Tighter internal budgets, nationwide layoffs, and a shift from a hiring frenzy at the start of 2022 to an onboarding freeze by year’s end have ecommerce brands trying to maintain recent growth records with fewer resources. While ecommerce is projected to experience a lull due to a potential recession, growth is still on the horizon. Just a few years ago, 17.8% of sales came from online purchases. This number is expected to jump to 20.8% in 2023 — a 2% increase in ecommerce market share.
How can brands capitalize on this projected growth with fewer resources at their disposal? Below are some key areas online businesses can improve — without additional manpower or budget — to help with ecommerce revenue growth in 2023.
Cut customer acquisition costs
The pandemic doubled the number of ecommerce sites. With so many options, customer loyalty rapidly declined as 41% of consumers now shop around for the best prices and fastest shipping times.
Now that brands can no longer rely on repeat business, all are competing for new customers — resulting in a record loss of $29 for each acquisition. Rather than drain the budget on inflated customer acquisition costs, ecommerce brands need to focus their efforts on how to optimize each site visit.
Customer acquisition costs are 60% higher than five years ago due to increasing privacy features and regulations. There are new methods emerging that help offset the growing costs of marketing in a privacy-first world, while maintaining compliance. Session AI in-session marketing does just this by leveraging clickstream data to understand the intent of every site visitor — whether anonymous or known — and automatically deploys tailored experiences that convert.
Invest in social commerce
Ninety percent of consumers buy from the brands that they follow on social media. That’s because social commerce reduces the steps needed to go from discovery to conversion by delivering marketing messaging directly to the consumer’s feed — complete with a CTA that enables them to buy now or learn more. According to a global survey conducted by Shopify, leveraging social channels for marketing and promotions is the most important customer acquisition and retention strategy to drive revenue growth.
Ecommerce brands can invest in social commerce in three ways: content marketing, influencers, and user-generated posts. Content marketing needs to be unique messaging that encourages discovery, engagement, and action — such as shoppable posts and in-app stores across social channels. Influencer marketing campaigns have resulted in a return on investment of $5.78 for every $1 spent, so partnering with the right persona(s) could provide substantial revenue growth.
Lastly, social media runs on user-generated content. Getting those who use your products to discuss them with their network organically or through incentives (e.g., shareable promo codes) can create a wave of promotion that’s highly effective for revenue growth — 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision.
Tailor the customer experience
Forrester found that 77% of consumers choose, recommend, or pay more for an ecommerce brand that provides personalized experiences. However, a survey by Aberdeen uncovered that only 27% of businesses are satisfied with their ability to personalize the customer experience. As consumer demand for personalization increases and the data which powers it decreases, brands are left searching for new ways to create relevant site visits.
Session AI in-session marketing solves the complex challenges of personalization in a privacy-first world by using clickstream data to inform machine learning models, analyze micro-behaviors, and take action within milliseconds — while the consumer is still actively engaged. The solution relies on anonymous data to create a relevant experience, providing a tailored experience without traditional personalization.
Sustainable and socially conscious
The price of your product isn’t the only determining factor for consumers. According to a report by Shopify, environmental, social, and governance concerns influence conversions for about half of global shoppers. This segment of influenceable buyers is looking to support those brands that are seen as sustainable and socially conscious.
By adding what the brand is doing to address the concerns of issue-driven consumers — such as processes to decrease the carbon footprint or plans to reinvest in the community — ecommerce sites can attract half of an audience that’s responsible for $27 trillion in retail sales.
Post-purchase experiences
Post-purchase experiences are the engagements you have with a consumer after checkout. These interactions are designed to create a relationship between the brand and the shopper — effectively improving customer loyalty. Ecommerce brands can deliver post-purchase experiences through proactive communications, branded tracking pages, and more.
Once a site visit ends in a purchase, ecommerce brands have the opportunity to engage with someone who’s likely to be interested in hearing from the company. As brands routinely update a consumer with their status order, strategically send targeted messages, and engage that visitor via relevant content, they can build a strong rapport that turns one conversion into repeat business. Repeat customers spend an average of 67% more than new customers, making them a brand’s most valuable segment.
Digital payments optimization
Friction at checkout is one of the leading causes of cart abandonment. Optimizing digital payment options allows brands to create a frictionless checkout experience by ensuring that consumers who want an item can complete that purchase. This includes alternate payment methods, such as BNPL (buy now, pay later), ACH, or cryptocurrency.
Forbes Advisor and OnePoll surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers who use BNPL. The survey found that the main use of BNPL is to reduce the impact of a big purchase and the second reason is to purchase an item that the shopper wouldn’t be able to afford if forced to pay the total cost. Enabling alternative forms of payments opens the door to more conversions, which is increasingly important in a looming recession.
Making these options available not only helps the consumer, it can also lessen the risk of fraud for the brand. According to LexisNexis, every dollar of fraud costs retail and ecommerce brands $3.60. Many third-party payment providers have built-in fraud security as well as reimbursement in the event of a fraudulent transaction.
Drive incremental revenue growth with in-session marketing
A brand’s incremental revenue is the additional revenue generated through upselling, cross-selling, or new products. Many ecommerce sites are missing out on incremental revenue due to sitewide promotions that decrease margins and outdated technology that’s unreliable for dynamically displaying relevant products.
Session AI’s in-session marketing platform uses real-time offers, AI-driven content, and machine learning models to identify and act on incremental revenue opportunities. This fusion of innovative features has resulted in $800 million in attributed revenue growth, a 56% lift in sales, and an 88% reduction in margin loss for top ecommerce brands.
See what else you can do to drive ecommerce revenue growth — even with shrinking resources — through the use of Session AI in-session marketing.
