The biggest mistake retailers and brands can make is underestimating the power of a well-executed marketplace strategy. This isn’t the kind of strategy where you bolt on a marketplace presence and cross your fingers; there is no “if you build it, they will come” when you take a haphazard approach. With 92% of consumers shopping on marketplaces last year, marketplaces have become an increasingly more important channel for finding consumers where they are.
To make marketplaces successful for your business, a digital advertising strategy is a must along with compelling content that converts. Let’s take a look at how advertising/content can drive more sales on marketplaces.
Create awareness
Launching a marketplace, listing products and waiting for customers to find you is not an effective way to generate demand. By building highly visible ad campaigns focused around key brand terms, you can find new customers and create buzz and attention for products. Almost 50% of consumers are willing to purchase from a brand they’ve never heard of before, which makes the use of ads to create awareness and drive discovery traffic to your product listings crucial for attracting customers.
Optimize ad spend
The first steps are to establish an ROI target (AKA return on ad spend) and set a strategy with the goal of driving as much revenue as you can. Ads can be an affordable way to increase sales while staying within your operating budget. The next thing to consider is where you’ll apply your ad spend. Digital advertising on social channels is increasingly effective, especially when you consider that 51% of consumers said the content they saw on their Facebook and Instagram feeds resulted in a purchase. Finally, it’s important to commit time and effort to ensure there is constant, efficient optimization of paid campaigns and that product listing content is kept relevant and compelling (e.g., photos, description, videos, etc.). Investing to create additional momentum for high-volume, revenue-driving products is also highly recommended.
Capture more share
Marketplaces are an extremely competitive space—there are 1.5 million active sellers on marketplaces and 457k new sellers just this year alone. To keep your products out in front of customers, it’s necessary to take digital shelf away from competitors. Your ad strategy should be strategically capturing traffic against top competitor keywords and products for both paid and organic search. The use of an overlapping advertising campaign strategy to dominate brand exposure versus competitors can be highly effective in capturing more share.
How Rithum advertising services help boost sales on marketplaces
Not only do we take care of launching your products on marketplaces, we handle the account setup and technical execution. We provide key performance indicator (KPI) monitoring and performance reporting to help keep your sales on track and give you the insights you need to adjust or pivot your strategy when a campaign is or isn’t working. Our ecommerce ad experts work to continuously optimize budgets, set the keyword strategy and advise on product mix. You’ll get targeted promotional and holiday support (Prime Day, Holiday 2021, etc.) along with ecommerce, search, and social marketing expertise on eBay, Walmart Marketplace, Amazon Advertising, Google Ads, Google Shopping, Bing Ads, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram and Pinterest.
Ready to sell with confidence on marketplaces? Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more or contact us to get started on optimizing your marketplace ad strategy.