With inflation top-of-mind for both merchants and customers, maintaining a loyal base of customers is more crucial than ever in the ecommerce space. Loyalty, however, does not mean you still won’t have to fight to keep those customers.
Here are a few tips for highlighting the areas that keep shoppers coming back to your digital storefront:
Advertise Free Shipping
- Ease and speed of delivery are often the deciding factor for consumers overwhelmed with options. Average order value with free shipping was +$22 higher than paid shipping median order values (source: Shopify Commerce Trends 2023)
- TIP: Activate Google’s Free & Fast Shopping Badge (if you qualify) and/or delivery times in your Google Merchant Center shipping settings if you qualify to make your customer-friendly delivery options stand out.
Leverage Local Promotions in Google LIA to highlight private label store brands
- In Grocery and CPG, consumers are increasingly switching to private label store brands. +41% of shoppers in 2022 said they bought more store brands than they did before the pandemic. (source: Shopify Commerce Trends 2023)
- Highlighting private label-specific sales and promotions with Google Local Promotions can amplify this trend and build loyalty to your high margin store brands.
Increase access to loyalty program discounts
- 73% of shoppers surveyed say having a loyalty program offered or accepted is important to them when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from. (source: thinkwithgoogle)
- Google is introducing the ability to showcase loyalty program benefits to shoppers in free listings to existing loyalty members and eventually to attract new loyalty members with Performance Max campaigns (by negating existing loyalty members using a Customer Match upload). Learn more here
- Some merchants may be able to showcase loyalty rewards on the SERP by linking their Google account to a loyalty benefits provider.
Promote Buy-Now-Pay-Later programs
- Buy-now-pay-later spending grew +438% in 2022 compared to 2019. (source: Shopify eCommerce Market Credibility Study: Data Review)
- Capitalize on this trend with call-outs in PMax ad copy so your payment options can show up on some shopping ad formats.
- For Facebook, consider leveraging the product ad’s headline or description to showcase any payment installment options. e.g. “4 Easy Payments of $19.99”
Prioritize promoting your most popular items
- Set custom labels in the feed to identify key product subsets to maximize your ad spend efficiency. Use dynamic calculations to organize your inventory by profit margin, PLA KPIs, and more.
- Consider showcasing best sellers to a prospect audience and new arrivals to existing customers.
- Learn more about incorporating Google Ads KPIs into your feed data with VersaFeed’s proprietary FeedBack tool.