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.

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Masterclass: 3 powerful tactics to increase product page conversion rates

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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.

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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Masterclass: The most authentic generation, Gen Z or Gen Alpha?

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Increasing your CLV will boost customer loyalty and retention, and lower your customer acquisition cost in the process. Read on to learn everything you need to know.

Chapters:

1. What is customer lifetime value?
2. How to calculate customer lifetime value
3. The importance of measuring customer lifetime value
4. Strategies to increase customer lifetime value
5. Customer acquisition cost vs lifetime value

67% of businesses are prioritizing customer retention over acquisition this year, according to Segment’s 2022 Growth Report. While we often consider new customers the key to growth, lifelong customers are a more stable, profitable investment in a changing economy. 

Customer lifetime value is a key metric to track when prioritizing customer retention because it provides a forward-looking overview of your customer relationships, efficiently allowing you to plan for future growth. 

Increasing customer lifetime value ultimately builds stronger relationships, boosts profits, and reduces churn. 

What is customer lifetime value?

Customer lifetime value is a metric that calculates how much the average customer will spend on your products or services throughout their lifetime. It’s a predictive model that gives you a look into the future, allowing you to make well-informed decisions regarding budgets, marketing efforts, and product development. 

It also reveals how loyal your customers are — a crucial insight that directly relates to customer satisfaction.

How to calculate customer lifetime value

The basic formula for calculating customer lifetime value is average customer value (CLV) multiplied by average customer lifespan (ACL). You get your average customer value (ACL) by multiplying average order value (AOV) with average purchase frequency rate (APF). Thus, the basic formula for calculating customer lifetime value is: 

AOV x APF x ACL = CLV

Average order value measures how much the average customer spends in a single transaction and is calculated by dividing the total amount of revenue by the number of transactions. The formula for AOV looks like this:

Total amount of revenue/Total number of transactions = AOV

Average purchase frequency rate calculates how many transactions a customer makes during a set period of time, which is calculated by dividing the total number of transactions by the total number of customers who made purchases during this time. The formula for APF is:

Total number of transactions/Total number of customers = APF

Average customer lifespan forecasts the length of time that customers will continue to purchase your product or service. It can be calculated two ways, depending on how much customer data your organization has. If your company charges customers on a subscription basis, you have access to detailed lifespan information because you know the length of every customer’s contract. In this case, you c

Sum of customers’ lifespans/Total number of customers = ACL

If your company uses a different payment model or doesn’t possess this data, you can still measure average customer lifespan. Start by figuring out your churn rate for a specific period of time with this formula:

(Number of customers at the beginning – Number of customers at the end)/Number of customers at the beginning = Churn rate

Then, use that figure to calculate ACL by dividing 1 by the churn rate. For example, if you had 100 customers at the beginning of the year and 90 at the end, your churn rate would be 0.1. This works out to an ACL of 10 months (1/churn rate). 

The importance of measuring customer lifetime value

While metrics like Net Performer Score (NPS) and customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT) are helpful for analyzing customer relationships in the present, measuring customer lifetime value gives you a glimpse into the future. Which comes with its own nice set of benefits.  

Gauge and improve brand loyalty

Customer lifetime value is a key indicator of brand loyalty. If CLV is high, that means customers are bringing a long-lasting relationship and a sustainable, continuous source of revenue to the table. They’re loyal. Measuring CLV helps you gauge loyalty among different audience segments and reframe your strategy, showing you where you might need to step up your game or shift focus.  

For example, say you use age to divide your customer base into segments, and you find that:

1. Segment A (26 to 35-year-olds) has a CLV of $10,000
2. Segment B (36 to 45-year-olds) has a CLV of $2,000

Then you can dig into the specifics of why Segment A is more loyal and how (and if) you can replicate those results for Segment B. Maybe you’re not investing enough in marketing for Segment B. Perhaps there’s a bad product-market fit for Segment B, and you should focus on increasing customer lifetime value for Segment A, which has already proven to be profitable long term.

Inform budgeting decisions

Retaining satisfied, loyal customers requires a lower monetary investment than acquiring new ones, but new customers are still an essential component of growth. Measuring customer lifetime value allows you to find the right balance and inform your budgeting decisions (ultimately leading to an increase in revenue.) 

Comparing CLV to your customer acquisition cost (CAC) allows you to determine where to invest more resources. On the one hand, if CLV is low and CAC is high, you should invest more into retention efforts to guarantee a steady profit from customers who’ll be loyal to you. It also doesn’t make sense to continue spending large chunks of your budget on acquisition if you’re having trouble retaining customers — it’s essentially a leaky bucket.

On the other hand, if CLV is high but CAC is low, it makes sense to invest more of your marketing budget toward acquiring new customers since current customers are satisfied. Getting the right balance means maintaining strong relationships with satisfied, loyal customers while steadily growing your customer base. 

Gain customer insights that support marketing strategies

CLV is a surprising source of customer insights that can help streamline your marketing efforts, product launches, and promotional calendars. Since the metric is a good indicator of how often a customer buys a certain product and how much they’ll spend, it can inform pricing strategies and product launch schedules. 

Say an e-commerce company that sells backpacks determines that its customer lifetime value for Model A is $4,000. (AOV = $100, APF = 2 years, ACL = 20 years).

Using this information, the company might plan a product launch for the new version of Model A every two years to get loyal customers excited about their new purchase and increase the probability of making a sale. 

Apple successfully uses this strategy to launch new iPhone models. Research shows that the average iPhone user tends to replace their phone approximately every two and a half years, and until the recent yearly release schedule became popular, Apple launched a new model every two years.

To build up excitement, the company holds a press conference where it dives into every single detail of new product models, ensuring loyal customers line up outside stores on launch days and beat preorder records. 

Predict and prevent customer churn

Measuring customer lifetime value helps predict churn because a high CLV indicates that it’s unlikely a customer will switch brands. However, a low CLV might be a warning sign that a customer won’t stay with you for long. 

CLV is also a constantly changing metric, especially on an individual customer level. Tracking the numbers over time provides a good indication of how customer sentiments are changing. If you notice a customer’s CLV decreasing from one year to the next, it might be a sign that the customer is ready to churn because they’re either spending less per order or reducing their ordering frequency.

Catching this trend early allows you to reach out to the customer and launch a retention strategy, like offering promotional prices or a monthly discount on subscriptions. 

Personalize customer service

According to Acquia’s 2022 CX Report, 58% of organizations surveyed say their number one priority over the next twelve months will be strengthening their customer service strategy to retain current customers. CLV is an important metric to base meaningful customer service decisions on — decisions that ultimately help your organization thrive. 

A good way to personalize customer service using CLV is by extending promotions or incentives to existing customers with a high CLV. They bring a lot of value to the company, and you want to keep those relationships strong.

For example, a customer at an outdoor equipment company might contact support because their recently purchased product is defective. If a support representative sees their CLV showing consistent purchasing frequency and high order value, they can offer a special discount or promotion to persuade the customer to continue the relationship. 

Strategies to increase customer lifetime value

Increasing the customer lifetime value comes down to creating an unparalleled customer experience, boosting satisfaction, and building loyalty. 

Identify pain points and offer valuable solutions

A product or service that offers a solution to your customers’ pain points is crucial for increasing customer lifetime value because it turns wants into needs. But defining their pain points and building solutions that will work can be difficult without direct customer feedback. 

Ratings and reviews are valuable tools for identifying the challenges your customers face and what they’re looking for in a solution. There’s a staggering amount of relevant information hidden within reviews, from key product features loved by customers to confusing operating instructions.

Say an online tax platform releases a new version of its software and notices CLV decreases over time. The platform then analyzes reviews of its update to find that the new interface is difficult to use, and customers have a hard time navigating it. These insights can then be used to fix the issue or offer users an educational guide to the new platform. 

Case in point: children’s product manufacturer KidKraft used its collection of over 56,000 reviews to hone in on what customers liked and disliked about its products, and adjusted its marketing strategy to reflect that.

Even something as simple as picking out positive sentiments about certain product features within reviews and changing product display pages to include this information creates a more informative shopping experience for customers, allowing them to find solutions easily. 

Add value to stand out from the competition

If two brands offer a comparable product, but one boasts 24/7 customer service and a strong loyalty program, which one do you think is more likely to increase customer lifetime value? The choice is easy because our shopping decisions are often based on how much value we get from a purchase. If we’re buying a product or a service that comes with a better customer experience, it sweetens the deal. 

Amazon is a major example of an organization that adds value to stand out from its competitors — something that’s helped it dominate the e-commerce space. Customers choose Amazon because it offers time and cost savings to its shoppers through same-day delivery, instant checkouts, and free returns. In fact, a survey by eMarketer showed that quick commerce is the number one reason consumers shopped on Amazon. 

But convenience isn’t the only added value that Amazon boasts — it also sells memberships and subscriptions for a variety of services, including Prime, Kindle, and Amazon Music. The same survey found that 65.7% of respondents shopped on Amazon because they were Prime subscribers, which gives them exclusive member discounts, access to multiple services, and free product trials.

There’s virtually no other e-commerce platform that offers such a wide range of products and services, making Amazon stand out from the competition.

Make the most out of the onboarding process

The onboarding process is your customers’ first real taste of your product or service. Make it easy, fast, and convenient to win them over and turn them into loyal, long-term customers. 

Say your product is an AI-powered support operations platform that includes several integrations and tools. New customers (and their teams) will have multiple questions during the onboarding process, and their view of your brand will be a lot more positive if their access to answers and solutions is effortless and fast. Besides ensuring your customer service team is ready to handle their queries, create a stack of self-serve support options, including:

• How-to articles
• Video tutorials
• Community forums
• FAQs
• Guides 

According to NICE, 81% of consumers surveyed want more self-service options. Many customers prefer automated solutions where they don’t need to contact anyone because it’s more convenient, especially for smaller issues and queries. Creating a streamlined onboarding process that promotes convenience and focuses on your customers’ needs will boost your retention rate, turning new customers into loyal brand advocates. 

Personalize the customer journey

80% of customers are more likely to purchase a product or service if they receive a personalized experience, according to Freshdesk’s 2022 The Future of CX Report. Personalization makes customers feel valued and encourages them to become repeat customers, increasing customer lifetime value in the process. 

Personalization methods like customer loyalty programs and tailored social commerce keep customers coming back, boosting repeat business relationships and brand loyalty.

Sephora for example uses several loyalty and reward programs to encourage customers to return and buy more products. Shoppers collect points from every purchase to redeem for more products at a later time, but the beauty retailer takes it a step further by offering different tiers of rewards. Shoppers who spend over $1,000 a year at Sephora get exclusive gifts and perks, which encourage not only repeat purchases but also an increased number of purchases each year. 

Social commerce is another way to personalize service for customers by tailoring social media ads for your following and turning social media platforms into personal shopping spaces. Adding shopping links to social media posts allows you to track your customers and gather valuable demographic data like location, age, and gender, as well as contact information like email addresses.

This data is the backbone of your marketing efforts and informs future personalized campaigns, ads, product recommendations, and more. Areas of opportunity include:

Engage and involve customers

Engaging customers through multiple channels, including social media and email marketing, keeps your brand center stage in their minds and ensures they keep coming back. But just being seen by customers isn’t enough — engagement comes from building excitement and adding value. 

Gamification marketing is one way to keep customers excited about your products or services. It combines aspects of video games, like points, levels, and leaderboards, with traditional marketing campaigns. Imagine an online learning platform that advances users through levels with fun names, assigns points based on their usage, and creates leaderboards for the most advanced users.

This method fuels your customers’ sense of friendly competition and encourages them to continue their relationship with your brand.  

User-generated content (UGC) is another way to engage customers by incorporating their ratings, reviews, and images into advertising, product pages, and social media. UGC is one of the most authentic forms of content because it’s made by customers, for customers — and authenticity is a big priority for brands and retailers, with 74% of consumers preferring to see customer-created content while shopping.

Seeing user-generated content will also encourage customers to create more of their own, which keeps them involved and advocating for your brand. 

Upsell and cross-sell at the right time

According to Zendesk, 63% of consumers are, “open to product recommendations from service agents.” This creates a perfect opening for cross-selling and upselling your product or service — or does it? Cross-selling and upselling are two critical strategies for boosting CLV, but they need to be activated at the right time. 

For example, trying to upsell a customer who is very unsatisfied with your service will do more harm than good. CLV can help map the customer life cycle, informing companies about the right time to upsell and cross-sell. Customers with a medium or high CLV will be more receptive to trying new products or services or purchasing upgrades and premium options. 

Say you’ve been tracking a new customer’s lifetime value over a period of two years. They’ve tried your product, experienced all the features, and maybe even contacted customer care a few times. Throughout this time, their CLV remained steady or increased. Although the decision to upsell or cross-sell requires a deeper understanding of your customer’s pain points, using CLV to gauge how satisfied they currently are is a good indicator of a profitable opportunity. 

Offer unparalleled customer care

Customer care is critical in terms of retaining lifelong customers. 54% of consumers would abandon a brand after just one bad experience. Conversely, according to HubSpot, 93% of consumers surveyed would consider becoming repeat customers if the brand provided outstanding customer support.

From quicker response times to omnichannel support, there’s multiple ways to improve your customer care. Conversational commerce experiences, which share customer information across different support channels, are a priority for over 70% of consumers. So, when a customer contacts your support center via email, they can easily transition to speaking to an agent through a messaging platform like WhatsApp without having to repeat their issue. This both speeds up resolution time and creates a personalized care environment for customers, which leads to higher satisfaction rates. 

Another significant way to level up your customer service game is to transition to a proactive approach. Proactive customer service moves away from putting out fires to ensuring fires never start. Companies that offer proactive support contact customers when there’s an issue and de-escalate the problem by offering solutions before customers develop negative sentiments, boosting overall satisfaction and making customers feel valued. 

Companies like Ikea go above and beyond to ensure customer satisfaction, creating buying guides, inspirational content, and a new augmented reality app that allows customers to digitally place furniture into their homes. 

Beyond that, the company also provides post-purchase value-added services like spare parts delivery, furniture assembly, and a 365-day return policy. This well-rounded approach makes customers feel support throughout the entire purchase journey — from planning to purchasing to assembling. 

Customer acquisition cost vs lifetime value 

Customers, both new and old, are key drivers of your business’ growth and success. Measuring, analyzing, and increasing customer lifetime value leads to stronger relationships, increased revenue, and higher satisfaction scores from current customers.

But acquiring new customers is still an essential component of growth. Double down on your growth strategy by learning how to lower your customer acquisition cost.

A friend encourages you to accessorize your outfit because they want you to look good, not because they want you to spend more money. Likewise, you should focus on being helpful as a brand and curating the shopping experience for individual customers.

Research shows that average order value is tied to making customers feel recognized and understood. A Motista survey of over 100,000 U.S.-based consumers across 100+ brands found that customers who have an emotional relationship with a brand have a 306% higher lifetime value and will spend double the amount or more with their preferred retailers.

Increase average order value by presenting customers with thoughtful offers and recommendations they’ll genuinely love, and you’ll build trust and brand loyalty in the process.

What is average order value?

Average order value is the average amount of each transaction from purchases made on your e-commerce store.

Your average order value is one of the most important key performance indicators in e-commerce because it informs your strategy for increasing profits. Compare the metric to your customer acquisition cost (CAC) and you can determine which types of shoppers and purchases are especially valuable for your business.

You’ll also be able to evaluate whether you want to invest more in acquisition to encourage more high-value transactions.

The average order value formula

The average order value formula is monthly total revenue divided by the number of orders in that month. The same can be applied to any other set time frame.

Average order value = monthly total revenue / number of orders per month

Calculating your average order value also provides insights into what price points are most popular across your products. You can use this information to manage your inventory and create a pricing strategy around high-value orders.

How to increase your average order value

There’s a wide range of approaches to increase average order value that will intrigue customers without being pushy. Here’s the 15 top tactics to test out and help you find what resonates most.

1. Email marketing

Turn a passive customer into an active one with personalized email marketing. Increase average order value with methods like special offers and exclusive discounts. A few options include:

• Subscriber-exclusive offers: Incentivize subscribers with exclusive, email-only promotions and offers. These can include promo codes and access to early-release products and discounted products and packages
• Abandoned cart retargeting: Capture customers who didn’t complete purchases by sending abandoned cart emails that encourage them to finish the transaction. These messages could entice a second look and, ideally, a final purchase
• User-generated content: Leverage the power of user-generated content (UGC) in emails with reviews and social media posts from real people using your products. In a Stackla report, 79% of 1,590 consumers and 150 B2C marketers surveyed said UGC guides their purchasing decisions 
• SMS messaging: Okay it isn’t email, but 96% of 400 retail and e-commerce marketers credit SMS marketing with boosting revenue

Whatever email you send, use A/B testing to determine which messaging works best for your customers.

2. Shoppable social posts

Social media isn’t just for memes, food pics, and FOMO anymore. With the rise of social commerce, it’s now also for shopping — 76% of consumers have been influenced to shop on social media. And that’s not changing anytime soon. Business Insider projects that U.S. retail social commerce sales will soon increase by 34.8% to $36.09 billion.

Reap these benefits by making your social media posts shoppable. When Instagram or TikTok followers tap on featured products in posts linked to product pages, they can instantly make a purchase.

Case in point — Oliver Bonas. This fashion and home goods retailer uses Bazaarvoice Like2Buy to make their social posts shoppable on platforms like Instagram.

Now that customers engage with UGC on the Oliver Bonas homepage and product display pages, the brand has seen a 188% lift in conversions and a 26% increase in average order value. 

3. Rewards and loyalty programs

According to Accenture, 57% of shoppers spend more when they feel a sense of brand loyalty. So your existing customers their value by offering rewards and loyalty programs.

The best loyalty and rewards programs are easy to use and understand. Here’s a look at how some brands are making their customers feel special and connected to their products:

• Points system: Points-based loyalty programs have come a long way since the days of the paper punch card. No brand does this better than Sephora — their Beauty Insider loyalty program makes up 80% of their sales. With Beauty Insider, shoppers earn a point for every dollar spent, redeemable for available bonus products at any given time
• Tiered rewards: Taking another cue from Sephora, the beauty brand offers three levels of increasing rewards. Insider is the free, entry-level tier, VIB is for shoppers spending $350+, and Rouge is for $1,000+ spending members
• VIP program: Amazon Prime offers members a number of exclusive benefits — including free 2-day shipping across all Amazon products, access to TV shows and movies, and discounts at Whole Foods Market

Build strong relationships with your customers. Give something extra back and you’ll soon have loyal fans of your brand, willing to spend that bit more.

4. Customer ratings and reviews

Ratings and reviews have a powerful influence on shoppers and are a proven way to increase average order value — 88% of shoppers consult reviews before making a purchase. The power of reviews depends on their recency, positivity, and quantity. According to Womply, businesses earn 52% more revenue than average if they have nine current reviews and 108% more if they have over 25 current reviews.

Show off current positive reviews wherever you can: product pages, emails, social media, and paid ads. Tools like Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews can help you collect more reviews, respond to them, and spread them across the web. 

For example, with the help of Bazaarvoice, the Australian ever-channel retailer Officeworks acquired over 250,000 qualified reviews and product ratings to post throughout their website — leading to an increase in website traffic, conversions, and average order value.

5. Item and package bundles

Why just show a plate when you could show the whole table setting? Group multiple items in bundles and packages so customers can “shop the whole look” or create a gift box with all the accoutrements. Discounting these bundles is also a great way to move existing inventory while increasing average order value.

When shoppers have more chances to discover items, they’re more likely to have higher average order value. A study by Statista found that customers are driven to buy online purchases when they have a greater product range (47%), can compare more products (43%), or are given added product information (38%). 

Nurtured 9 knows this strategy well. While they sell individual items geared toward new and expectant mothers, bundles and gift boxes are their bread and butter.

With a preselected or curated gift set that includes four or more items, customers receive free gift wrap and a personalized, hand-written gift card.

6. Visual UGC on product pages

When shoppers land on a product page, it’s because they’re considering a purchase. Visual UGC from social media could seal the deal because it provides social proof. Aka, what real people like and buy, and how products look in the real world. Customers are more inspired to make a purchase when they can see pictures and videos of your brand in action. Creating galleries that feed social media content is an easy way to do this.

For Feelunique, Europe’s largest online beauty retailer, UGC drives more than $10M in annual sales. Through visual and social UGC on their product pages, the company was also able to increase average order value by 32%. Win-win.

By asking their followers to tag pictures of their products with #feelunique or upload their pictures to the website for a chance to be featured, the beauty powerhouse has simultaneously built brand awareness and engagement.

7. Cross-selling similar items

Cross-selling is a natural way to encourage higher-value purchases. It nudges customers toward items similar or complementary to the ones in their shopping cart. Implement this strategy by displaying products your customers would be interested in based on their shopping behavior on product and checkout pages.

What’s one of the best ways to encourage cross-selling purchases? UGC. Share authentic content from users and influencers. Display it on your site with gallery pages that feature product tags and encourage shoppers to discover new products. You’ll also show existing customers love by sharing their content. Hello, customer retention! 

But don’t just take our word for it. Apparel brand Tuckernuck experienced a 140% conversion rate increase and a 62x ROI by showcasing UGC on their home, gallery, and product pages. 

8. Live chat

Live chat is one of the best ways to personalize the online shopping experience and quickly provide informed recommendations to multiple customers at a time.

It’s one of the fastest and easiest ways to provide customer service. While chatting with customers, you can look up their profiles in your system to review past orders. You can also quickly send helpful links to encourage them to explore your website further and discover even more products.

Better yet, marketing automation tools make this really simple and do the hard work for you, leaving you more time to focus on the other ways to increase average order value from this list.

9. Upselling

Not to be confused with cross-selling, upselling is recommending an upgraded version of an item. The key to upselling is offering enhancements or superior products that will truly add value and improve the customer experience. Examples include:

• Product-specific add-ons: This involves upselling bonus items like warranties and product protection, batteries for electronics, refillable products like ink cartridges, and gift wrap
• More storage space: Tech companies like Apple implement this tactic by charging more for additional iPhone gigabytes (GB)
• Larger sizes: This strategy is very effective for products like televisions where bigger is, in fact, better

When you help customers win by suggesting premium products and showing them all their options, they’ll keep coming back for more.

10. Promo codes

Promo codes apply percentage or dollar discounts to purchases. They’re an easy way to execute storewide sales, holiday sales, and product-specific discounts for e-commerce brands. The beauty of promo codes? You have control over how they’re used.

Send out promo codes to email subscribers or display them on website banners and pop-ups. You might use these codes to target first-time buyers, reward guests who sign up for emails, or even promote a product launch.

11. Free shipping on minimum orders

Free shipping is a common, widely used practice these days, and for good reason. Customers have come to expect it, and it’s an easy way to increase average order value.

Engage customers and keep deliveries cost-effective by promising free shipping on orders over a certain amount. To calculate the free shipping threshold formula, take the proposed minimum order value and subtract average order value. Then, take the difference and multiply it by the gross profit margin and subtract the average shipping cost.

The shipping threshold should be above your average order value to encourage higher purchases but not outside the reasonable spending realm. For example, if your average order value is $50, a $200 minimum for free shipping is well outside the normal purchase.

12. Gamification

Gamification marketing is a fun and engaging way to attract customers and learn more about them. Requiring customers to fill out a survey for a contest entry ensures future marketing efforts are relevant and valuable. After the contest, you can follow up with targeted offers — increasing the chances of conversion.

Product discovery quizzes are another underutilized way to increase average order value. For example, coffee company Trade prompts website visitors to take a quiz for customized coffee subscriptions. The quiz asks shoppers about their coffee preferences, then recommends the perfect brew supplies for their tastes.

Consider offering contest prizes that involve your product, like gifting six months of free service or a free product. When you trust your products will sell themselves, winners will see the value of your brand.

13. Volume order discounts

Volume order discounts are for items typically purchased in larger quantities, like office supplies, stamps, toiletries, and alcohol.

“Buy X, get X free” deals are a common volume order discount. So are case discounts — like 10% off a carton of wine. These offers can easily persuade shoppers to go from 9 bottles to 12, or 3 packages of printer paper to 4. Strengthen your case by showing how much customers could save by purchasing more.

14. Trial periods and flexible return policies

Inspire emboldened purchases with flexible trial and return policies on products, especially for items that customers typically like to try out or see in person before they commit.

For example, mattress brand Casper’s risk-free trial gives customers 100 days to test out their mattresses. They accept returns within that period and even offer return pick up and packaging.

And with Warby Parker’s clever home try-on program, online shoppers can select five frames to try on at home for free before making their selection. Warby Parker turned this initiative into a marketing campaign that generates UGC and brand awareness, prompting customers to tag their home try-on photos with #warbyparkerhometryon.

Generous trial periods and return policies show confidence in the quality of your product. And this confidence transfers to the customer.

15. Innovative virtual services

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses had to pivot and go virtual to keep up with quarantine regulations. Companies that typically conducted business in person had to modify their services for the digital space.

Some businesses — like custom furniture and design company Interior Define — found this move allowed them to not only maintain sales but also boost them. When the company extended their Guideshop storefront services to the online marketplace, their average order value increased by 40%. 

Experiential marketing efforts like augmented reality, the metaverse, and livestream shopping are all fun, unique ways to innovate and win over shoppers. To adopt this concept, offer virtual versions of your services and create alternative ways to make purchases.

Increase average order value with authentic UGC

You may have noticed that UGC is a common theme throughout this list. That’s because authenticity drives results. And what’s more authentic than UGC — real people showing the real value of your products? 

To really increase average order value and win over customers, you need to master UGC best practices. Ready to build a winning UGC strategy, have a better grasp on your average order value and smash your marketing goals?

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How to build a best-in-class user-generated content strategy

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An emotion can change multiple times throughout a day, but sentiment is the overarching attitude of a consumer towards a brand. It’s the difference between customer loyalty or no loyalty. Return business or no business. So unless you plan on losing your customers, it’s time you started on your customer sentiment strategy.

Chapters:

1. What is customer sentiment?
2. Why is customer sentiment important?
3. How to collect and measure customer sentiment
4. Using reports to improve customer sentiment analysis
5. Gain insights from authentic customer sentiment

What is customer sentiment?

Customer sentiment is a metric that indicates customers’ feelings, opinions, and attitudes towards a brand. It can be measured on a scale between positive and negative, or it can be measured as an emotion — like angry, frustrated, or happy. Customer sentiment can also describe a customer’s urgency and intent in terms like interested.

Feedback can be both qualitative and quantitative, and it can address your entire brand or a specific product or service.

Imagine two shoppers walking through a grocery store deciding which box of cereal to buy. They probably think they’re logical shoppers: they compare price, size, nutrition, and flavor to make sure they each get the best option. Most people believe they shop logically, but in reality, most of the time, buyers are swayed by emotion, not logic. They base decisions on how each cereal makes them feel. There’s a reason Tony the Tiger is still going strong.

The way customers feel about a product, service, or brand can make or break e-commerce companies. That’s why measuring customer sentiment is mission-critical. Finding recurring themes in customer sentiment will give you a better picture of the positive and negative aspects of your business or product, so you can make improvements.

Why is customer sentiment important?

Customer sentiment provides feedback about a brand’s most important task: Eliciting a positive, eager response from buyers. No matter the sentiment, you should know that positive sentiment means Keep it up! And negative sentiment means Something’s not working.

Keeping your finger on the pulse of customer sentiment can help you better shape your customers’ buying experiences, making their path to purchase as frictionless as possible. It also means you can tweak product and service offerings to better meet your customers’ needs and increase retention.

Measuring customer sentiment helps companies identify trends and answer broad questions like:

• Do certain teams, products, or days of the week usually correspond with a particular customer sentiment?
• How do customers feel about your latest marketing campaign?
• Has customer sentiment shifted recently?

If customer sentiment is negative, you risk losing your customers altogether. According to Zendesk’s Customer Experience Trends Report 2021, half of your customers will defect to a competitor after they have just one bad experience with you. If they have multiple bad experiences, that number snowballs to 80%.

Tactics to collect and measure customer sentiment

There’s several tactics you can use, from surveys and social media to on-page feedback, one-on-one interviews, and AI-powered analysis.

Solicit reviews and conduct satisfaction surveys

Reviews and satisfaction surveys contain valuable qualitative and quantitative data on existing customers about what they loved about your brand and product. But also what they didn’t. Spend a few minutes (or hours, if you have a large number of reviews) each week looking through reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, and Trustpilot to understand your customer sentiment.

You should definitely request a review or a one-to-five-question survey after a customer has bought your product or service. With a survey, only you see the answer (unless you publish it), while reviews are public. Longer, more in-depth surveys should be sent just once per quarter — to your most active customers — to drive customer loyalty.

When collecting reviews, aim to collect a high volume of recent reviews. You can do this by using a targeted approach, like a post-interaction email (PIE). A PIE message, like this one from Amazon, prompts customers to give a star rating after making a purchase.

This text review invite from Sura Eats (another targeted approach) makes it easy for customers to provide feedback by tapping a URL.

If you don’t have many reviews, conduct a customer satisfaction survey to collect sentiment information from your existing customers. Justworks uses an always-on survey method by inviting users to rate them on the dashboard’s main page.

Metrics to measure sentiment via reviews include:

• Average rating: Let us know how we did! On a scale of one to five stars.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): How likely are you to recommend this product (or brand) to a friend or colleague? On a scale of 0 to 10.
• Would recommend: Would you buy this product again? Or Would you recommend this to a friend? Yes or no.

If you want to dig deeper into customer sentiment patterns, you should search within unstructured feedback (like comment boxes) for common adjectives that indicate positive or negative sentiment. For example, great, awful, easy, difficult, etc. Then you can organize those responses by sentiment and answer questions like, What feature makes customers the happiest? or What part of the service creates the most tension?

Engage with customers on social media

McDonald’s famously used social media conversations to make a decision to serve breakfast all day in 2015. A dream come true. Today, it’s a basic expectation that companies actively engage with customers on social media. Doing this allows you to collect feedback from a wider, more candid audience than reviews and surveys, which are typically only sent to current or recent customers. Anyone who has an opinion about your brand can mention you or comment on your page.

A flood of complaints on Twitter can help you address product problems. Or, at least unearth an opportunity to be cheeky (if that’s your style) like Wendy’s does on Instagram.

On the other hand, a pattern of praise on Facebook — like this one about The Kindler Hotel — can clue you in to what makes your customers happy.

To measure customer sentiment via social media, monitor the platforms where most of your customers are, along with hashtags and keywords related to your brand. Globally, Facebook, YouTube, FB Messenger, and Instagram command the largest consumer audiences.

Respond to comments, mentions, and DMs. Post polls or ask questions to solicit feedback like Stitch Fix does on Instagram.

Then pay attention to how often and why customers engage with you. Access your business profile’s analytics or insights feature to track audience feedback. To monitor customer sentiment at scale, you can create a Mentions stream in Hootsuite for each of your active social accounts or use Sprout Social’s Social Listening tool.

Conduct user interviews

User interviews — in-depth, one-on-one conversations with existing and potential buyers — help you understand what motivates individual customers and gain new ideas for products and communication strategies.

“…even a few conventional one-on-one interviews yield essentially the same data as several focus groups. Additionally, there is now a lot of evidence that personal interviews yield deep insights that can’t be obtained from focus groups.”

Gerald Zaltman, Harvard Business School professor

Inviting customers to give feedback via a direct interview is messier and more time-consuming than conducting a satisfaction survey. But user interviews can yield powerful insights into how your customers feel about your brand. According to Zaltman, you should conduct customer interviews when:

1. Introducing a new product
2. Extending the value of a current product
3. You want to reframe your existing brand

To collect interview participants, reach out to specific reviewers or commenters on social media. Some companies hire a professional recruiting firm to help them conduct research. You can also advertise for participants via a social media, Craigslist, or Reddit post (like the one below) and then screen them using a survey like Google Forms or SurveyMonkey.

Measuring feedback from interviews is more complicated than survey or review feedback because the responses are unstructured. Narrow down the feedback by starting with a clear goal, like Find out why half of shoppers are abandoning items in their cart.

Next, craft a discussion guide using clinical psychology and sociology techniques, like metaphor-elicitation. With this technique, you ask consumers to think about a topic (e.g., your brand) and select images that convey their feelings about it. Probe deeper by asking why each image is relevant to them. Then look for patterns in the responses and categorize them by theme, so you can draw conclusions from those themes.

Monitor customer service calls and live chat

Every opportunity to measure customer sentiment isn’t necessarily planned — or even online. When customers contact your call center to ask questions or complain about negative experiences, you should have a way to measure and track their feelings about your brand.

This tactic is similar to engaging with customers via social media. Both are organic, but with phone calls and live chat, your customer support reps have to be more intentional about collecting and organizing customer feedback.

For example, let’s say a customer calls your support number to complain about a missing tracking number. You can measure their sentiment by having a customer service rep manually summarize the interaction and make anecdotal notes in your CRM. This summary of the Voice of the Customer (VoC) can be put in a structured form or an unstructured comment box.

Use AI to conduct sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis is a process that uses conversational AI, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP) to analyze text data and detect sentiment patterns in an instant. Centralized sentiment analysis tools cast a wider net than other types of feedback. They can analyze sentiment across social media as well as review sites, forums, blogs, news articles, etc.

Sentiment analysis tools allow practitioners to classify sentences as positive, neutral, or negative. Komprehend demonstrates this in their demo by classifying the sentence The fit was spot on as a positive sentiment.

AI models can recognize that spot on carries a similar sentiment as great or accurate. The algorithms are able to do this because they turn words into vectors, then demonstrate the relationship between those words as distances between points.

During his TEDx talk, Andy Kim illustrates the way this works. In his example, the words Lion and Cat are grouped together on a coordinate plane, and Ford and Honda are grouped together.

Sentiment analysis tools can detect emotions like happiness or frustration using keywords, their variations, and Contextual Semantic Search (CSS). They can also detect that phrases and synonyms like superior or very durable express good quality, and they use aspect-based classifiers to identify critical product issues like the phone’s battery life is too short.

You can buy a pre-built SaaS sentiment analysis tool, or you can try to build your own open-source solution (if you have an excellent team of data scientists and engineers).

Using reports to improve customer sentiment analysis

Measuring customer data isn’t useful unless it can be analyzed and used to drive operational and marketing strategies. Tracking customer sentiment is no different. There’s simply too much data to process manually. That’s why it’s important to convert customer sentiment data into digestible reports.

First, pool all your customer sentiment data into one spot, so you can analyze it in a low-effort, cost-effective way. Then segment your customer feedback with tags like location, product, and sentiment. Look for patterns and correlations in these tags and convert them into reports.

This can help you figure out if customers like your pricing and packaging, what delights them the most about a certain product, and what’s causing the most problems.

Use your reports to create a visual chart or dashboard that shows overall sentiment, sentiment over time, and sentiment filtered by rating or by topic. For example, compare a selected date range to 12 months ago to get a year-over-year comparison of customer sentiment.

Cleaning technology company Kärcher was able to collect thousands of reviews about a new product across many different retails sites and analyze them in one central dashboard. By doing this, they learned that many customers misunderstand the purpose of the product and even how to use it. Kärcher was able to then use this information to adjust messaging and clarify the product’s intent.

Gain insights from authentic customer sentiment

Now that you know how to measure customer sentiment using reviews, social media feedback, and organic interactions, next you need to learn how to perform a customer sentiment analysis to learn how to retain loyal customers and win over unhappy shoppers.

Or you can check out Bazaarvoice Insights and Reports tools, which use AI and machine learning to analyze customer sentiment for you.

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The smart marketer’s guide to finding and using customer insights

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In 2021, the number of online shoppers reached 2.14 billion people. And that’s great if you own an e-commerce store, right? After all, you’d only need to convert 0.04% of online shoppers to reach your first million customers. You just need them to find you.

Digital marketing for e-commerce is an art and a science, and user expectations for online shopping have dramatically increased over the past few years. So we’re sharing these creative marketing ideas, each with examples, that you can borrow and make your own.

Chapters:

1. Creative content marketing ideas
2. Creative ideas for social media marketing
3. Ideas for creative email marketing strategies
4. Paid advertising creative marketing ideas
5. Get creative ideas from user-generated content marketing

Creative content marketing ideas

1. Go beyond the SEO basics with schema markup

You might not consider our first marketing idea particularly creative, but it’s foundational for your long-term success. It’s always good to be reminded about the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) in getting new customers to find your business. But if you think SEO just means creating a blog and targeting a few keywords, you’re missing a big part of the equation.

To bring more organic traffic to your website, you need to take a holistic approach, which includes:

• Reducing page speeds
• Submitting organized XML sitemaps
• Targeting keywords for product pages and blog posts
• Writing alt-texts and captions for your images

But for e-commerce, you should also use schema markup on all your product pages. In simple terms, schema markup is metadata that you add to your site to help search engines like Google understand and categorize your product pages. As a result, you’re more likely to be featured in Google’s rich snippets.

Schema markup gives you more opportunities to showcase your products on search results, drive more organic traffic, and make more direct sales.

2. Create content that’s relevant but not self-promotional

Content marketing can feel like walking a tightrope. On the one hand, you don’t want to appear too “sales-y.” On the other, you actually need to make sales, especially if you’re a new business.

One way to thread that needle is to create content that indirectly promotes your products while still providing value to the reader.  It’s finding the sweet spot between what you want to say, and what your consumers care about. Our Place, which sells cookware, is great at doing this through publishing blog posts with helpful recipes, like this one for Braised Pork Belly with Taro:

The blog post doesn’t talk directly about Our Place’s products. Instead, they use a call to action (CTA) at the end, inviting users to shop for the products to make the recipe from the post:

3. Syndicate content across a global network of retailers

You’ve probably heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Well, you could also say it takes a tribe to grow a brand. This is where a concept like retail syndication can be a game-changer for your online store.

Retail syndication is a way for you to build relationships and display user-generated content (UGC) — customer reviews, testimonials, questions, and photos — across a network of retail websites and social platforms.

For example when Primal Kitchen adopted retail syndication across the Bazaarvoice Network of over 1,750 retailers, the brand saw a 64x increase in reviews on retailer sites. This led to a 131% conversion rate increase for its own products on Target.com.

4. Showcase your products through videos

If you’ve ever shopped online, you’re probably familiar with the formula for product pages:

• High-quality images
• Product descriptions
• Authentic user reviews
• Add to cart button

That’s all pretty standard. But you can go above and beyond by making creative videos for your product pages. Here’s a great example from GoPro:

While it makes sense for GoPro to create video-based content (the product is a video camera, after all), any brand can boost conversions with the same strategy.

5. Grow your email list with creative lead magnets

Getting contact info for your site visitors is almost as important as making a sale, and lead magnets are the best way to do it. Lead magnets can come in many forms, but they need to provide concrete value to your target audience. A few common examples of lead magnets include:

• Discounts and coupons
• Product samples
• Free shipping

You should select a lead magnet that your audience will love and that hooks them on your brand. For example, the home cleaning company Grab Green Home used the following offer to get more leads:

Creative marketing ideas for social media

6. Leverage user-generated content

The world of social media marketing moves FAST. To keep an active social media presence, you need to post consistently across a variety of platforms. Plus, it’s important for new brands to use social proof that boosts confidence among online shoppers. This is especially true, seeing as how one of the biggest factors for consumers to trust a brand is whether or not the organization has positive customer reviews.

This causes problems for small business owners who don’t have the time to create 100+ pieces of fresh content for social posts each month or for small startups struggling to establish trust with their audience.

This is where user-generated content (UGC) saves the day.

UGC allows you to quickly create social media posts that grow your presence online, build credibility for your brand, and drive more sales. More often than not, you won’t need to sit around thinking up creative marketing ideas — your customer are doing it for you. You just need to tap into it. Check out this example of how Chillhouse turns customer reviews into Instagram posts:

UGC is especially effective during an economic downturn, like the one we’re facing, because it saves a fortune of paid media dollars.

7. Engage your audience across a variety of platforms

In the last tip, we talked about leveraging UGC across your social channels. But now for the big question: Which social platforms should you adopt?

The key is to diversify your social presence by working across multiple established channels. That said, you don’t need to start a social media account on every platform. Instead, figure out where your target audience spends their time online and start there.

Lastly, remember to keep the platform in mind while crafting the type and tone of your content. LinkedIn, for example, tends to have posts that are informative, longer in text, and professional. Instagram, though, is better suited for video/image-based content that looks great and entertains your audience.

8. Try an up-and-coming platform

If you already have a strategy in place for a few popular social platforms, it might be time to consider branching out into new platforms to find new audiences that haven’t been saturated by brands yet.

TikTok, for example, blew up overnight, and early adopters were well-rewarded with instant exposure to millions of new users.

The trick is to find new platforms that you can easily post to, with either UGC or repurposing existing content.

9. Transform your Instagram account into a storefront

Using social media to direct traffic to your e-commerce site is a solid idea. But why not take things a step further by transforming your Instagram account into a storefront? You can do this by creating shoppable images for your products and posting them to your feed.

Feelunique uses UGC to create shareable and shoppable images for its Instagram account, like this one:

As a result of this social commerce strategy, Feelunique saw a:

• 140% increase in conversion rates
• 32% lift in average order value
• 375% higher time on site

10. Host an online contest

Hosting a social media contest to promote your brand is a powerful marketing idea for e-commerce brands on a budget. You don’t have to buy expensive tools or build a complex setup — all you need is a marketing idea that sparks creativity.

Take inspiration from this simple but effective campaign launched by Super Moose Toys:

To enter the contest, people only had to submit a photo caption, and the brand used hashtags to help spread the word.

Pro tip: Remember to choose a prize that your target audience will find valuable and still relates to your brand. If your prize is too generic (like a Macbook Pro), you’ll attract more people but fewer quality leads. If your prize is too niche, you’ll discourage people from entering who are still at the top or middle of your funnel.

Creative email marketing ideas

11. Incorporate user-generated content

If you thought UGC was only for web pages and social media, think again. You can get great results by adding UGC to your email copy. Here’s an example from Brooklinen that adds funny reviews to make the email more engaging:

Another great example comes from the fashion retailer Monsoon. The company saw click-through rates increase by 14% and total revenue increase by 3%. And since they aren’t the ones creating the images, they’re also saving loads of time in the process.

12. Welcome new customers immediately

Welcome emails are one of the largest missed opportunities for e-commerce stores. Marketers worry they’ll overwhelm new customers by reaching out too soon, but you need to strike while the iron is hot and you’re fresh in their minds. Think about it: Someone has either just made a purchase or given you a piece of contact information (like an email address or phone number).

So this is a great moment to let your creativity shine and give new customers a warm welcome. One brand that nails this is Huckberry. Here’s their welcome email:

It’s minimalistic in design, has a small note with reassuring social proof (1 million+ members), and a single CTA button: Explore. Everything about this email encourages the recipient to stay engaged with the Huckberry brand.

13. Send a weekly newsletter with your best products

Some of the most creative marketing ideas are also the simplest. After you’ve welcomed new customers or newsletter subscribers, it’s time to keep them up to speed with current offers on your new products. For example, Appliances Online used Bazaarvoice to gather reviews from customers. Then it created a “What’s Trending” section in its email.

Since then, the chief marketing officer at Appliances Online said he has, “definitely noticed an increase in conversions and sales” from email marketing campaigns.

14. Build excitement around holiday sales (even the small ones!)

Holiday-themed promotions are always a great way for brands to increase their online presence, engage more shoppers, and improve sales. But you don’t need to wait around for the big ones like Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. There’s tons of micro holidays to celebrate all throughout the year!

For example, did you know that August 12 is officially Middle Child Day?

These minor holidays may seem “silly,” but you can guarantee you’ll stand out from the competition. And as a middle child, there’s nothing “silly” about National Middle Child Day!

Pro tip: Send promotional emails at least a week before the holiday to build excitement. Ideally, you’ll send two to three emails before the event and a few “last chance” emails on the actual holiday.

15. Start a loyalty and rewards program

Who doesn’t love a little appreciation from time to time? You should reward your existing customers with discounts and special offers. Not only will these little acts of gratitude reduce churn rate, but they’ll also turn your customers into evangelists who promote your brand through word-of-mouth marketing.

And just like with holidays, you don’t need to wait for an official reason to reward your customers. Check out this example of an email campaign by One Love Organics giving a customer 50 points “just because”:

16. Build a custom cart recovery email series

A lot of email service providers (ESPs) now come with built-in cart recovery emails. These are automated messages that you can sync with your online store to alert customers when they still have items waiting in their cart. The only problem? Most shoppers are bored by generic messaging that comes from these built-in tools.

That’s why it’s important that create a truly unique message for your target audience. Have a look at this example from the mattress company Casper:

The bold heading, “Come back to bed,” grabs your attention, and it’s complemented by a funny user review just below.

17. Break convention with your email campaigns

When it comes to thinking up creative email marketing ideas, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. Most online shoppers are used to promotional emails, which could partly explain why email conversion rates have dropped over 3% since 2018. The more e-commerce brands rely on newsletter templates and generic copy, the less effective the funnel becomes. But you can use this to your advantage by creating bold email campaigns.

The popular board game Cards Against Humanity pulled this off in their Black Friday email a few years back. It ran a special “sale” that went like this:

• You give them $5
• In return, you get nothing

Apart from going viral and building more brand recognition, this email brought in over $71,000.

18. Test HTML vs. plain text emails

When it comes to formatting email campaigns, most marketers think they have to choose between HTML or plain text. But there’s advantages to both.

HTML-based emails are more visually creative and exciting. They allow you to use stylish designs for your email, add interactive features like CTA buttons, and much more. Here’s a great example by the clothing company Taylor Stitch:

This comes in handy when adding UGC to your emails. The downside is that some email providers categorize HTML-based emails as either promotional or spam, which can have a negative impact on your deliverability rates.

Plain text emails, on the other hand, are usually more informative and focus on a single CTA.

This leads to better deliverability rates, but the emails are admittedly less engaging.

So which one should you choose? Sometimes when given a choice, the best option is both. Test both formats with your audience and remember: You’re not committed to “either/or.” You can be creative and use both types of emails in your marketing strategies.

19. Try new subject lines for people who didn’t open your email

One of the easiest ways to boost engagement with emails is by resending the same email campaign to people who didn’t open it the first time. But when you resend the email, you can test a different subject line to get the most out of each of your emails.

20. Add a postscript at the end of your emails

Did you know that only 16% of people read your emails word for word? Instead, most people skim through your email copy, looking for any information they might find valuable at a glance. That’s why it’s so important to end your emails with a CTA in the “PS” section.

As readers quickly browse your email, they’ll be drawn to the “bonus” message after your signature.

Creative marketing ideas for paid advertising

21. Invest in your video content

Back in 2015, a company called the Squatty Potty made a video that went insanely viral. The video was watched over 50 million times on Facebook and YouTube. But what you might not know is that the Squatty Potty team didn’t create the video themselves.

Instead, they paid the Harmon Brothers $250,000 to create it for them. You definitely don’t need to fork over a quarter-million dollars to create a video, but you should absolutely invest in the right equipment, writers, and actors for anything you’ll use in paid ads.

The higher the quality you put into your video ads, the higher ROI you’ll see from them. Squatty Potty had $15 million in sales the year that video was released — that’s just video marketing 101.

22. Leverage geolocation to encourage more physical foot traffic

One of the biggest advantages of paid ads is that they allow you to target users so accurately. And one of the best features is the ability to target leads by location. This gives you several advantages, such as:

• Targeting users for your online store differently than for your shop’s physical location (if applicable)
• Budgeting your ad spend to focus on the most lucrative locations
• Expanding into new delivery/sales territories as you scale

This personalizes the customer experience and provides more brand awareness for local businesses throughout their community.

23. Be bold with your ad copy

Paid ads are effective, but sometimes the copywriting can get repetitive. Create ads with copy that sends a strong message, starting with the keywords you’re targeting. For example, Shortcut, a product management tool, decided to bid on the keyword “Monday.com,” the name of one of its primary competitors.

Whenever anybody types in that phrase into Google, Shortcut’s ad copy really stands out from the other messaging:

The bottom line? Don’t be afraid to play around with your copywriting and test fresh, bold messaging.

24. Check (and boost) your ad quality score

Most pay-per-click (PPC) platforms will give your landing page a quality score. This is a scale of 1–10 that tells you how your landing page stacks up to other advertisers for the keyword you’re targeting.

Google, for example, uses the following parameters for their landing page scoring:

• Expected click-through rate
• Ad relevance
• Landing page experience

This can be a sobering indicator to check up with if your creative landing pages aren’t leading to as many sales as you’d hoped. Alternatively, this score can also give you more confidence in campaigns you’ve worked hard to build.

Get creative ideas from user-generated content marketing

Making your brand stand out from the crowd can be a challenge. You’re often dealing with limited time, small budgets, and resources. And consumers want to know what other consumers think about products. That means finding ways to constantly produce and publish quality content.

If you find yourself struggling to come up with creative marketing ideas, consider working with more UGC. With the right visual and social content tools, you can automatically use content from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, and more to create shoppable galleries for your website. This same content can then be reused for your blog posts, email campaigns, paid ads, and more.

At the end of the day, creating content for all your marketing campaigns can be incredibly time-consuming. And that’s why we firmly believe that UGC is the key to long-term success. 

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How to level up your marketing strategy with visual content

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Product samples shipped to a shopper’s door, handpicked based on their interests, is a consumer dream. And Bazaarvoice has made that dream come true with Bazaarvoice Product Sampling.

And with our latest product sampling offering, Cashback Sampling, you don’t even need to ship samples to the consumer. Consumers go directly to the sample. Now you don’t have to worry about bulky, fragile, or perishable items. They can all easily be sampled too.

Here’s four ways product sampling scales your brand.

1) New product launches

New products deserve the freshest UGC on launch day. Or even better — before. Product sampling gets your products in the hands of your ideal shoppers before you officially launch. Giving them a chance to share UGC after they’ve tried out your new product.

Almost 90% of shoppers always or mostly consult ratings and reviews before making a purchase, so the last thing you want is a bare page on launch day.

And product sampling nets more than just ratings and reviews. It brings in thumb-stopping visual and social content too. Over 60% of shoppers say they’re more likely to make a purchase if they can see photos and videos from other customers.

This has an even bigger impact than any professional imagery could provide — 64% of shoppers would pick visual UGC over your brand’s professional photos any day. 

2) Product development

Are you in the midst of creating a great product but wanting to know how it’ll do in the market? Product sampling can also help you before the big launch day. As you’re perfecting how you’ll introduce products, Bazaarvoice can get you answers to your burning questions.

Our community members can provide insights on what they love and hate about your products and brand so you have time to fix the formula and find success from day one. 

This benefit extends to older products too. As shoppers leave reviews and share photos, your team has the opportunity to dig into what consumers love and hate about your products and brand.

When you share your products through Bazaarvoice Sampling, we work with your team to customize and conceptualize the campaign. This means you’ll get exactly what you’re looking for out of it. Including actionable feedback from real customers.

3) Core SKU support

Your well-loved hero products can benefit from product sampling too. Collecting UGC isn’t just a one time thing. Which means you have to keep up the good work, even when a product has been on the market for a hot minute. 

Not only does product sampling remind loyalists what they love about your brand, it brings in new shoppers to try your products out for themselves. These fresh eyes keep UGC on your product pages optimized too. About 60% of shoppers strongly agree or agree that recent reviews (written in the past three months) are more reliable than older reviews.

4) Entering new markets

Nailing one new market entrance doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth sailing in every locale or with every demographic. Product sampling increases your chances of product adoption from new customers in new markets.

Over 70% of shoppers are looking for perspectives similar to theirs as they evaluate a new product to buy. As shoppers are consuming UGC, they want to see feedback from people like them. And in their own language. Which is why once you’ve collected UGC from your sampling campaign, Bazaarvoice’s translation services enables customers to click to see the content in their own language

Bazaarvoice partners with 6x as many retailers across the globe as our nearest competitor. And our Influenster community includes members in over 30 countries. We make it easy for you to not only sample, but also give you a choice of fulfillment options on how you get products in the hands of consumers across the globe. Have full confidence moving into new segments and leave behind the hassle of not knowing what will happen. 

Product sampling can help you meet your goals. Let us show you how. Request a free demo and see for yourself.

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Building sampling into a successful brand strategy

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