The top of your funnel is always hungry. With Google’s imminent cookie phase-out, increased data privacy regulations, and the impact of Apple’s iOS updates on Facebook advertising, it has become a lot harder to feed the funnel using third-party data to find and acquire new customers. If there’s a silver lining to this situation, it’s that the necessary increased focus on fostering relationships with customers means you’ll understand them better and be able to provide better experiences, ultimately increasing customer lifetime value.

Your eCommerce site isn’t performing. You’ve tried all the usual fixes. Conclusion: you need a different approach. Should you go with Shopify Online Store 2.0? What about headless? Headless is becoming more common thanks to new tools and hosting, but it’s still not for everyone. Or, in another scenario, maybe you already went headless but the way it was built resulted in a costly headache. 

Here’s a little secret: a lot of brands have DTC eCommerce sites, but their revenue is largely driven by B2B. Why? It’s a smart model for building brand equity and brand recognition. And for keeping the lights on. Smaller brands (and even not-so-small brands) realistically can’t boil the internet ocean, so the savvy ones go where the market is more in their favor (e.g., third-party retail shops, gyms, salons, hotels) to get in front of their audiences directly with less competition. 

Revenue growth means finding more customers, right? Not necessarily. And that’s fortunate because, as you know, it’s becoming more costly to acquire them. We see it all the time: brands that want to grow their revenue decide to focus their efforts and budget on acquisition marketing. Or, they say they want to focus more on retention, but don’t make changes to their strategy and actually do it.

Many of us are shopping differently than we used to, from buying subscriptions to discovering new brands on social media. Some of us are rushing to do more shopping in stores after being limited by the pandemic, or ordering online and picking up curbside.     

Whether these changes are generational and/or a reaction to all that’s been happening in the world during the last few years, consumers’ expectations when it comes to shopping are now different and likely changed for good. What is it that consumers expect? Ultimately: that merchants meet them where they are. They want a cohesive customer experience that spans any channel at any time of day or night, and marketing and communications that are responsive to their preferences and life situations. In other words, consumers want omnichannel shopping experiences.

As 2022 comes to a close, we hope our recommendations and insights over the last year helped answer your questions, spark new ideas and put you on a path to optimize your business, including well-designed PDPs, great mobile experiences, fabulous site search, engaging lifestyle and educational content, proactive zero- and first-party data collection, more diversified marketing strategies, stellar subscription self-management portals, and more. 

If you’ve set up Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for your eCommerce website already, that’s great news. But are you using it? Chances are, you’re still leaning heavily on Universal Analytics (UA) for reporting – and you’re definitely not alone. However, it would be smart to start using GA4 now before a lapse in reporting creates a crisis for your business. Otherwise, we foresee a stressful scramble versus a serene summer – do what you can now to protect your sanity later!

YouTube is an eCommerce channel that can’t be ignored. In addition to being the second most popular social platform after Facebook with more than 2 billion monthly users worldwide, YouTube is also the second most popular search engine after Google. Research shows that 90% of consumers say they discover new brands or products on YouTube, and 40% say they have purchased those products. Seventy-five percent of consumers say that using YouTube makes for a better shopping experience. 

Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) is a critical event for most retailers, historically delivering 20-30% or more of total holiday revenue. Therefore, you want to be sure your eCommerce site is ready and able to handle the influx of visitors and that you have strategies in place to convert one-time purchasers into longer-term customers. To help merchants capitalize on BFCM this year, we reached out to some of our tech partners for insights on what is the most important area they think merchants should focus on to get the highest return on their efforts. 

It’s a mantra at eHouse Studio: brands must work to earn the customer. Beyond providing products and services consumers need and want, beloved brands with loyal customers also provide great customer experiences. If you can’t compete on experience, you’re boxed into competing on price, which can become a race to the bottom. Not an ideal situation for most eCommerce merchants.