Here's a scenario: you own a small online store that sells products and you are struggling to get enough traffic or conversions. Despite the fact that you have probably spent a lot of money on pay per click and SEO campaigns, you are not seeing results that are long-lasting or viable.
Here are 5 ways you can get traffic to your e-commerce website that you may not have thought of before.
1. Product Listing Ads
One of the most effective ways to get people that are looking for your products is to create product listing ads (PLAs) in Google Adwords. In order to create PLAs, you first need to create a product feed, which follows Google's feed specifications.
Once you have the feed generated, the next step is to login to the Google's Merchant Center. If you do not have an account yet, you will need to create one.
The next step is to upload your feed. You can either choose to manually upload it, or choose to host the feed file on your website so that Google can fetch it on a scheduled basis. The feed only lasts 1 month, so if you manually upload it, you will need to do so every month.
When your feed has been successfully uploaded and processed, you should see products in your Merchant Center. Once they are approved (usually takes a few hours), you are ready to jump to Adwords where you will create your PLAs and start driving some seriously targeted traffic.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Another way to get some traffic is to simply enroll your website into an affiliate marketing program. There are many companies that manage affiliate campaigns, but I have a pretty good experience with PeerFly.
The way affiliate marketing works is you essentially allow other website owners to promote your products and in return, you pay them a commission every time they send a customer your way that purchases your product. This is called CPA (cost per action) method of advertising.
So why is this a good way to drive traffic? Because it simply doesn't require much work on your end. Most of the heavy lifting is done by each publisher who chooses to promote your product.
3. Organic Search
If affiliate marketing is not your thing, then you can try organic search. Wait, let me guess. You've already tried organic search and failed pretty bad at it, right? If you are in that position, then you should not give up just yet. Chances are you just need a better strategy.
Organic search engine rankings are determine by hundreds of different factors, but main ones being quality of content and backlinks. There's many ways an e-commerce store can build backlinks, but one effective way is to let other bloggers review your products.
For example, if you are selling shoes, send a pair of shoes to 10 popular shoe blog owners and let them review your shoes. In return, they will probably link to your website when they review your shoes as well as send targeted traffic that might be interested in buying those shoes. It's a win-win for everyone.
In addition to that, you should also have a blog section on your website where you can share valuable tips about your products or the industry in general. In our previous shoe example, we might have articles that show users how to restore damaged shoes, how to keep their shoes in mint condition, how to match their shoes to their clothes, where to get discounts to buy shoes, and so on.
4. Email Marketing
Ok, the next thing we'll talk about is email marketing. Everyone has heard of this before, yet not many are utilizing this channel.
Email marketing simply refers to keeping a list of email addresses that have bought or are interested in your products.
If you are sending emails to your previous customers, a good way to get their business again is to offer them coupons. You've probably received "loyal customer" coupons before, and there is no denying it, it probably made you feel good for a bit. You have to reach the customers and make them feel special enough to want to buy from you again.
If you are sending emails to people that have never bought before, then you can try to tell them a story. Show them why your products are superior to your competitors' products. Let them know why they need your product. You will basically have to create a perceived need to get their business.
5. Retargeting
And finally we have retargeting. Many people are confused about what targeting really is and how it works. Retargeting is a way to show ads to people that have viewed your website previously. The way it works is that a cookie is set on a user's browser when they view your website, and then when they load other websites later, that cookie can be utilized to show them your website ads.
Retargeting is great because it is usually much cheaper than traditional CPC and usually it's based on CPM (cost per thousand impressions) model. It is also good because the users are usually familiar with your products already so they just need a little nudge to complete the purchase, instead of you selling the whole story to them again.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are quite a few different ways to get good, quality, and targeted traffic to your e-commerce website. It is crucial for you to test each method and find which works best for you and your business.