The 2020 Ecommerce

TECH + TRENDS
Brand Growth
Guidebook
with partner insights from
+

1
 Contents

Executive Summary 3 Double Down on Website Optimization 24

2020 Is the Year of Clear Vision 4 Harness the Power of FOMO 24
Illuminate the Path: Understanding Attribution 5 Compliment the Consumer 24

The Rise of Multi-Touch Attribution 6 User Experience Research & Testing 25

Better Attribution = Better Segmentation 7 Site Search Optimizations 26

Customer Identification to Enhance Attribution 8 Hi [First Name], Personalize Your Marketing 28

Achieve Mobile Mastery on All Fronts 9 Your Website as a Personalization Tool 28

Mobile Optimization on Amazon 10 Email as Personalization Tool 29

Mobile Optimization on the Google Display Network 11 Alexa, What’s Happening With Voice Search? 30
Mobile Optimization for Paid Social Media Advertising 12 The Importance of Featured Snippets 31

Leverage Artificial Intelligence in the Future Now 15 The [Social] Proof Is in the Pudding 32
Augmented Reality 16 The Value of Influencer Marketing 33

Automation at Work 16 Sound the Alarm: Privacy Protection 34

Push Notifications and Chatbots 17 Tying It All Together 35
Get With the Program[matic] 18
Fuel Your Video Marketing Domination 21
YouTube Advertising 22
Amazon Video Advertising 23

Facebook Video Advertising 23

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Executive Summary

Online retail is booming across the globe. Ecommerce sales This comprehensive report is your roadmap to understanding
will surpass $4 trillion this year and you can expect them to all of the innovations, trends, and technological advances
approach $7 trillion by 2023.1 And with digital sales growing reshaping online advertising in 2020 and beyond. Within
over 6X faster than in-store sales through 2022,2 staying these 36 pages, you’ll uncover:
ahead of emerging technology and trends within digital
• The essential multi-channel approach to track
marketing isn’t just an option for successful brands.
consumer behavior throughout the entire purchase
funnel (and how to keep consumer trust amidst heightened
It’s becoming mandatory.
privacy concerns). (see page 5)

Ravenous competition is growing more fierce by the second. • Emerging AI and machine learning developments that
New technologies and platforms seem to multiply daily. boost conversion value by 30%. (see page 15)
Increasingly savvy shoppers are demanding a personalized and
• Practical video marketing strategies that increase
streamlined buying experience. It’s never been more essential
engagement on YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, and more.
for brands to understand the trends and opportunities that
(see page 21)
can lead to increased revenue and profitability.

3
1 https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/online-retail-sales-growth/
2 https://451research.com/451-research-s-global-unified-commerce-forecast-uncovers-dramatic-shifts-in-consumer-spending-patterns
 2020 is the Year of Clear Vision
Introductory insights from our friends at Emarsys

More than ever, marketers know they need to prove their
contribution to the bottom line. And they’re seeking tools,
tech, and data to help them do it.
Connecting day-to-day channel-specific metrics to business-
critical, strategic KPIs is what’s needed… and it rests solely on
marketers’ shoulders.
73% of CEOs believe that “marketers lack business credibility
and are not the business-growth generators they should be.”3
69% say “B2C marketers now live too much in their creative
and social media bubble, focusing on parameters [that] they
can’t really prove generate more business.”4
Technology is playing a pivotal role in this shift. Instead of
reporting just on open rates, web traffic, shopping carts,
click-through rates, and other vanity metrics, marketers are
now able to tie their tactical campaign-oriented successes to
revenue growth and customer retention.
This move from traditional benchmarking to what we
call benchmarketing is inherently focused on connecting
operational KPIs to strategic ones. Marketing teams are
thinking about and linking their work with the company’s
bottom line.
To learn more about benchmarketing, Click here!

The bottom line is that the work marketing contributes
does have an impact on the company’s bottom line. But it’s
up to marketers to demonstrate this connection and get the
attribution they deserve. We can’t afford to wait for the CEO
or stakeholders to do it for us.
As 2020 progresses, this foundational mindshift will continue
as marketers show how their work is directly driving revenue
and growth for the organization, allowing us to get the credit
we deserve.

Marketers are looking for options to start measuring

marketing efforts in “non-fluffy,” scientific-minded ways, and
to connect tactics to objectives.

4
3 https://www.fournaisegroup.com/marketers-lack-credibility/
4 https://medium.com/emarsys-marketer-machine/three-things-ceos-erroneously-believe-about-marketing-f3319917995e
Illuminate the Path: Understanding Attribution buy

A mere 17% of consumers browsing on The cold, hard reality is that over 75%
an ecommerce site for the first time of marketers believe they’re using the
have the intent to make a purchase.5 wrong attribution model, or just flat out
Looking at your conversions from solely don’t know if they are or not.6
a last-touch attribution perspective
won’t show you the big picture of your So if you struggle with attribution, the
buyer’s journey. good news is:

And what if your attribution model only You’re not alone.

records first touch? How can you have
an accurate understanding of your sales You also have a tremendous opportunity
funnel if you don’t know where 83% of to be among one of the few marketers
your traffic goes after visiting your site? who do have a working model!
How do you get them to come back
to your brand and convert, and what
touchpoint gets the credit?

In truth, you need an attribution

model that can identify and track each
individual touchpoint throughout your
entire sales funnel.

5
5 https://www.episerver.com/reports/reimagining-commerce-report/
6 https://www.bizible.com/hubfs/State-of-Pipeline-Marketing-Report-2017.pdf
 The Rise of Multi-Touch Attribution
Multi-touch attribution takes into consideration every single touchpoint in the buyer’s journey. While first- and last-touch
attribution still have their place in many marketing functions, eMarketer predicts that we’ll see marketers’ adoption rate of full
attribution models increase to 88% in 2020.7 These models help marketers glean a thorough understanding of the conversion
rates across all of their channels and the entirety of their funnel.

While 87% of retailers agree that having a multichannel strategy is critical to their success, only 8% have an effective strategy
in place.8

It’s time to stop treating your campaigns as if they’re separate entities with separate goals. Your entire advertising mindset
needs to be unified. You’re losing out on a massive amount of potential customers by relying on only a first- or last-click
attribution model, dumping all of your budget into what you see at the top or bottom of the funnel.

Instead, leverage advertising formats at every stage of your buyer’s journey - from awareness to consideration to conversion.

Aligning your advertising and marketing across email, social media, paid search, organic search, and Amazon to create one
consistent, unified experience is paramount to profitable, scalable revenue growth.

6
7 https://www.emarketer.com/content/who-is-using-multitouch-attribution
8 https://www.research-live.com/article/news/retailers-struggling-to-master-omnichannel/id/5031952
Better Attribution = Better Segmentation
A full view of your customer’s entire buying journey delivers Segmentation allows brands to track key metrics from
another added benefit: improved segmentation. multiple sources, including Facebook ads, text & display ads,
remarketing campaigns, and even organic traffic. Utilizing
By understanding every touchpoint along the path that each this data will empower your sales funnel, grow customer
customer takes to arrive at their purchase, you can easily lifetime value, improve customer loyalty, and increase your
segment your shoppers into highly granular buckets for unique overall profitability.
and personalized advertising opportunities. Segmenting
by demographic, location, device, and even the types of
content that users consume empowers you to make more
intelligent decisions about where it’s worth it to invest your
marketing budget.

Expert Resources Want to learn more about full-funnel branding for ecommerce marketing? Our Executive
Guide to Brand Attribution Marketing provides a strategic snapshot of how you can unify
your marketing funnel and cultivate a rich relationship with your target consumers. For a strategic look into full-
funnel success on Facebook specifically, our Facebook Full-Funnel Report uncovers game-changing insights to help
you align your brand’s growth goals with a multi-channel advertising approach across the entire path to purchase.
Brand Attribution Report: roirevolution.com/TTBAM Facebook Full-Funnel Report: roirevolution.com/TTFB

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 Customer Identification to Enhance Attribution
Segmentation insights from our friends at BounceX
As marketers, we know how important it is to employ an
attribution model that provides a full view of our customer
buying journey. With a clear look into which touchpoints (and
how many) lead to actual sales, marketers are better able to
allocate budgets to the channels that make the most impact
on their bottom line.
But the benefits don’t stop there. Better attribution, combined
with a deeper focus on customer identification, can empower
marketers to create hyper-personalized campaigns that
actually drive conversions.
Once your attribution model is in place, you can segment
customers depending on which channels drove them to your
site. These granularly segmented audiences can then be
bucketed to create personalized marketing campaigns that
speak to their individual browsing behavior. For example, if
you have an exclusive offering for your newsletter subscribers,
you’ll be able to personalize your landing page experience to
call that out to each visitor who comes from their inbox straight
to your site. Use this strategy for every channel you have in
order to make the most out of your social media, search, email,
display, and other campaigns.
8
At this stage, it’s common for many organizations to call it a
day. But stopping here could leave a lot of money on the table
for your business. Take it a step further by introducing a fully
realized customer identification strategy into your marketing
efforts. Look to a vendor that can identify each user who
visits your site, along with their onsite actions - independent
of cookie-based technology. This will enable you to serve
marketing messaging to your site visitors across the web
regardless of their cookie filters.
Once done, you’ll be able to personalize these messages even
further by highlighting everything from the products they may
have left in a cart to sales on items they’ve viewed multiple
times without purchasing.
By combining your attribution efforts with effective customer
identification, you’ll be able to create personalized marketing
experiences that increase lifetime value and improve
customer loyalty across each audience segment you have.
Achieve Mobile Mastery on All Fronts

We know that mobile isn’t anything new. It’s a trend that’s

been around for a while, but it’s only going to increase in
importance and relevance throughout 2020 and beyond.

In fact, mobile already drives nearly 65% of all paid search

clicks on Google!9 Mobile is also a major hub for social media
users, with 96% of active Facebook users accessing the social
media platform via mobile devices.10

Shoppers also flock to Amazon on their mobile devices, making

Amazon the most popular shopping app in the U.S. with 150.6
million monthly users (compared to Walmart, which is second
with 86.1 million monthly users).11

And it doesn’t stop there.

Nearly 50% of all retail ecommerce sales will occur on

a mobile device this year. By 2021, mobile will make up
the majority.12

9 https://www.statista.com/statistics/275814/mobile-share-of-organic-search-engine-visits/
10 https://www.oberlo.com/blog/facebook-statistics

9
11 https://www.oberlo.com/blog/amazon-statistics
12 https://www.statista.com/statistics/249863/us-mobile-retail-commerce-sales-as-percentage-of-e-commerce-sales/
 Mobile Optimization on Amazon
With the increasing popularity of Enhanced Brand Content
for brands selling on Amazon comes the opportunity to
optimize content with a mobile-first mentality. Brands are
now able to stack customized content on product detail pages
with a streamlined, mobile-optimized look.

Additionally, brands can create multi-page Amazon Stores to

showcase their unique story, help shoppers discover products,
and even track consumer insights to help optimize future ad
campaigns. These responsive widgets work on all screen sizes
and device types, making the opportunity to create mobile-
optimized product descriptions and bullet points more ripe
than ever.

With limited
screen real estate
on mobile devices,
put your most
important keywords
and features first
so that they appear
above the fold.

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 Mobile Optimization on the Google Display Network
Most smartphone users start researching products on a
search engine, not a brand’s site or app.13 This means that
while it’s important to have your ads on the Google Display
Network, that alone is not enough. Optimizing your Google
Display Network ads for mobile can be the difference
between someone converting with your business versus one
of your competitors.

“ When writing ad copy, try to focus on two

things: The target user’s experience with your
brand (also known as their place in the “funnel”)
This is a longer description of your
product for larger, not smaller screens.

and your brand’s voice, which should always be

Hallie Altman
Paid Search Analyst
13 https://ssl.gstatic.com/think/docs/mobile-path-to-purchase-5-key-findings_research-studies.pdf
present in ad copy. Instead of writing for a specific
Cropping images
platform, write for the action you’re hoping a user into squares
will take after seeing your ad. Speak to the user and crafting
who has purchased from you differently than concise copy that
you speak to a user who has never been to your
brand’s website, and always write ad copy that
can fit smaller
aligns with your CTA. Keep in mind that on most screen sizes are
platforms, including Facebook and the Google two easy ways
Display Network, your ad copy may be cut short if to optimize your
it doesn’t fit into a certain placement. Try to avoid
this by previewing your ad in all available formats!
Google Display
Network
ads for mobile.
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 Mobile Optimization for Paid Social Media Advertising
Facebook Advertising
Facebook has 2.2 billion active users on mobile alone,
far surpassing the 1.47 billion active desktop users!14
When advertising, make sure to view the mobile version in
Facebook’s ad creator. You should also consider Facebook
Messenger advertising as a way to create a smooth, seamless
sales experience.

Instagram Advertising
Instagram is growing steadily as a platform for ecommerce
advertising, projected to bring $12.3 billion in ad revenue
in 2020.15 Brands have lots of new and exciting ways to 68% of Instagram
keep interested shoppers engaged, including product users interact with
drop reminders that send notifications about new product
influencers on
launches, ad placements on the Instagram Explore page to
engage targeted audiences, or the Checkout on Instagram Instagram. 16

feature to empower shoppers to purchase from your brand

right from the Instagram app.
Branded Content Ads
(featuring a new
“Paid Partnership” label to
promote transparency)
play a big part
in allowing brands
Flip to page 33 to dive deeper into influencer marketing! to turn organic
influencer content
into Instagram ads.
14 https://wearesocial.com/blog/2019/01/digital-2019-global-internet-use-accelerates

12
15 https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/
16 https://www.adweek.com/digital/instagram-advertisers-can-now-promote-creators-organic-branded-content-posts-as-ads/
Emerging Advertising Channels: Snapchat + TikTok
Snapchat is exploring a native checkout feature to allow
advertisers to dynamically remarket to shoppers as well
as directly attribute sales to Snapchat ads. It also boasts
a Snapchat for Business feature designed to drive brand
awareness. With 38% of Snapchat’s audience not visiting
Instagram on a daily basis,17 this platform provides the
opportunity for your brand to reach an untapped market.

TikTok can also help brands tap into a newer market. While it
may just be another app in a long line of digital fads to come
and go, for now, it’s a direct line to Gen Z. With 800 million
monthly active users,18 TikTok has quickly become one of
the most popular social media apps in the world. The app
currently offers paid pre-roll & in-feed ads, promoted hashtag
Leverage customer
challenges, and branded filters for ecommerce brands. It’s chat extensions
also testing shoppable videos to make it easier for brands to and plugins to
sell directly from their business profile by attaching a URL to communicate directly
their videos that takes users to their store with one quick tap.
with your consumers
and answer their
questions. Just make
sure you have the
For more on chat extensions, flip to page 17! available resources
to keep up with
17 https://forbusiness.snapchat.com/
18 https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/tiktok-stats
your chat! 13
14
Leverage Artificial Intelligence in the Future Now

Artificial intelligence is an incredibly powerful tool to empower But what if you’re struggling to know who to target in the
your brand and drive more revenue & customer acquisition. It first place? AI can unlock data that reveals who you should
can help brands to: be targeting. This can make it a lot easier for you to segment
your audience by important characteristics like shopping
• Predict product and content recommendations.
preferences and demographics.
• Gain a clear understanding on buyer intent through
customer data that shows who is likely to convert and Google and Microsoft Bing themselves have turned to
who is likely to bounce. machine learning and AI to refine their search algorithms, ad
rank thresholds, build smart display campaigns, implement
• Automate time-consuming, manual tasks.
automated bidding strategies, enhance chatbot extensions,
and more.
As marketers propel into a new decade, the roles of AI and
machine learning will continue to grow. More and more
businesses will look to streamline marketing tasks and free
up time to focus on big-picture ideas to boost brand growth
& revenue.

Machine learning makes it crystal clear which channels drive

the most traffic and conversions by quickly and accurately
calculating the impact of multiple touchpoints in the journey
of both individual buyers and audience segments. Machine
learning empowers marketers to make more intelligent, data-
driven decisions than ever before.

15
 Augmented Reality
By 2022, augmented reality (AR) is expected to be a $90 billion industry.19 AR combines digital information with a physical
environment in real time, allowing consumers to customize their unique shopping experience no matter what kind of product
they’re buying.

Amazon embraces AR with Amazon AR View, which enables shoppers to see how items from electronics to kitchen tables
would look in their own home. Nike released an augmented reality app in 2019 that helps shoppers know the right shoe size to
buy. Plus, Sephora’s mobile app allows shoppers to upload a selfie and virtually try on makeup before buying it.

Augmented reality is coming to the forefront as a key differentiator to make your brand more appealing to shoppers. It’s time
to critically think about how your brand can embrace augmented reality for more revenue generation.

Automation at Work

Your team can automate mundane tasks in order to have more time to uncover
and evaluate data. 88% of marketers say that automation helps them free PRO TIP
up time they’d spend on analyzing trends and preparing reports.20 In return,
marketers find themselves with more time to dive deeper into the nitty-gritty Automation can also help you create
of the data and devise successful campaign strategies. personalized emails when customers
make a purchase, abandon a cart,
To give marketers even more time to strategize, craft compelling copy, and run or interact with you on social media
successful campaigns, automation can even create a predictive lead scoring to increase the chances they’ll
model based on your customers’ demographic, behavioral, and social data. convert. Want to dive deeper into
personalization? Flip to page 28!

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19 https://www.digi-capital.com/news/2018/01/ubiquitous-90-billion-ar-to-dominate-focused-15-billion-vr-by-2022/
20 https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170215005074/en/Study-Finds-AI-Adoption-Marketing-Limited-Marketers%E2%80%99
Push Notifications and Chatbots
Push notifications are a great way to reach a shopper who’s Just the facts:
close to converting with your brand. For example, push
• Chatbots are increasingly becoming the norm, with
notifications can ping a shopper who has an item in their online
40% of Millennials using chatbots on a daily basis.
shopping cart with an exclusive deal when they’re within a few
miles of your brick-and-mortar store. This allows you to reach • 53% of consumers are more likely to shop with a
shoppers at the right place and the right time. business they can message.

• 56% of people prefer to message rather than call

Chatbots are also a great way to promote communication
customer service.22
between your brand and the shopper. Customers expect
chatbots to give them quick answers (often in great detail), • By 2020, 85% of customer service interactions will use
resolve issues, and even provide them with ideas or chatbot technology in some capacity.23
inspiration for purchases.21

The chatbot market is expected to be worth $1.34 billion by

2024.22 The beginning of the new decade is the perfect time
for you to start adopting chatbots into your brand’s strategy.

21 https://outgrow.co/blog/vital-chatbot-statistics

17
22 https://www.gminsights.com/pressrelease/chatbot-market
23 https://www.invespcro.com/blog/chatbots-customer-service/
 Get With the Program[matic]

Programmatic advertising isn’t a new advertising medium, but it’s exploded on the scene in recent years and only continues to
grow. In 2016, programmatic ad spend accounted for roughly $18.6 billion. Fast-forward to 2019, and that number jumped to
over $50 billion, almost a 3x increase in just three years!24 According to eMarketer, programmatic advertising is the fastest
growing segment of digital marketing.

So, why should your brand leverage programmatic display advertising? Because this powerful format gives brands the
opportunity to get their message in front of highly targeted custom audiences, wherever they are on the internet. With platforms
like Google’s Ad Exchange, TradeDesk, and the recently launched Amazon DSP, brands can leverage the overwhelming
consumer data points these advertising giants have uncovered while allowing the platforms to do the heavy lifting with real-
time bid adjustments, dynamic ad creation, and even programmatic ad buying.

By harnessing the power of automation and AI, these campaigns are able to automatically optimize for your brand’s specific
goals and will only serve ads to the audiences with the highest intent to purchase. Additionally, due to artificial intelligence being
built directly into these advertising platforms, brands are able to access a bevvy of data-rich reporting to dig into campaigns
and better analyze their performance at a granular level. This allows advertisers to make decisions based on real consumer
data and not just what their gut is telling them.

18 24 https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/blog/programmatic-display-advertising/
 Client Success Story

Amazin’ Amazon: 3.5x Views + 35% Revenue Boost

School Specialty, an enterprise client and retailer that sells school supplies, was looking for a way to increase visibility during
their highly seasonal summer months. The ROI Revolution team tested Amazon DSP first in June and July of 2019.

The profitable return results were so impressive that in August, the brand expanded their DSP campaigns to include the overall
School Specialty brand. They leveraged seasonal creative, custom remarketing lists, and Amazon DSP’s layered audience
targeting capabilities to drive more traffic to their Amazon storefront, offering customers a broad view of their product catalog.

This upper-funnel branding play combined with Amazon’s rich audience data led to a 3.5x increase in Product Detail Page views.
This directly translated into an additional 35% increase in total YOY Amazon revenue in August and September. Considering
that School Specialty is a half-billion-dollar brand, you can imagine how impactful that 35% truly is!

19
20
Fuel Your Video Marketing Domination

Most brands understand just how powerful video can be. In
fact, 93% of marketers have landed a new client from a video
on social media. But 75% feel held back when it comes to
creating more videos.25
So where is the friction?
Just the facts:
• 90% of consumers watch videos online at least once
per week.26
• Viewers are 95% more likely to remember a CTA after
watching it in a video (versus 10% when reading text).27

• Consumers named video as the #1 way they discovered

The answer is simple. Too many businesses are stuck in the
a brand they later purchased from.28
past, seeing video as an incredibly expensive, time-consuming
format requiring more bandwidth and tools than they’ll ever • 81% of marketers say video has helped them generate
have. leads.29

But that’s not the reality.

The reality is, you don’t need a full-fledged production crew

to create quality videos. You can start by making short videos
of your product that you already have in your arsenal. You can
even start out with only photos!

25 https://animoto.com/blog/industry-news/social-video-trends-marketers-say-vs-do-infographic/
26 https://optinmonster.com/video-marketing-statistics-what-you-must-know/
27 https://www.oberlo.com/blog/video-marketing-statistics

21
28 https://animoto.com/blog/news/social-video-trends-consumers-2020
29 https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics-2019/
 YouTube Advertising
As the world’s second largest search engine, YouTube presents
brands with the perfect chance to drive profits and awareness.
YouTube TrueView video ads offer a powerful platform to
create lively, story-driven content for brand awareness.
Display video ads appear when a consumer is researching
products like yours through the Google Display Network,
offering highly targeted solutions to their specific needs.
You can even create custom remarketing lists by linking your
YouTube channel to your Google Ads account, fostering re-
engagement with consumers who are more likely to convert.
YouTube TrueView video & discovery ads offer a powerful
platform for advertisers to create engaging, story-driven
content to promote brand awareness. These appear on the
YouTube homepage, in search results, and on “watch” pages.
They perform best with engaging, educational content.
TrueView for Google Shopping ads overlay YouTube videos
with featured products from the already successful Shopping
format. With one click, customers are directed to the products
in the video and can purchase them without any in-between
steps, significantly reducing friction.

YOUR YOUR AD HOME

SCREEN YOUR
AD YOUR AD
PRODUCT

YOUR
PRODUCT

DISPLAY DISCOVERY SHOPPING

Expert Resources Want to learn more about how to take advantage of YouTube’s unmatched audience reach
and engagement? Discover success on the world’s second largest search engine. In our
exclusive report on YouTube advertising, you’ll find expert insights and comprehensive industry data to position your
brand to profit from this golden opportunity. Access the YouTube Advertising Report: roirevolution.com/TTYT

22
Amazon Video Advertising
Video has been picking up speed for several years on Amazon. This includes related videos on product details pages, tutorial
videos, unique product view videos, Enhanced Brand Content, and even secondary image placements.

This spike in video content will only continue as both brands and Amazon are enlightened to the potential selling power that
videos possess.

Consumers with an Amazon Fire TV device have access to additional video advertising opportunities through the Live TV
feature. This access to popular on-demand channels offers another chance for brands to offer targeted advertising to consumers.

Facebook Video Advertising

90% of all content shared by users on social media is video. Facebook videos earn 8 billion
views every day, and native videos (those uploaded to Facebook instead of YouTube) have
a 6.3% engagement rate, more than double the industry average! Additionally, consumers YOUR BRAND
engage the most with branded videos on Facebook (49%), followed by YouTube (32%) and
Instagram (24%).30

In-stream Video Ads offer a great opportunity to increase top of funnel visibility. They are
not skippable, and 70% of ads are watched all the way through, most with sound on!31 In fact,
studies by Facebook have shown that these ads have even outperformed live TV when it comes
to keeping the attention of users.

23
30 https://www.lemonlight.com/blog/60-video-marketing-stats-2018/
31 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/902459833240201?
 Double Down on Website Optimization

If there’s only one mantra you live by in 2020, it should be this: Never stop improving your website. With the complexity of the
buyer’s journey and so many consumer touchpoints, continuous, data-driven improvements to your website are an excellent
driver of profitable revenue growth.

Only 22% of businesses are happy with their current conversion rates.32

Harness the Power of FOMO Compliment the Consumer

Adding something as simple as “Limited Time Offer” to a
product page can have a huge beneficial impact. FOMO,
or the fear of missing out, is a conversion tool that brands
and retailers have been using for nearly a century to
influence purchase decisions.
While scaring a customer into a purchase can be good in
the short term, inviting them to one with compliments
can build consumer trust and loyalty while creating
lifelong advocates. With consumers’ attention spans
averaging at only eight seconds,33 everything you put in
front of them needs to add value and provide the best
possible experience ASAP.

People love to hear good things about themselves, so

% OFF

PRO TIP give your consumers what they want: compliments that
promote a winning, valuable feeling. You know what they
Consumers intrinsically want what they can’t say… a happy customer is a loyal customer!
have. Creating a sense of urgency can help boost
conversions, especially coupled with an enticing
promotion or discount.

24
32 https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/customer-testimonials/
33 https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2018/09/the-human-attention-span-infographic.html
User Experience Research & Testing
Researching user experience on your website should be at the
top of your to-do list when your goal is to improve conversion ?
rates. Analyzing user experience (UX) on your website with
user session recordings, heat maps, and scroll maps provide
a great snapshot of how users navigate your site.

You’ll get unbiased insights into how your target audiences

& demographics interact with your pages, helping you
determine friction points where consumers may be confused
or frustrated, and cater to your audience with data-driven
decisions moving forward.

Additionally, UX testing can help you determine if the layout

of your site makes the most sense and is easily navigable.
Finding elements that are unclickable when people are trying
to click or navigation menus that aren’t getting any traffic can
help you determine the best way to optimize your site, or at
least offer up testing opportunities.

25
 Site Search Optimizations
Consumers who use site search are up to 200% more likely to convert,33 since they’re usually further in their buyer’s journey
than those simply browsing or searching on Google or Amazon. They are high-intent shoppers looking for something very
specific on your website and are ready to make a purchase. These conversions also tend to have larger average order values
(AOVs).

Just the facts:

• Up to 30% of ecommerce site visitors use internal site search.34
• Site searchers account for up to 14% of all revenue.34
• Conversion rates can increase as much as 43% from site search optimization.34

Client Case Study

At ROI Revolution, we believe in testing, testing, and more testing until we find the absolute best solution for our
clients. For one of our clients, our conversion team ran a website analysis where it was noted that their site search
was very generic and blended into the rest of the navigation. After running many split tests, a variation offering more
specific field text in the search box, a stronger button reflecting the search function, and increased prominence of the
search box led to a nearly 16% lift in conversion rate!

26 34 https://cxl.com/blog/convert-visitors-improving-internal-site-search/
www

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 Hi [First Name], Personalize Your Marketing

Today’s consumer isn’t fooled by the gimmicky advertising, over-the-top pitches, or the spammy tactics of yesteryear. Today’s
consumer expects a unique shopping experience tailored specifically to their unique needs and preferences.

The good news is that this is achievable with the right data points, attribution, and segmentation.

Your Website as a Personalization Tool

It’s more important than ever for your website to provide shoppers with a personalized experience. Each visitor should be
targeted uniquely based on the data points you’ve collected from them (or obtained through Google Analytics).

Offering product recommendations based on previous search queries, personalized messaging based on key demographic or
geolocation data, and even adaptive landing pages with altered content based on the user’s interests are all great ways to cater
to consumers’ preference for personalization.

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Email as a Personalization Tool
It’s not just your website that can be personalized. With every email you send to your customers or prospects, you have the
opportunity to implement strategic personalization tactics.

Examples of email personalization include birthday or anniversary emails, location- or season-specific copy, well-timed product
reordering reminders, or customized product recommendations.

Why personalize? Because it works:

• More than 90% of consumers are likely to buy from brands with personalized offers and recommendations.35

• 88% of marketers say personalization drives better customer experience for their business.36

• Personalization can lower customer acquisition costs by 50%, boost revenue by 15%, and increase spend efficiency
by 30%.37

PRO TIP

Creating a customized welcome series introducing new customers to your brand or

offering complimentary products is a great way to increase customer lifetime value.

35 https://www.marketo.com/infographics/marketing-predictions-2020-and-beyond/

29
36 https://www.evergage.com/resources/ebooks/trends-in-personalization-survey-report/
37 https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/43-facts-on-content-personalization-marketing-strategy
 Alexa, What’s Happening With Voice Search?

With over 66 million Americans owning a smart speaker, voice search is projected to be a $40 billion channel by 2022. And
since 43% of voice-enabled device owners use their device to shop and 11.5% of smart speaker owners make voice purchases
monthly, the future looks bright for voice search.38

People speak differently than they type. When typing, it’s all about convenience. People use short, keyword-rich phrases.
When people speak, they tend to ask questions or make a full statement as opposed to a fragmented phrase or keyword. Having
the content of your ad built around answering a full question or statement will help you reach a much broader audience in
voice search.

PRO TIP

Utilize structured data on your website!

When Google receives a voice search about
a specific product, they are looking for the
most relevant, easiest-to-access answer.
If your structured product data is built
into your website’s HTML, Google can
automatically pull the info, giving you first
dibs on valuable search results.

30 38 https://www.dialogtech.com/blog/voice-search-statistics/
The Importance of Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are concise blocks of text that appear at
the top of a search engine results page, offering a quick and
convenient answer to the user’s question. More than 40% of
all voice search answers were pulled from featured snippets .39
Additionally, question signifiers like what, where, or how
and action verbs like designing, cooking, or growing in your
keywords help hone in on users looking for the answer to a
specific question.

This means that in 2020, brands will need to actively compete

for featured snippet placements.

If your page ranks first for a search term and is also the
featured snippet, you gain 31% more traffic compared to
having the first position without the featured snippet.40

To optimize your content for featured snippets, ask yourself:

What questions are customers in your industry asking?
Which keywords correspond to those queries? Often, long-
tail keyword groups with a high volume of searches are ideal.
Searchers rarely ask questions in exactly the same way, so
targeting a cluster of closely related ideas allows you to create
better answers.

An added bonus: Long-tail keywords usually have less

competition.

31
39 https://www.brafton.com/blog/seo/8-voice-search-statistics-in-2019-and-why-they-matter/
40 https://ahrefs.com/blog/find-featured-snippets/
 The [Social] Proof Is in the Pudding

Over 90% of consumers say that positive online reviews and testimonials have influenced their buying decisions. In fact, if your
product has zero reviews, getting just five reviews can increase shoppers’ purchase likelihood by 270%.41

Additionally, having 50 or more reviews for a product can increase conversion rates as much as 4.6% and click-through rates
by as much as 45%!42

Having social proof like reviews, testimonials, FAQs, product tutorials, or user-generated content (UGC) are all excellent ways
to improve your conversions. The more information you can provide prior to a sale, the less likely a customer will feel mislead
or angry after a purchase.

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The Value of Influencer Marketing
Eight out of every 10 consumers have purchased a product
recommended by an influencer.43
Influencer marketing has the capacity to be this successful
because influencers allow marketers to reach their target
audience through someone the consumer already knows,
likes, and trusts.
With influencer marketing’s ROI surpassing 430% on
average,45 it’s no wonder that brands are set to spend up to
$15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022.47 The top
challenges with investing in influencer marketing are finding
& verifying influencers who fit best with your brand and
measuring the return on influencer marketing campaigns.

Any brand can benefit from influencer marketing, but it’s more
likely to be effective with Gen Z and Millennial audiences than
Gen X and Baby Boomers. 66% of Gen Z survey respondents
are more likely to purchase a product endorsed by an
influencer, compared to 43% of Baby Boomers.44

Equipped with data and insights into the influencer

community, Instagram is currently the most effective platform
for influencer marketing with over 800,000 “influential
accounts.”45 Slightly behind Instagram in popularity is YouTube
and then, more distantly, Facebook.46

41 https://www.brightlocal.com/resources/online-reviews-statistics-2019/&sa=D&ust=1576861362422000&usg=AFQjCNFysfYViUPwv5boi2fkMUuebHPX1w
42 https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/what-is-social-proof-and-why-is-it-important-for-marketing
43 https://www.oberlo.com/blog/influencer-marketing-statistics
44 https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/the-psychology-behind-trust-signals
45 https://www.aspireiq.com/blog/10-influencer-marketing-statistics-2020

33
46 https://mediakix.com/blog/how-to-choose-social-media-channels-influencer-marketing/
47 https://www.businessinsider.com/influencer-marketing-report
 Sound the Alarm: Privacy Protection
Let’s be honest... if you can’t reach your audience, all of the
tech tips, tricks, and trends in this guidebook will only benefit
other brands. Compliance with privacy regulations keeps
your audience accessible.
Privacy was a huge point of contention throughout the past
decade and will continue to be a top concern in 2020. From the
EU enforcing consumer privacy regulations through General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 to California
being the first state in the U.S. to mandate similar regulations
with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2020,
more and more regulations are being enforced to protect
consumers’ personal data.
And it’s going to become increasingly important to consumers
that their personal data stays private.
There are huge concerns with privacy among consumers,
and social media platforms like Facebook have been facing
these issues head on. This is a huge hurdle that all brands and
retailers are fighting to overcome.
48 https://tdwi.org/articles/2019/02/20/dwt-all-data-privacy-security-consumer-concerns.aspx
34
49 https://www.edelman.com/research/2018-edelman-trust-barometer
50 https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewarnold/2018/07/29/consumer-trust-in-social-media-is-declining-heres-how-brands-should-change-their-strategies/#564882466b76
Based on a survey taken one year after the news about
Cambridge Analytica came out, 76.3% of consumers feel
moderately or significantly concerned about their data when
they interact with brands.48 To get more specific, 60% of
consumers don’t trust social media companies in particular
to behave responsibly with their personal data. And globally,
only 41% of consumers trust social media platforms.49
Overall, 54% of consumers aren’t comfortable with their in-
store purchases being tracked for targeted marketing. 49%
would rather have data privacy than personalized shopping
experiences.50
For any brand relying on consumer data to personalize ad
copy, ad placements, email copy, and more, consumers’ fears
around privacy will be a concern.
Brands will need to keep this in mind as they continue their
personalization efforts - especially when those efforts are
backed by automation and the results may not be known until
they’re out in the open. Transparency and honesty will be key
to keeping consumers’ trust during this time.
 Tying It All Together

No matter the industry, all businesses face the same challenge: growing profitably.
Stepping up to this challenge always requires complex new initiatives, strategies, and realignments.

With this guidebook, you now possess the knowledge and strategies to help you steer your brand
towards growth.

The power lies in your hands to take what you’ve learned here and implement it in your business.

Cheers to your future success!

Report Contributors

Author
Sarah Davis Dave Stone Katherine Dull Chris Rosaferra
www.roirevolution.com Content Marketing Manager of Graphic Design Art
Specialist Content Marketing Specialist Manager
35
 ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Think of us as a Seamless Extension of Your Team
Founded in 2002, ROI Revolution is the digital marketing agency chosen by
450+ growing brands including PUMA, Lumber Liquidators, Lenovo, SONY,
Advance Auto Parts, and more. Functioning as an extension of your marketing
team, our experts utilize an in-house suite of proprietary software alongside
deep industry knowledge to grow revenue and customer acquisition at scale.
We currently drive over $1 billion in
annual revenue for our clients in a variety
of channels including Paid Search, Amazon
Advertising, Facebook/Social Advertising,
Google Shopping, Product Feeds, SEO,
and Conversion Optimization.
WE’RE HERE TO HELP! Visit us anytime at
36
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