships can reduce customer returns. UGC influences purchases, and displaying feedback from real shoppers and photos of your products being worn by real people or used in day-to-day settings will help shoppers better understand whether an item will meet their needs. 

Co-marketing is a crucial aspect of partnerships between brands and retailers – it helps raise awareness and drive growth for both parties. It’s also a great approach for smaller businesses with lean marketing teams. By collaborating on a shared campaign, brands and retailers can leverage each other’s strengths and reach new audiences. Your customers, who already trust you, will shift some of their trust to the retailers you’ve partnered with, and vice versa.

3. Analyze and benchmark performance insights at retail

How will you know if your retail sales channel is working? You have to monitor its performance and analyze the data. Regular auditing and analysis make all the difference. The better your products sell, the more likely a retailer will keep stocking them.

Assess product performance 

Walmart helps its brands understand how their UGC and products are performing on its website. The retailer’s Content Quality Score (CQS) offers clear, objective standards for the content on brands’ PDPs, including style guides for every product category that they sell. 

The CQS measures your content against those guides, which lets you easily see what elements you’re missing. It also tells you where you can improve. These analytics can help you make data-driven decisions about how to improve your content, removing the guesswork.

Another way to assess your performance is via Bazaarvoice’s Premium Network Insights, which includes sentiment analysis, UGC performance tracking, social analytics, and competitor insights. You can optimize your retail sales channels by better understanding and monitoring what customers are saying about your products. 

Uncovering insights can help you drive higher click-through rates, product discovery, and, ultimately, purchases.

U.K.-based retailer Argos uses sampling to generate UGC quickly. Allowing shoppers to test new products before they launch helps the retailer collect and feature reviews before a product is even available to purchase. 

The sooner Argos can collect UGC, the sooner it can identify opportunities to improve products and marketing messaging. When online shoppers interact with UGC, Argos sees conversion lifts of 53% on mobile, 51% on desktop, and 45% on its app. 

Analyze and optimize data 

Examining data from your UGC campaigns can tell you how consumers feel about your products and brand as a whole. You can learn which products are performing well and which need improvement.  

You can keep track of how shoppers are engaging with UGC and other features of your PDPs, and identify how it affects sales. We’ve found that across our network, brands see a 136% conversion rate life when shoppers interact with UGC on best-in-class sites.

You’ll also see which PDPs lack adequate review coverage, so you’ll know when to beef up your UGC collection strategies, whether it’s via sampling or sending post-purchase emails.  

Petco collaborates with the brands that it sells to collect content and engage with shoppers — syndication accounts for about 80% of the retailer’s total review volume. 

The revenue-per-product rate for dog food products with one review is 20% higher than no reviews and 43% higher when a product gets at least five reviews. Overall, conversion rates are 8% higher for consumers who engage with reviews on Petco’s website, and revenue per visitor is 15% higher. 

How to optimize UGC to boost your retail sales channels

Building a robust channel sales strategy for retail is not just an option for brands — it’s a must. Understanding and optimizing key elements such as enhancing PDPs with compelling visuals and other UGC, fostering meaningful relationships with retailers, and regularly analyzing performance metrics, can unlock your retail channel sales’ full potential.

These best practices will not only put products in front of shoppers but also build trust, deepen engagement, and create a holistic shopping experience that turns first-time buyers into loyal customers. With the right strategy and tools, you can scale your reach, boost revenue, and secure your place as a favorite among new and existing shoppers.

Bazaarvoice’s unique retailer programs are a great place to optimize your UGC strategy and boost your retail channel sales. Click the retailer(s) you sell at to learn more:

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Lately there’s been increased importance to get customer acquisition right because recent shifts in the global economy have put marketers under increased pressure to prove the impact of their efforts. 

Although most understand the need for building an omnichannel experience, focusing on the customer acquisition channels that work best for your brand has never been more important. While some marketers continue to experiment with different tactics, 69% of them say they’re focusing on channels that deliver positive ROI. 

The 7 most effective customer acquisition channels

Identifying and prioritizing your most effective customer acquisition channels is essential to attract more customers and maximize revenue. 

1. Website and blog

Optimizing your website and e-commerce content marketing, and investing in search engine optimized (SEO) content on your blog helps your brand rank higher in search results pages, bringing more traffic (and potential customers) to your website. 

Organic search 

Search engines are the top source for brand discovery, which makes your website and blog a key customer acquisition channel. Organic search results are ranked and compiled by search engines based on factors like relevance and authority. While brands can buy their way onto the first page of Google’s search results (more on that later), landing on page one organically can also be accomplished by implementing best SEO practices on your website. 

A solid SEO strategy for organic search is crucial to appeal to every customer segment, especially for e-commerce brands where the website acts as the storefront. In order for customers to move through the acquisition lifecycle into the conversion phase, they need to be able to locate, access, and navigate your website.

If your website isn’t optimized, it might rank on page two or three, which makes it difficult for potential customers to find you. 

Your blog is another pathway to acquiring customers if it provides valuable content like tips and tricks, how-tos, and product or comparison guides. It can lead potential customers who are researching products or services in your niche straight to your website. If you don’t have an in-house marketing department, you can work with a content marketing agency to ensure your blog is search engine optimized. 

Paid search

Customer acquisition through search also includes pay-per-click advertising (PPC) via search engines like Google or Bing. These ads will place your brand at the top of the search results page, marked as an advertisement. PPC advertising, like Google Ads, is advantageous because it’s targeted, measurable, and customizable. 

It’s also a faster way to get eyes on your website than investing in SEO, but it only covers half of the journey. Once potential customers land on your website via a paid ad, they need a reason to stay there, which PPC advertising cannot accomplish alone.

To do that, you’ll need to employ elements that build authenticity and trust, like user-generated content, and deliver convenience with an optimized website and smooth checkout process. Paid search is an effective customer acquisition channel for specific scenarios like new product launches, inbound lead generation, or limited offers like free trials and discounts. 

2. Social media

According to Dentsu’s 2023 Global Ad Spend Forecasts, social media ad spend increased by 18.8% in 2022, putting digital advertising ahead of traditional channels. There’s multiple pathways to acquiring customers through social media, ranging in budget and effectiveness.

Affiliate and influencer marketing

Affiliates and influencers are core aspects of a typical social media marketing strategy because they can introduce your brand to a large following. Research shows that social media users prefer smaller influencers for product recommendations and advice over prominent celebrities and social media stars.

42% of shoppers would likely purchase a product recommended by a smaller influencer or everyday social media user compared to 7% who would do the same from a celebrity. 

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Working with influencers and affiliates can help generate brand awareness while building consumer trust. Use cases for influencer and affiliate marketing include product reviews, new product launches, and educational content like how-to videos. These content types typically fit the creator’s format and the audience’s expectations.

For example, users who follow beauty influencers expect to see recommendations and product tests, making them a natural fit for this audience and content type. 

User-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) consists of images, reviews, and video content created by real customers for your brand. Not only is it considered the most trustworthy source of content by shoppers, but it’s also immensely cost-effective because it’s typically done for free. The exception to this is UGC creators who often create authentic-looking content for a small fee or free products. 

Social media posts featuring visual UGC can range from testimonials to product reviews to unboxing videos that show real consumers opening and testing your products. But UGC can also become a prominent feature of your landing pages and product description pages, providing potential customers with added valuable information and building trust.

Sporting gear brand Le Col, for example, saw a 125% increase in conversion rates after implementing UGC, like reviews and imagery on its website. 

“Our reviews provide social proof to new customers who are discovering the brand for the first time,” said Andrew Longley, Head of Digital at Le Col. “It gives them confidence that the products are the highest quality and we believe reviews are as important to new customers as our own product claims.” 

Organic posts

Organic posts on social media, whether in feeds, Stories, or Reels, reach potential customers naturally through the platform’s algorithm. If users follow topics, creators, or businesses related to your brand, there’s a good chance that they’ll come in contact with your posts at some point. Brands can employ certain tactics to speed up the process, like:

• Researching their target audience’s social media behaviors via Bazaarvoice Insights
• Experimenting with hashtags and consistently using relevant hashtags
• Posting fresh content on a regular basis (ideally, one to two posts per day)
• Varying content types to include branded posts, UGC, and influencer partnerships 

Of course, social media strategy varies across platforms. For example, posting multiple videos per day is the norm on TikTok, while LinkedIn posts should be kept to a maximum of two to five per week to remain effective and relevant.

It all comes down to your target audience and marketing goals, so brands with products aimed at a younger audience might get the most value out of platforms like TikTok and Instagram, while B2B companies should focus on LinkedIn. 

Paid ads

Paid ads purchased through social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok boost your posts so your target audience is more likely to see them. Brands can set specific demographics based on age, gender, location, and more or keep it open to reach a wide variety of users, depending on their goals. 

The best use cases for this customer acquisition channel are targeted ads for a specific audience. For example, a home improvement brand decides to launch a new model of cordless drills. It can boost a product launch ad and set the parameters to include users interested in home improvement, people who work in construction, or audiences who follow other home improvement brands on the platform.

This helps your paid ad reach the right audience, and your efforts (and budget) aren’t wasted on users with no interest in your product. 

3. Mobile marketing

According to Statcounter, mobile browsing contributes to over 57% of all web traffic, signaling a major shift in user behavior. With so many users relying on mobile phones, mobile marketing is critical to the customer acquisition strategy. 

Chatbots

Chatbots are an effective way to ensure customer satisfaction, preventing shopping cart abandonment and keeping customers coming back. According to Freshworks, 47% of online shoppers are likely to abandon their purchase if they can’t find quick answers to their questions or concerns. 

Chatbots can also provide personalized product recommendations to help funnel customers into the conversion stage. Segment’s State of Personalization Report shows that 49% of consumers believe they’ll return to a brand that offers a personalized experience.

Imagine a shopper is comparing your brand to a competitor with a similar product, but you provide personalized recommendations and immediate answers via a chatbot while your competitor doesn’t. The customer will likely choose the brand that shows a commitment to customer care and provides a user-friendly experience. 

SMS and messengers 

Short message services (SMS) and messengers are an effective way to start conversations with customers because they fit seamlessly into people’s natural tendency to check and respond to new messages. Some reports show that SMS open rates are over 90%. 

SMS marketing and quick messages on other platforms like WhatsApp can be used to share promotions, upcoming special events, and discount codes. They can also replace shopping cart abandonment emails, especially if they provide a direct link to your storefront or app to streamline the transaction process. 

Mobile apps

60% of shoppers believe that the ability to shop on a mobile device influences their preferences when it comes to brand selection. While e-commerce brands will likely have digital storefronts, mobile apps can enhance online shopping by providing a customized, highly targeted, personalized experience.

Even brick-and-mortar retailers who lack a web presence can benefit from a mobile app connected to in-store products, which creates a more omnichannel shopping experience.  

Mobile apps can send push notifications about new product launches, inventory updates, and price reductions. They can also act as mobile wallets for loyalty programs. Brands that leverage the best practices to increase in-app conversions can increase the benefits of building and maintaining a branded app. 

4. Email 

According to Segment’s 2022 Growth Report, 83% of marketers agree that email is their primary channel for customer acquisition. Email marketing provides a range of opportunities to reach customers in the acquisition phase of the customer lifecycle.

Since customers in this phase are aware of your brand, targeted emails can push them into the conversion stage by offering valuable information, discounts, or other incentives. 

Newsletters

Email newsletters work well for company announcements, product teases, brand stories, and re-purposed blog content. Focus on content that builds interest and excitement, pushing customers to learn more through your website, a webinar, or any other format that drives them deeper into your products or services.

Newsletters also open up the opportunity to use diverse content, like images, infographics, and videos, to engage and entertain your customers while providing value and establishing positive sentiments about your brand.

Cart abandonment emails

Around two-thirds of digital carts end up abandoned by shoppers, making it a prevalent issue for e-commerce brands. Shopping cart abandonment leads to missed revenue, but it also signals a larger problem. Why are shoppers abandoning their items? There’s a number of potential reasons, like lack of trust or inefficient checkout processes, but cart abandonment emails that address these issues are an effective way to draw customers back to your storefront. 

Open rates for cart abandonment emails were 49% in 2022, compared to 21.5% for general emails across different industries. Cart abandonment emails that pique your customers’ attention and target why they abandoned in the first place can encourage them to complete their purchase. Say your product pages lack ratings and reviews, leading shoppers to doubt your trustworthiness.

Send out cart abandonment emails showcasing UGC, like reviews and photos, to build that trust and provide added value for your potential customer.  

Special occasion emails

There’s a reason the global greeting card industry was valued at over $18 billion in 2020 — people love celebrating special occasions! Sending out personalized, heartfelt, and celebratory emails around special times like holidays, birthdays, and other milestones allows brands to connect with customers on their email list in a way that isn’t highly promotional, which can build positive sentiment around your brand.

Special occasion emails are the perfect opportunity to offer incentives like a special single-use discount count on a customer’s birthday or a 10%-off email the week before Mother’s Day. Sending out these emails a few days to a week prior to the occasion is key because it gives customers time to browse the storefront and make a purchase in time for the occasion. 

Drip campaigns

Drip campaigns — automated emails pre-scheduled to be delivered at specific points of engagement — are powerful tools in your customer acquisition strategy. They can be triggered when customers:

• Abandon their digital carts
• Download content from your website
• Place an order on your storefront
• Communicate with customer service
• Register for an event or sign up for a free trial of a product

Drip campaigns aren’t a singular point of contact but rather a series of emails that engage your potential customers without overwhelming them with information. Let’s say a new lead provides their email in order to download an e-book you offer.

You now have the perfect lead-in to introduce your brand and educate them about your company by sending out a series of short emails that offer a quick look at additional on-site content.

5. Loyalty and referral programs 

Loyalty programs are traditionally used as customer retention tactics, but they can also help brands acquire new customers if they provide enough value.

Imagine Brand A and Brand B offer similar products at similar prices, but Brand A has a points-based loyalty program that allows customers to get free products as they shop. Brand A provides added value while Brand B doesn’t, making it a more attractive option to consumers. 

Referral programs put your existing customers to work by transforming them into spokespeople for your brand via word-of-mouth marketing. Provide an incentive, like a discount or free products, to current customers for sharing your brand with friends and family through a referral code. The code ensures that referrals are easy to track and analyze while the incentives keep existing customers happy and loyal to your brand. 

6. Events

Customer acquisition isn’t just for digital channels — it benefits the physical shelf too. Whether virtual or in-person, events and webinars are valuable tools for connecting with potential customers directly while providing added value via knowledge sharing. 

Virtual events

Virtual events like webinars, conferences, and digital fairs can reach a wide audience at a fraction of the cost of in-person events. They’re also easy and convenient for potential customers to attend from the comfort of their homes, increasing the chances of drawing a large crowd. 

Virtual events are best used to showcase products or demonstrate services, share knowledge or research, and facilitate networking. They’re also a prime opportunity to launch a digital conversation with potential customers since most attendees provide an email to register for virtual events. 

In-person events

In-person events, like tradeshows, networking events, and conferences, can be more costly when factoring in travel, space rentals, and staffing, but they can also facilitate deeper conversations, engagement, and trust-building. Meeting potential customers face to face builds rapport and gives your brand a human touch.

In-person events also give potential customers the opportunity to interact with and explore products and services in real life, which can move them toward a purchasing decision faster. 

7. Traditional advertising

Despite the growth of digital advertising, customers still place trust in traditional channels, making them a strong addition to your marketing channel mix. Traditional methods range from big-budget endeavors like TV commercials and magazine advertisements to smaller-scale efforts like flyers and radio promotions.

The right channels for your brand depend on your target audience, business goals, and marketing budget. 

For example, independent retailers might have more luck with local methods like flyers and radio advertisements to build up a customer base within their neighborhood. Large e-commerce brands with high-priced products might be more successful with national TV advertisements that target a larger population. 

How to lower customer acquisition costs

While acquiring new customers is essential for growth, the costs associated with your customer acquisition channels can be 5x higher than the cost of customer retention. Brands can lower customer acquisition costs (CAC) by utilizing existing customers, optimizing digital channels, defining their audience, and tracking. 

Utilize existing customers

UGC is one of the most impactful ways a brand can lower its CAC. Using the words, images, and videos of existing customers to build trust with potential customers is free but, more importantly, effective. 85% of shoppers rely on UGC rather than branded content when making purchasing decisions because it comes from real people who have real experiences with the product — not a marketing team. 

If a low financial investment with a high ROI impact sounds too good to be true, try the UGC Value Calculator to see how employing UGC will affect your marketing efforts and budget. 

Optimize digital channels

Employing SEO best practices on your website and blog and A/B testing to pinpoint the best user experience can reduce CAC in the long run. An optimized website is more likely to rank higher in search results, leading more potential customers to your products or services. Brands that find success with organic search may find that they’re able to reduce their budget dedicated to paid search. 

A/B testing involves showing different versions of variables, like a landing page or a specific page element, to different audience segments in a randomized fashion. The goal is to determine which version of a variable results in the most positive impact, which can vary depending on your goals. 

Say a SaaS company wants to increase sign-ups for its free trial. It might use A/B testing to place the sign-up button in various locations on the website to find the ideal spot.

According to a study by Forrester, A/B testing that results in an improved user interface can raise conversion rates by up to 200%.

Define your audience

Targeting the right audience with the right channels can significantly lower your CAC because you’re strategically allocating your marketing budget. An in-depth analysis of your target audience will reveal which platforms they engage with most, where they are in their buyer journey, and which tactics they’re most likely to respond to.

For example, advertising products aimed at busy parents on LinkedIn might not deliver the same positive results as investing in SEO and paid search targeting keywords they’re likely to search, like “backpacks for kids” or “best kid’s backpacks.” 

Track results

One of the easiest ways to overspend on customer acquisition is by failing to track your customer acquisition channels and how they’re performing. Investing a sizable portion of your marketing budget in TV ads may not be effective if your target audience is younger and doesn’t typically engage with traditional media.

Tracking the results of your marketing campaigns might show you that your Gen Z audience is much more receptive and engaged on TikTok and Instagram, preferring UGC and small-influencer content instead. 

Transform your customer acquisition strategy with Bazaarvoice

The Bazaarvoice platform works behind the scenes to power your customer acquisition strategy. Tackle SEO by implementing review syndication to boost search engine rankings or gain consumer trust with cost-effective, UGC-powered social posts.

Discover more about your target audience and track the effectiveness of your social channels with Bazaarvoice Insights. Bazaarvoice’s solutions help shoppers discover your brand and transform your customer acquisition channels. 

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We’ve broken this guide into the different marketing tactics required to win Gen Z’s repeat business — arguably the trickiest segment to successfully market to — and how marketing to this generation of consumers differs from other age groups.

Chapters

1. How is marketing to Gen Z different from other generations?
2. 8 ways to attract Gen Z customers
3. Marketing to Gen Z demands careful experimentation

How is marketing to Gen Z different from other generations?

The difference in marketing trends across Gen Z and other age groups boils down to this: Generation Z is the first generation to be complete strangers to life without the internet. This digital upbringing has turned them into tech-savvy consumers who take their sweet time researching products and brands.

Considering they’re such discerning consumers, marketing to Gen Z requires you to be authentic and trustworthy — young shoppers won’t settle for anything less. 

Gen Zers are also the most culturally diverse generation, and like the millennial generation before them, they expect you to show social responsibility by being inclusive and supporting important causes. Baby boomers? Not necessarily. 

As Andrew Roth, Gen Z founder of Dcdx, puts it:

“The biggest [difference] is the onset of technology and when that came up in the lives of Gen Z, and the role that’s had on shaping how we behave and who we are. Convenience is not a want or a fun [thing] to have; it’s who we are — we were born with Google. We had everything at our fingertips. Brands that are slow are nonnegotiable for our generation.”

To navigate all of these gaps and tap into Gen Z’s spending power, Roth advises simply talking to them. These conversations will help marketers understand this generation’s perspectives and sell to them effectively.

8 ways to attract Gen Z customers

No brand wants to be meme’d, but embodying the values that Gen Zers hold dear without coming off as phony is easier said than done.

These young consumers grew up online, so they have short attention spans and the uncanny ability to sniff out a marketing gimmick — posing a big challenge for every marketer.

To adapt your traditional marketing strategy to Zoomer consumers, pay attention to their perspectives and involve them from top to bottom.

1. Promote user-generated content
2. Partner with influencers
3. Take a stance on social issues
4. Show authenticity and integrity
5. Use short and snappy video content
6. Add up-and-coming platforms to your strategy
7. Leverage the power of email marketing
8. Build a community around your brand

1. Seek out and promote user-generated content

Gen Z prefers seeing actual customers in promotional materials. As many as 82% trust a brand more if they use real customers in advertising, while only 26% of respondents trust a company more if they feature paid spokespeople.

Considering 70% of Gen Z say product videos and photos are particularly helpful when making purchasing decisions, marketing to Gen Z should include a user-generated content (UGC) strategy that goes beyond written reviews. And thanks to social media, it’s easy to encourage your customers to share their experiences with your product.

“We reached out to influencers and customers and began asking them to create hauls and unboxing videos that included our iconic pink packages. After a few weeks, it became a viral trend that was all over TikTok,” says the CMO of clothing company Edikted, Dana Israeli, in an interview with Glossy. “The customer wanted to be part of the movement and the community, and without even having to ask them, they all joined in.”

You can boost UGC on social networks by creating challenges or contests or even coming up with your own micro-holidays. Ahead of the 2021 holiday season, Target launched the #TargetHoliday hashtag with a cheerful Reel to celebrate festive Target runs.

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These micro-holidays don’t need to be super unique — keeping them simple is more important, so your Gen Z audience can easily participate. But you shouldn’t stop at highlighting UGC only on social media platforms.

For example, through Retail Syndication, rug company Nourison shared visual UGC from social media to different retailer sites like Target. Coupled with ratings and reviews, its UGC strategy resulted in a 4x increase in conversions and a 3x increase in revenue.

Fitness brand Takeya has also had impressive results with displaying UGC on its website, leading to a 58% conversion boost and a 40% increase in revenue per visitor. 

The lesson to marketers: Gen Zers love to hear from real people who’ve used your product, not just paid voices.

2. Partner with nano and micro-influencers

Although Gen Z favors real customers in advertising, this doesn’t mean you should give up on influencer marketing. Influencers still have influence (pun intended) — especially where smaller influencers are concerned.

Nano (~1K-10K followers) and micro-influencers (~10K-100K followers) usually interact more with their audience, which leads to an engaged following. This engagement creates trust and a personal relationship more prominent influencers often lack with their followers.

In fact, nano and micro-influencers have the highest engagement rates on Instagram, between 10% and 12%. And it doesn’t hurt that they charge brands less than their more famous counterparts.

As for influencers’ relationship with Zoomers, they wield considerable power. Gen Z is more likely than previous generations to purchase based on an influencer’s recommendation: 14% in the 18-24 age group and 13% in the 13-17 age group have bought a product due to influencer marketing. And one out of four Gen Zs says micro-influencers with “loyal and highly engaged audiences” are key for developing new trends.

Companies that have teamed up with smaller influencers include major brands like Dunkin’ and Ford.

Ford Canada contacted travel blogger Cailin O’Neil (8.7K Instagram followers) to promote the 2020 Ford Escape Titanium. The promotional post has a 2.6% engagement rate.

Dunkin’ (formerly known as Dunkin’ Donuts) specifically sought out nano and micro-influencers on Instagram for its espresso campaign. All influencers featured had audiences under 50,000, with nano-influencers showing more engagement on their posts.

Influencer Vanessa Lace, for instance, who at the time of the campaign had 3,000 followers, had a 26.1% engagement rate on her Dunkin’ post.

Since the marketing trend of using smaller influencers is expected to continue, you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of finding the right influencer for your brand.

And you shouldn’t be afraid to turn your own employees into influencers either. Once you finally discover the influencer who ticks all the boxes, don’t take full creative control over the promotional posts. Zoomers dislike being sold to, and creators should retain their unique voice in sponsored content to avoid sounding salesy.

“[Micro-influencers] have an intimate community where they’re likely connected personally to many of their followers. When designing a campaign with them, don’t be generic. Add depth, personality, and individualization, and offer some creative control to them to be certain that their voice is protected in the process and message,” says Megan Rokosh, global CMO at Havas Health & You, in an interview with Forbes.

3. Take a stance on social issues

Gone are the days when brands could avoid addressing pressing social issues, such as systemic racism or climate change.

To the new generation, no stance is also a stance — and it can severely damage your reputation. 31% of Gen Z reports that they stopped buying from a brand that’s part of a social cause they don’t align with. Similarly, another 76% of Gen Z find it important for brands to celebrate diversity.

A 2022 YPulse survey also showed that the top issues for Gen Z are mental health, abortion/birth control, gun violence, and climate change — and they’d like to see brands involved in tackling these issues.

But there’s a fine line between showing social responsibility and empty “wokevertising.” Young people are experts at sniffing out the latter and don’t respond well to brands using social justice for pure self-promotion.

Brands that learned this the hard way include Listerine, who came under fire for launching a rainbow-colored mouthwash bottle to celebrate Pride month. Critics claimed the marketing campaign made light of an important celebration just to sell a product, using the LGBTQ community to put on an inclusive image.

Pepsi’s now-infamous Kendall Jenner ad is another textbook example of brands being too eager to latch onto social justice for promotional purposes without actually walking the talk. So how can you take a stance on social issues without veering off into “wokevertising” territory?

For one, you can share how your brand embraces social responsibility and sustainability in every aspect of your business. Take plant-based food company Impossible Foods’ yearly Impact Reports. Its 2020 report provides a detailed overview of how the company supports employees and community members, from promoting diversity and inclusion to supporting food banks during the pandemic.

Gen Z also wants the brands they support to stand up and show solidarity in times of crisis. In 2020, Fenty Beauty announced they would shut down their business for a day to support the Black Lives Matter movement and mark Blackout Tuesday.

The company went one step further by donating to organizations fighting racism and encouraging their followers to take a stand against racism and discrimination.

American Eagle’s Aerie brand is also one big retail name that promotes body positivity and diversity and supports young activists. Through their #AerieREAL changemakers project, the company gave a group of 20 activists a $20,000 grant each to power change in their communities.

Dick’s Sporting Goods is another good example. The brand put Gen Z girls at the forefront of their Girls’ Power Panel — a team of 13-17 year-olds assembled to help them understand issues faced by women in sports. The young panelists also shared their thoughts on the brand’s products.

The key to avoiding performative activism is carefully considering the causes you support and ensuring your brand’s values align with Gen Zers. You don’t have to support all the causes but make sure to go all in on the ones you do.

4. Display integrity and authenticity

A 2021 Ernst & Young survey about Gen Z found young people value “trust, transparency and authenticity” and will turn away from anything or anyone that appears inauthentic. Another reason why UGC works so well.

“‘Authenticity’ has been shown in Gen-Z research as a critical element in how they evaluate products and services. Gen-Z consumers want to be able to trust the brand, understand what it stands for and be confident that they aren’t being sold a bag of goods,” says OptiMine CEO Matt Voda about marketing to Gen Z in a recent Forbes interview.

Admittedly, “integrity” and “authenticity” can quickly turn into buzzwords without meaning. In a practical sense, embodying these values means treating your customers as more than just a source of profit and not sacrificing long-term trust for a short-term gimmick.

Skincare brand Paula’s Choice is a textbook example of doing authenticity right on their digital marketing channels. One of the brand’s TikTok videos captioned with “Pores are normal & real skin has texture!” promotes body positivity and rejects the idea that flawless skin is a realistic beauty standard.

@busezeyneppp Rolex | Afrika #eggroll #rolex #africanfoodie #breakfa #eggrecipe #recipeideas #africa #kahvaltılık #paza #cooking #chef #asmr ♬ sure thing – luana

In recent years, numerous brands have also ditched using Photoshop in their marketing campaigns to appear more genuine. Plus, organizations are considering better ways to leverage Black American culture and language without exploiting it.

To make sure its back-to-school campaign was authentic enough, Dick’s Sporting Goods once again went above and beyond in engaging Gen Z. Not only did they feature Zoomer influencers in the ad campaign, but they also had young creators advise the company on the campaign. 

From the music to the outfits, the influencers offered expert opinions on how the brand can best adapt its messaging to appeal to a young audience without appearing inauthentic.

While brand integrity is important to people from all generations, Gen Zers are digital natives who don’t hesitate to share their thoughts on the internet when a brand disappoints them. With recent research indicating 57% of Gen Z have less brand loyalty now compared to the pre-pandemic era, there’s little room for error.

5. Create short and snappy video content

Gen Z is known for having a penchant for videos on their favorite social media apps, which they can easily access on their smartphones. According to eMarketer, the most popular social networks among Gen Z are Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram — all apps that rely heavily (if not exclusively) on short-form video content.

Snapchat has a 60-second video limit, and so do Instagram Reels. TikTok only recently expanded the limit from 60 seconds to three minutes, but the platform is still renowned for its bite-sized videos.

The short video format of Reels, Snapchat, and TikTok means their user base has grown accustomed to content that caters to their short attention spans and doesn’t beat around the bush with lengthy introductions. It also needs to be engaging and feature music, special effects, or fun challenges users can copy.

Industry giant Procter & Gamble did just that as they expanded their social media marketing on TikTok with a music challenge.

“On TikTok, we’ve actually recently launched an exciting campaign partnering with Jason Derulo, the very famous rapper. He wrote a rap that featured Bounty in it. So we invited consumers and other rappers and influencers to play back this rap which was featuring Bounty and got us lots of great Bounty mentions.” says Janette Yauch, brand vice president of Bounty and Puffs at Procter & Gamble.

In addition to creating challenges, you can take an educational or funny angle when building your video content calendar.

In a promotional video on Sephora’s Instagram account, skincare brand Glow Recipe offered a quick tutorial that clocks in at just 25 seconds.

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A post shared by Sephora (@sephora)

When Domino’s launched their “New Bigger Better” pizzas in Norway, they ran a tongue-in-cheek Snapchat campaign about the size of their new pizzas. One of the videos, for example, shows a man struggling to drive with the pizza boxes in his car.

LinkedIn is also not left out of this video party. Though the business networking channel is not a short-form video platform, it has a video feature that lets users post three-second to 15-minute videos. LinkedIn is popular with Gen Z audiences who use it to “fuel their careers” and pursue professional success.

As you explore different apps for marketing to Gen Z, remember it’s best to create videos from scratch for each platform rather than recycling them. For example, in 2021, Instagram announced it would suppress Reels featuring watermarks from other apps such as TikTok.

6. Add up-and-coming platforms to your Gen Z marketing strategy

Outside of social media, Gen Z is gathering on digital communication platforms like Discord and Twitch, whose popularity exploded with the outbreak of the pandemic. Unable to see their friends in person, Gen Z turned to online spaces where they could connect with others over shared interests. In response, companies are developing innovative ways to reach their young audiences on these platforms.

Often referred to as “Slack for Gen Z,” Discord is a chat platform where users hang out on servers related to different topics — like Minecraft or movies. While Discord has a reputation for being a gaming platform, 80% of current users use it for non-gaming purposes in addition to gaming. Part of Discord’s appeal is an ad-free experience, but brands have nevertheless found ways of connecting with their customers on the platform.

Clothing retailer Hot Topic entered the Discord space by creating a server focused on anime, relying on a shared interest that users are already likely to talk about. Fast food company Jack in the Box took the digital event route, creating a virtual concert and chat rooms targeting the visitors of the San Diego Comic-Con.

Brands that market to Gen Z are also flocking to the live streaming platform Twitch. Almost half of their user base are people in the 18 to 34 demographic, who tune in to virtual events an average of three times a day. According to Twitch, 64% of their users also buy products based on influencer recommendations.

Like Discord, Twitch’s platform was once most popular among gamers but now also hosts DJ sets, cooking shows, and more. Twitch does allow advertising, and businesses can partner with creators through affiliate programs or run display and video ads.

Beauty brand E.l.f. has been advertising heavily on Twitch, first through an influencer partnership and then by launching their own streaming channel. E.l.f.’s collaboration with Loserfruit, a gaming streamer, featured beauty tutorials with one of the brand’s makeup artists, Anna Bynum. When the company finally launched its own profile in 2021, it announced that Bynum (a gamer herself) would feature prominently in their channel.

E.l.f.‘s focus on involving genuine gamers on their channel shows they understand the platform’s young audience wants authenticity. Branded content needs to fit seamlessly into what the rest of the streamers are doing; otherwise, it could cause more harm than good. 

Although the same rings true for mainstream social media, it’s much easier to get the knack of TikTok or Instagram than a live-streaming platform where creators are the main draw.

Compared to E.l.f., some brands’ marketing efforts were considerably less successful. Fast food chain Burger King left many Twitch users fuming when they used a donation system to run ads. The donation feature allows viewers to donate a small amount of money to creators during a stream, and in return, a bot reads out their questions live. 

But instead of submitting questions, Burger King promoted their deals for donations as low as $5. Since influencer partnerships cost a lot more, the company was accused of abusing a feature meant for fan interactions while refusing to pay creators fair wages.

The entire Burger King fiasco illustrated one important point — Gen Z does not take kindly to marketing trickery, especially at the expense of beloved content creators.

7. Leverage the power of email marketing

It’s easy to underrate email marketing as a vehicle to reach Gen Z because it is one of the oldest communication channels. But 58% of Zoomers check their email several times daily, and over 50% of Gen Z like to get emails from brands multiple times a week. The takeaway? Email marketing is an effective way for brands to connect with their younger target audience.

Emails allow for easy personalization and last longer than other digital marketing messages since they’re stored in individual inboxes. An email list also helps you maintain customer communications whenever social media platforms are down en-masse — like what happened with Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp on October 4, 2021.

As Roth recommends, asking Gen Z about their preferences is a surefire way to get in their good books. For email marketing, this approach involves getting explicit permission before sending emails to customers. It also entails using a preference center to collect feedback on how often they want to hear from you.

Take the footwear brand Crocs, for example. Their email marketing efforts include an opt-in form on their website that collects user contact details and dates of birth (to wish them a happy birthday when the time comes).To encourage signups, the brand also offers their new mailing list — Crocs Club — subscribers a 15% discount on their next purchase and access to special offers and updates.

Beyond hearing from customers, successful Gen Z email marketing hinges on many factors, including:

• How catchy your subject lines are
• Whether your brand’s values coincide with social issues
• Your ability to use visuals and memes effectively
• How conversational or humorous your tone of voice is
• The mobile-friendliness of your email designs
• How personalized and specific your email copy is
• The creativity of your email sign-offs 

This promotional email from M.A.DKollection embodies many of these criteria: it is mobile-friendly, uses visuals effectively, celebrates Black History Month, and has a catchy headline that resonates with younger audiences.

Graphic design platform Canva also nails its email marketing with compelling subject lines, exciting challenges, and attractive visuals. It definitely helps that the brand prioritizes sustainability, enables climate change activism, and promotes diversity as well!

8. Build a community around your brand

Research shows that Gen Z is the loneliest generation, and experts say that community is the missing puzzle piece — one study shows that 82% of Gen Z want to join a community. Also, Gen Zers love upholding ethical standards and engaging in social advocacy, so connecting over shared values is a no-brainer for them. 

These youngsters value community and networking for personal and work purposes — especially when their new connections share similar principles or interests. 

It’s no wonder brands like Copy.ai and Jasper have created Facebook groups where customers — including Gen Zers — network, ask questions, and discuss how they’re using the tools. Communities like these thrive when they’re people-led, with moderators only there to coordinate and ensure mutual respect and communication. 

For Gen Z, having community managers within the same generation is also a good call — they speak the same language, after all. 

Along with organized online communities, creating a sense of community for Gen Zers also means:

• Planning virtual, in-person, or hybrid events around trending (but relevant) topic
• Opening up your office space for walk-ins, picture-taking, and content creation
• Creating a coworking space where your younger audience can hang out and collaborate
• Conducting social media challenges with branded hashtags that drive engagement and conversations
• Giving away branded merch to build brand affinity
• Building a unique and memorable social media presence

Two companies nailing customer communities and engagement are Gymshark and Glow Recipe.

Targeted at people who are passionate about athletics and working out, Gymshark has built a solid online community. The sports apparel company built its brand around a mission designed to foster a sense of belonging among the members. Gymshark goes beyond selling workout clothes — they want their customers to be members of a community that celebrates failure as much as it celebrates victories in the journey toward self-improvement. 

To attract a younger audience, Gymshark regularly hosts virtual and offline events. The fitness brand also partners with many Gen Z gymnasts and influencers like Guusje van Geel (@guusje) and Joyce-Anne Deji (@madamejoyce1) — and has amassed over 6 million Instagram followers.

Glow Recipe’s strategy is equally worth modeling for community building. Cosmetics is a $100 billion industry where competition is fierce, and cutting through the noise to build a legion of loyal customers is as hard as it is essential.

Glow Recipe understands the importance of fostering connection to win the race. They reach younger audiences where they are and through the type of content they prefer to consume. Their Instagram Reels and TikTok videos often feature skincare tips and product reviews that leverage trending audio. Glow Recipe’s website is also a true skincare bible, sharing articles, quizzes, and guides that help their customers select the best products for their specific skin concerns.

Speaking to their focus on authenticity, a Gen Z “love language,” Glow Recipe also shows real skin in their advertising campaigns — their models don’t wear makeup on set.

The skincare brand further encourages community building by rallying its customers around important causes (a key value proposition to attract a Gen Z audience). Glow for Good reflects the company’s focus on diversity and inclusion, environmental protection, and female empowerment and education. With the community’s support, Glow Recipe has donated over $1 million “to support communities all around the globe.”

Marketing to Gen Z demands careful experimentation

As you’re adapting your business to the younger generation, consider which aspects of your marketing strategy are fit for a Gen Z revamp. Could you be more open about how your brand gives back and supports important causes? Do you need to rethink your approach to video content? Are there any micro-influencers with solid ties to Gen Z you could team up with?

More importantly, experimenting with new strategies and channels like Discord will benefit you the most if you’re driven to build a genuine long-term connection with Gen Zers and not just increase conversions ASAP.

It’s no surprise that companies like E.l.f. and Fenty Beauty have so much clout with Gen Z — they visibly share their customers’ passions. That goes a long way in a world oversaturated with new products and brands all wanting the Gen Z seal of approval.

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Embracing constant change and delivering an outstanding omnichannel experience with the best selection of products is critically important for retailers. Especially in the face of today’s increasingly informed and always-on consumer.

A retail merchant’s key focus is understanding the customer. In order to understand the customer, you must keep up with trends in the industry and ensure that their merchandising strategy is aligned.

There’s a lot of different factors that go into managing an online business, on top of keeping up with the latest trends. Every decision has to be made carefully in order to grow the business profitably and for a retail merchant to hit their ultimate goal: their OTB (open-to-buy) plan. 

Today, merchants at online retailers need to find ways to optimize and improve user-generated-content (UGC) — reviews, images, videos, and questions created by individual users — in their categories so they can drive more conversion and sales. Here’s some of the best practices to drive business success. 

What should retail merchants focus on to hit their plan?

Simple – creating product description page (PDP) content standards for your category of business.

While things like product, price, and place still play a big role in winning at retail, content is still king. And in today’s e-commerce world, UGC is the patriarch of the content family. That doesn’t mean neglect branded content, it just means you need to level out the content bias in favor of UGC.

Without being able to touch and feel products sold online, shoppers are tremendously relying on each other to get approval that a product is a good fit for them. Especially during the pandemic. Globally, 48% of shoppers say they’re reading reviews more now than they were prior to the pandemic. 

Whether it’s in the form of ratings and reviews, social images, or Q&A, shoppers want to know more about the product than what’s written by the brand before purchasing them. 85% of shoppers find UGC  to be more authentic and more influential than content made by brands, and it’s 5x more likely to convert compared with branded content.

And shoppers aren’t buying if there isn’t UGC on a PDP for something they’re looking to buy. Over 80% of shoppers say they won’t buy if there aren’t written reviews and 66% say the same for customer photo content. And if you can find a way to incorporate video into e-commerce, you’ll have even more chance of inspiring purchases.

Simply put, UGC directly influences purchasing decisions and drives conversion.

How does UGC benefit a retail merchant?

A strong, holistic UGC strategy offers a multitude of benefits for a merchant and their category of business. The top three benefits are supporting an increase in conversion and sales, developing an understanding of the customer, and reducing return rates.

Increase conversion and sales

Capture shoppers’ interest and empower them make confident purchase decisions — there’s no online content shoppers trust more than others’ opinions. In fact, we found that there is a 136% increase in conversion rate when shoppers interact with UGC on the Bazaarvoice Network. 

Better understand your customer

By leveraging direct customer feedback that comes from UGC, you’re able to get insight into the customers’ minds. With this, retail merchants can make better business decisions and plan better to hit their buying plan.

Reduce return rates

With customer reviews, you’re able to easily identify why some customers are choosing to make returns and can make adjustments to the PDP or to your buying plan accordingly.

Now, how do you reap these benefits? Create a UGC strategy for your category.

Why having a UGC strategy for your category is so important

Retail merchants who see the most success and growth in their business by focusing on UGC are able to do so because they make it part of their merchandising strategy.

When you’re implementing (and enforcing) a strategy that focuses on UGC, the process becomes seamless and vendors will start helping you get more UGC. It’s a win-win situation where both you and the vendor benefit from the conversion lift and additional sales.

5 step UGC strategy for retail merchants

1. Set benchmarks for your category 

Content standards drive results. The ultimate driver for UGC success is when a retail merchant creates and enforces PDP content standards for their category (some refer to it as a vendor scorecard). When you implement standards, you’re able to hold your vendors accountable for helping to provide that content.

Without standards, it becomes a bit more difficult to enforce to your vendors that they need to be participating in UGC for their products. Examples of UGC benchmarks:

1. All items should have at least X number of reviews or
2. X% of the whole assortment must have at least one review
3. All items must have at least a X-star rating
4. All new products must launch with reviews 

2. Engage your suppliers and hold them accountable

Now that you have your content standards for your category, communicate that to your vendors. Start enforcing them and let it guide how you prioritize products and placement.

Check to see if your UGC stakeholders have materials they can provide you to leverage when discussing content strategy with your vendors.

Again, following a UGC strategy is a win-win situation for both retail merchants and vendors. The more robust a vendor’s UGC you can get on your product pages, the more $$$ you both will see as a result.

3. Focus on areas that need review coverage

What areas in your business have low review coverage? Or zero review coverage?

These should be big areas of focus. Online shoppers are very hesitant these days to purchase a product that has a small amount of reviews, and especially a product that doesn’t have any reviews.

Use reporting tools to easily identify these areas, vendors, and SKUs and ask that your vendor work with their ratings and reviews provider to find a solution that can help them increase review coverage at-scale.

4. Launch all new products with reviews to help kickstart sales

A really important aspect of a solid UGC strategy is making sure that you’re keeping in mind any new products scheduled to launch in the upcoming months.

In order to capture the customer’s attention and validate that the new product (or brand) is right for them, it’s crucial that your vendors think ahead and collect reviews so that it’s on the PDP ahead of launch.

Product sampling is how you can achieve that. With sampling, your vendor is able to send their products to a curated community of shoppers in exchange for high-quality reviews pre-launch. This allows vendors to collect reviews for specific items and ensure that the content is ready on the PDP the moment it goes live.

5. Incorporate visual and social UGC

Inspire shoppers to purchase more by providing them with images of real customers experiencing the products. Text reviews are important, but these days customers are increasingly searching for products that have visual UGC in order to know what a product truly looks like. In fact, 66% of shoppers think visual UGC is important when they’re making a purchase.

Retail merchants biggest pain points solved

We know that as a retail merchant, you have seemingly endless pain points. But you can solve nearly every single one of them with UGC, effciently and cost-effectively. Learn how below.

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The top 5 problems UGC can solve for retailers

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