If you have a virtual store or act with e-commerce, you probably already understand the importance of ads. If not, read this article to the end! For those who wish to succeed by selling online products, it is crucial to advertise on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Google to be found and offer their products or services to potential customers.
Contents
Toggle- Ads help to sell in e-commerce
- How do e-commerce ads work?
- The metrics you need to know
- The importance of the budget
- Types of ads for e-commerce
- Google Ads
- Social media ads for e-commerce
- Conclusion
Ads help to sell in e-commerce
A Crythic Search with more than 1,000 brazilian consumers in the first quarter of 2023, it revealed that 84% of users reported having made online purchases ‘unplanned’ after seeing product ads on e-commerce platforms.
The study also found that 64% of respondents reported they bought products they first saw when shopping on e-commerce retailers' websites.
These unplanned purchases, which include people who switch to unknown brands of products while researching, as well as additional purchases in addition to their initial searches, show the enormous potential for e-commerce sites to generate advertising revenue beyond their main retail business to reach and engage consumers at all stages of the buyer's journey.
In the main part of the research, 47% of respondents were motivated to make an unplanned purchase previously due to an announced promotion, while 28% attributed their purchase decision because the product met the characteristics they intended to buy. While 20% said that the purchase was made due to the quality of the online ad itself.
In a summary analysis, the finding is that “a relevant and personalized advertising experience should still be at the top of the marketing professionals’ priorities.”
How do e-commerce ads work?
Electronic commerce advertising is the practice of displaying paid messages on social networks, search engines and online publishing sites to sell a product online. The brand is the advertiser and pays for positioning, printing and clicks on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or Google.
See also:
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- Best practices for digital security on websites
- Does organic reach still make sense in digital marketing?
- Key tips to succeed in e-commerce in 2024
- What territorial marketing is and how to do
- How the latest update of Google impacts on SEO quality content generation
- Turbine your e-commerce: 8 infallible strategies to turn clicks into sales
- 2023 Retrospective and trends that marked the year in marketing
- 5 marketing automation tips for e-commerce
- Essential tips to avoid abandonment of carts in online shopping
The metrics you need to know
First of all, it is essential to know which metrics should be achieved to perform well with ads in virtual stores. I will highlight here the most important:
CPC: means cost per click. Indicates how much you are paying for each click on an ad. The cost per click is a metric to be known because you want to know when to optimize your ads to reduce this cost. The lower the cost per click, the better. Lower CPCs indicate that the ad is working well and reaching keywords that do not cost exorbitant amounts of money.
CPM: means cost per printing or cost per thousand. This metric measures how much you spend for a thousand visitors who view your ads. Just like the cost per click, you should keep an eye on the cost per printing. The lower you are, the better your ad will be. The success of the cost per print is usually determined by the CTR (click rate) to see how much you spent to display the ad and how many people clicked on the ad.
CPA: means cost per share. This metric refers to the amount that will be paid for each action performed by a user, which can be a click or share of a content. The more elaborate ad is, the greater the interaction with the public, and this will reduce the cost per action.
Frequency: shows how many times a person sees their ads and shows if the investment is working as well as being public acceptance. This metric can show you what improvements you can make so that ads can add more value to the target audience and it is necessary to develop the segmentation of the audience carefully, so that the advertising action can reach the profile that fits the appeal (persona), increasing the chances of conversion. A tip is to choose the option “Unique Daily Reach”, so that each ad is displayed only once a day for each person.
The importance of the budget
Some online stores simply don't have the money to actually test Google Ads, one of the most used platforms for e-commerce. However, the initial goal is not to develop a complete sales channel. Your first goal should be to wet your feet, understand what can be obtained from Google Ads. And then, gradually, you get results.
The questions that should guide the budget you need:
- How long does it usually take people to buy?
- How much do you make with a sale?
- How competitive is your sector?
Types of ads for e-commerce
I sought to bring to this article, the platforms most used by the Brazilian e-commerce and concentrate the largest amount of ads per volume and statistics. Let's get to them:
Google Ads
Google or Google Ads ads may include advertising that appears when a user searches for something at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). It can also appear on an app or YouTube (owned by Google). There are also graphic ads displayed on online editor sites that can be configured through Google Display Network.
Google ads can be divided into 5 types: search, display, shopping, video and universal application ads.
Search Ads
This is the most common form of Google advertising. Ads are displayed when a person searches something on the platform. If they are looking for something related to a product, the Web's ads will appear in second place after the Google Shopping ads.
Graphic announcements
The graphics ads are those banners you see on various websites. They are broadcast on Google's Display Network. It is a network of over 2 million websites and applications that reach about 90% of all Internet users. With such a great reach, comes a great responsibility.
If you are not careful, graphical ads can cost you all your budget and not generate return, because you may not be targeting the right people. Therefore, the key word should be “segmentation”.
Google Shopping Ads
Shopping ads are by far the best ads to use if you are an e-commerce brand, because they are visual and appear at the top of the search results page. All you need is to upload a product feed to Google Merchant Center and all your products will be published.
Here are the factors Google uses to classify your ads:
- Customer Reviews
- Delivery speeds
- Satisfaction of Google Shopping’s real customers
- Attributes of the product (color, size, etc.)
- Price
Professional tip: Price is an important factor for Google Shopping ads. Make sure your price is below your competitors, highlight any sales and discounts you can offer and make sure your reviews are displayed.
YouTube Video Ads
Video ads appear before or during YouTube videos. Although many users ignore the displays, if you have enough captivating video and an interesting brand, you should test them and see the kind of engagement you get. The best tip to get good reach with video ads is to make the first 3 to 5 seconds super memorable, get right to the point and hook the viewer.
Social media ads for e-commerce
Social media advertising is the most popular way to scale e-commerce brands. People go to social media to find new products to buy, so it's so powerful. In fact, platforms like Instagram, Facebook and more recently Tik Tok, have the biggest intention to purchase and that's where brands will advertise their products.
Facebook Ads
They're by far the most popular ads. The most basic form of Facebook advertising is done by boosting organic posts. This allows you to expose your existing posts to a wider audience.
This will work for a brand that is very active on Facebook. So if you're not too involved with your organic content, here are the types of ads you can display on Facebook:
1. Graphic announcements - Common old images.
2. Video Ads – you can put them on the news feed and they are automatically played without sound.
3. Announcements in carousel – Show up to 10 images or videos in a single ad, each with its own link.
4. Instant Experience Ads – a full-screen experience that opens after someone touches your ad on your mobile device. They are super powerful for e-commerce brands (formerly known as Facebook Canvas).
5. Collection Ads – presents various products and opens as an instant experience when someone interacts with them.
Instagram Ads
Although Instagram is part of Facebook and you can configure all your Instagram ads on the Facebook Ads panel, many brands advertise on the platform in completely different ways.
The ad formats are a little different, the target audiences are targeted differently and often is much more powerful than Facebook ads.
Instagram stories are a great way to advertise your virtual store. Studies show that almost 70% of Instagram users have slipped up to access links in branded stories with mention. And 72% of Instagram users report having made a purchase after seeing the product on the platform, according to Business Insider.
Recommended Instagram Ad Practices
- Split your retreading audience into segments (visited the site, basket dropout, visited your profile / clicked on an ad)
- Make sure that the content of your profile page is optimized and really represents your brand
- Use Instagram influencers as much as possible
- Subtitles are a much bigger thing on Instagram, use your subtitles to tell the full story behind the image.
Conclusion
In addition to the platforms and their advertising modalities, the most important thing is to offer the right publicity, for the right audience. Try starting with sponsored social media posts, then switching with Google Ads, searching and testing which keywords can be efficient for your business model.
But if you seek high performance and quality in your e-commerce ads, seek the help of professionals who understand the market, as NVX, National Vox Digital with a dedicated and experienced team for any kind of advert in virtual stores.
Meet our amazing partnership as Market affiliates Shops, a platform that offers the Ads Market, ideal for expanding the reach of its campaigns and which is highly profitable, since the Free Market system has wide reach.
