The Top 6 eCommerce Marketing Tools

It’s 2021, and the eCommerce world is expanding at an exponential rate. At this point in the industry’s lifecycle, the marketing options that eCommerce vendors have available are vast. It’s estimated that by the end of the year, more than 27% of the world’s population will shop via eCommerce. That’s more than 2 billion individual customers, representing 18% of all global retail sales.

With the eCommerce industry in a state of continuous expansion, the array of e-commerce marketing tools and technology has developed at an equally rapid pace. Today, we’re going to look at the top eCommerce marketing tools currently available to merchants and how to utilize them.

Mail Chimp: Email Marketing

Vendors in the eCommerce arena rely on email marketing campaigns to help drive business through their virtual door, and with good cause. According to a recent study by McKinsey, campaigns predicated on email are 40 times more effective than those carried out across social media platforms. Not only is it the preferred avenue of digital advertising, but it’s also the most valuable. Every dollar in ad spend generates $36 in revenue!

Given the incredible ROI that email marketing offers, email ad campaigns should be the cornerstone of your digital marketing efforts. But how do you go about implementing a digital ad campaign? While there are many good email marketing tools available to eCommerce vendors, Mailchimp is one of the leading ones.

The Mailchimp service lets vendors create automated marketing campaigns and features a full range of customization options for all your marketing efforts. Additionally, it provides the user with deep data analytics and a superior suite of contact relationship management features. The most attractive part of the Mailchimp package is the platform’s pricing. The service is free to business owners with 2,000 subscribers or fewer, allowing you to send up to 12,000 emails per month. From there, Mailchimp employs a pay-as-you-go schema ranging from $10 per month up to $199.99 depending on the number of subscribers your business has and the number of emails you wish to send.

Klaviyo: Email Marketing for E-Commerce

If your company is looking for an alternative to Mailchimp’s entry-level service offerings, you’ll want to check out Klaviyo. The Klaviyo platform is known industry-wide for its deep customization options, API integrations, and overall adaptability.

Klaviyo allows its users to build custom email and SMS marketing campaigns from the ground up. Once you’ve input your contact list onto the platform, Klaviyo helps guide your marketing department as they create unique campaigns that are specifically tailored toward individual customer subsets. Driven by deep and robust analytics, the Klaviyo platform excels at reaching a diverse customer base.

The app is designed to natively integrate with your tech stack, and it works seamlessly with big-name eCommerce platforms such as:

• Shopify
• WooCommerce
• BigCommerce
• Magento

Additionally, users can automate their marketing campaigns and learn from the results of each effort. Klaviyo features a full suite of data analytics that can be applied on an ongoing basis, helping you to refine your marketing message.

Klaviyo’s pricing is a bit steeper than its rival, Mailchimp. It is a pure pay-as-you-go service with pricing dependent on the number of contacts you’ll be engaging. Plans begin at $20 for 500 contacts.

Ahrefs: SEO Mastery

Organic traffic is all about your company’s digital footprint. SEO success is a mix of artistry and science. If the eCommerce sector is as vast as an ocean, then Google and similar search engines are an entire universe. The point of SEO is to get the attention of each search engine’s algorithm, boosting the website in question to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Doing that requires a delicate balance of keyword usage, high-quality content, and effectively leveraged meta-data, among other less obvious variables.

The effect of SEO on eCommerce is undeniable. With an estimated 43% of eCommerce traffic resulting from organic search results, implementing a top-notch SEO service should be a priority for every emerging digital business. The best tool for the job? Ahrefs.

Ahrefs is an all-inclusive SEO tool that allows users to:

• Perform a site audit on their own webpage
• Analyze their competitors’ SEO
• Identify trending search strings
• Track their site’s ranking through robust analytics

The Ahrefs platform is an especially powerful package. Ecommerce vendors of all sizes can take advantage of Ahrefs’ suite of features, but the platform is designed to scale with your business. The basic service begins at $99.99 per month for a single user. At that price point, you get 10,000-page crawls and 3 months of data retention. Plans reach up to $999.99 per month, netting the user 2.5 million-page crawls and a year’s worth of data retention.

Attentive: SMS Marketing for E-Commerce

Marketing campaigns that utilize SMS (text) messaging have a 99% open rate. With the vast majority of people using their mobile devices to access internet-based functions, your tech stack needs a marketing app that targets those mobile users specifically. If you’re looking to add a new dimension to your marketing strategy, Attentive is one of the best apps on the market.

The Attentive platform allows its users to craft high-quality, TCPA compliant SMS campaigns that are proven to reach potential customers and convert them into paying subscribers. Attentive features all the tools and functions that you need to launch a mobile-centric marketing campaign quickly and easily. The Attentive platform integrates seamlessly into eCommerce storefronts built using big-name design services such as BigCommerce and Magento.  

Pricing for Attentive is handled directly through the company’s sales reps. Although the bottom line may differ depending on your company’s specifics, they believe in making SMS marketing accessible to everyone. Expect to pay around $300 per month for unlimited SMS marketing functionality.

SEMRush: All-in-one Marketing

Up until now, our list has included the very best eCommerce tools by individual category. If you are looking for a more comprehensive tool that includes a mix of SEO, marketing, and data analytics, SEMrush is the ideal platform.

SEMrush offers a full-featured suite of amenities including:

• On-page SEO
• Keyword analytics
• Competitor analysis
• Ranking trackers
• Social media management functions
• PPC advertising
• Content creating, distribution, and management
• Other website monetization tools

SEMrush is ideal for companies that are looking to branch out and scale up under its adaptable marketing and social media functions. Pricing ranges from $119.95 per month for 5 dedicated “projects” and up to 500 keywords, all the way to $449.95 per month for 40 projects and 5000 keywords.

Rep: Sales Assistant Chatbot:

Acquiring more visitors than ever before could mean reducing the website’s conversion rate even further and AI chatbots could help solve that. Rep’s AI-powered sales assistant, which is designed to target eCommerce customers who are most likely to navigate away from your storefront, can grow annual sales by up to 30%. by answering questions and guiding customers throughout their buyer journey.

AI chatbots have gained a significant foothold industry-wide, and Rep’s AI-powered sales assistant has led the charge. Unlike other chatbots that concentrate on the reduction of human customer service efforts, Rep provides vendors with an additional salesperson that works 24/7 to ensure your storefront’s success. Vendors who’ve used Rep have reported up to a 250% increase in customer conversions, and a staggering 17% uplift in terms of revenue. Rep’s sales assistant chatbot is an essential tool that helps position eCommerce vendors at the cutting edge of the industry.  

For more information on how Rep can uplift your conversion rate, please contact one of our representatives today.

‍