How Niche Marketing Changed: Channels that Work Best for eCommerce Websites

Whenever your ecommerce business is related to selling electronics, food, car parts, or you may own a travel agency or a bookstore business, you need to understand which channels will generate the most revenue and traffic. At the same time, it’s worth keeping up with the peculiarities each segment of the market has.

To regularly update marketers and business owners of the situation with the effectiveness of digital market performance, we have prepared our Annual Ecommerce Report and perform a detailed analysis of the following niches: electronics, car parts, beauty & health, fashion, children’s goods, books, travelling, home & garden. This time we researched 292 online stores with $2.38 bn of annual revenue from 16 Central & Eastern European countries. Fasten your belts and let’s go digital marketing!

Electronics

Facts & figures:

Average order value: $ 231

Average load speed: 6.7 sec

Conversion: 0.5 %

The average order value in the niche of electronics was 25% higher than a year ago, meaning customers continue buying gadgets online and are ready to pay more. This could be the highest figure across the niches explored, apart from car parts.

Paid search has been the king of digital marketing channels in this niche again, adding almost 10% of revenue to last year’s indicator.

Display advertising brings 7.3% of traffic but generates poor revenues (0.9%).

Why should this matter?

• While big market players are ready to spend a fortune to win PPC bidding and top the search results page, this is definitely not a good strategy for smaller businesses. Unlike building brand awareness to further focus on branded traffic, which costs less and surrounds you with a reliable audience of loyal customers. Make your brand a top-of-mind and here you go with both traffic & revenues!

Euronics is the Largest Electrical Buying Group in Europe, represented with online and offline electronics stores in the UK. They increase brand awareness via a lifestyle blog, sharing advice and life hacks that could be interesting to their target audience.

• All the efforts –  to build your brand awareness. If you aim for traffic, invest in remarkable ad creatives. Spread these across your target audience online, via TV and other media. At the same time, investing in display advertising is apparently a bad choice if you go for revenues. To sum up, a respectively high share of display ads is the result of out-the-box thinking of designers and content creators, which works well for traffic but sadly has less to do with the growth of revenues and conversion rates

eCommerce Web Design Companies

• As an option, develop an SMM strategy that could be used for communication and entertainment rather than selling products. This will not result in instant revenues but acts as an irreplaceable link in the chain that leads to a purchase on your website

Fashion

Facts & figures:

Average order value: $ 74.6

Average load speed: 5.7 sec

Conversion: 1.3 %

Although paid and organic search dominate the fashion niche both in traffic and revenue, the shares of display and social channels keep growing compared to the ones of last year.

Display advertising has the highest traffic share (11.9%) among all niches.

Relatively high is the share of the direct channel in terms of revenues.

The Email channel still works well in terms of revenue. Its share is 8.6%.

Average load speed has been 1.1% faster than last year.

Why should this matter?

• Even though display advertising is much more effective in terms of traffic growth, it’s not a reason to underestimate the benefits of digital display advertising. Use a combination of TV ads with digital marketing – this way you will gain the attention of both adult age groups and Millenials
• Invest in email marketing to increase brand awareness and revenues. Let your consumers see the name of your brand as often as possible. Offer signup discounts, special offers for their favourites and never let them abandon their cart. This way, sooner or later their Google searches will include your brand name
• At the same time, don’t forget that websites loading within 4-5 seconds receive the highest conversion rate. In the fashion niche, this indicator has been close to perfect. Try to meet consumers’ expectations, since few people are happy to stay knocking on your website’s door

Travel

Facts & figures:

Average order value: $ 163.2

Average load speed: 5.7 sec

Conversion: 0.5 %

Organic search remains a major revenue- and traffic-generating channel in this niche, while the share of paid search both for traffic and revenue is the lowest among all the niches.

Referral marketing is falling greatly compared to last year’s indicators. They have been generating 14.4% less traffic and an impressive 37.1% fewer revenues.

Email marketing started generating more revenues than it did during 2018 (1.26% vs 4.2% in 2019).

Conversion rate has been twice as low compared to last year.

Why should this matter?

• Think of useful content that can generate genuine interest. Focus on visual content and use more real-life photos. Collaborate with opinion leaders and take images just from your followers’ holidays to build an atmosphere of trust among your followers
• Market leaders like Booking and Airbnb have been using referral links you share with friends and family for a very long time. And it seems to never lose popularity. Think of a similar strategy for your business in this niche to use the undisclosed potential of referral marketing
• Retention matters. Once bringing a positive experience to your consumers, they will definitely stay with you for the next couple of voyages. To engage their interest, create emotional email campaigns that are likely to trigger a spontaneous purchase, i.e. revenue for your business. Who could ever resist from booking a tour once taking a glance at the bounty-like beaches with white sands? J̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶h̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶l̶e̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶r̶o̶n̶a̶v̶i̶r̶u̶s̶ ̶g̶o̶
• Together with the increase in companies that gained trust among consumers, growing is the competition for them within the travelling niche. At the same time, an overall Go Mobile tendency for sure had an impact on travellers’ behaviour. 23% of travellers going on a trip for leisure are confident they’ll find the same flight or hotel details on mobile compared to desktop. Here is where you might be losing your conversion rates. This makes us believe, you can’t go far without a mobile app and en easy checkout system embedded to it

Car Parts

Facts & figures:

Average order value: $ 235.4

Average load speed: 6.9 sec

Conversion: 0.6 %

The average order value is the highest amongst all niches explored.

Paid advertising keeps driving the most traffic and revenue, while the share of organic search is the lowest compared to other niches.

Why should this matter?

• Paid search works best in this niche and using it for your business is justified. To ensure the smooth performance of your advertising campaigns we recommend using automation. Machine learning helps both to save time and eliminate a chance of human error. This is crucial for car parts sellers, whose website usually offers a large variety of goods, lots of these are also represented on a supplier or manufacturer’s site. Meaning you need to control all the price changes and instantly notify consumers. Use all the variety of tools, scripts and auto-rules to ensure timely adjustments on your website and search results page. Once set up correctly, the algorithms work to upload the most relevant information without you constantly updating or, what is worse, searching for it elsewhere
• With paid search being an obvious leader both in traffic and revenues, unconditional becomes the competition. Let your campaigns be focused on customer loyalty. Think of a strategy that could engage your audience to bookmark your website and type your name in Google
• To generate more organic traffic, launch a blog and use it to engage car owners. Discover their interests and learn about pains they have in everyday life. Write about long-standing problems and offer cost-effective solutions. Create text content and film some useful how-to videos for newbies to post and share your content on social networks. Next time, when they need to change an oil filter or servicing parts, they will know where to go

Books

Facts & figures:

Average order value: $ 17

Average load speed: 5.9 sec

Conversion: 1.3 %

Organic search has a leading position in terms of traffic, while paid search is still on top when it comes to revenue.

Email indicator is the highest among all niches and occupies the third position both for revenue and traffic.

The conversion rate in this niche is twice as low compared to last year’s figures.

Average order value is the lowest among all the niches.

Why should this matter?

• A possible reason for low conversion rates is that your CTA fails. Make sure it’s clear enough, easily accessible on any step of the customers’ journey. Mind pop-ups: these must not prevent your visitors to decide on the novel they would love to open this Saturday night or for any reason be intrusive. Keep the text positive, avoid this occupying too much of a user screen’s space and make sure your call-to-action remains the most valuable component of your message
• All book lovers, no matter how united they are, have certain preferences over genres, topics and formats. Make sure each of these can be easily found by volume to enjoy while browsing your site. Segmentation can help both with merchandising and the email marketing strategy you have in place

Waterstones is a famous British book retailer represented with 283 offline stores and a perfectly organised website. Their customers not only receive a selection of the month and half-priced items just at the home page but have access to thematic events, blog and event podcasts. A very good example to follow.

• Online bookstores is where email marketing definitely works. Consumers of this niche:
• don’t mind reading a couple of lines in their inbox
• will not go far once they had a positive experience with their books delivery

What remains is gaining trust among book lovers and retaining them. Free delivery, special offers and recommendation emails work fine here. At the same time, “You may also like” suggestions right before the checkout can increase the average order value

• Delivering subscription boxes is a popular strategy you might consider using for your business in this niche. Just because bookworms are likely to need replenishment of their bookshelves. Cross-selling is what your retention strategy will always benefit from

Children's Goods

Facts & figures:

Average order value: $ 33

Average load speed: 6.9 sec

Conversion: 0.6 %

Paid search firmly wins both traffic and revenue indicators in this niche. Organic search occupies the silver position.

The share of email marketing is twice lower than what it was in 2018. This concerns both traffic and revenues.

Conversion rate drops by almost 1% compared to last year’s marker.

Why should this matter?

• In this niche, consumers tend to make emotional purchases more than in any other. An easy way to help them get another bib or a Barbie doll is to knock on their inboxes. Moms are 50% more likely to buy toys online than the average consumer. Especially useful can be targeted campaigns sent during the back to school period or special offers for Christmas, etc.
• Here it’s really important to gain the trust of the audience since we deal not only with customer satisfaction but care about the health and lives. Make sure your products’ value is clearly stated on the website and includes the safety of their little consumers and a list of reliable testimonials. Make USP vocal to gain better conversion rates
• SMM can be your magic wand in this niche. Let housewives share experience and engage discussions on the company social pages to create some positive buzz and generate more traffic

Home and Garden

Facts & figures:

Average order value: $ 185.6

Average load speed: 7.2 sec

Conversion: 0.3 %

Paid search is number one in terms of traffic.

Display advertising has one of the highest indicators among all niches (7.2% of traffic generated over the past year).

In this niche, the share of the referral channel in revenues is exclusively high and equals paid search indicators.

A page in this niche loads within the eternal 7.2 sec, which is the worst indicator in 2019.

Conversion rate is the lowest of all the niches explored.

Why should this matter?

• What is good about Google Shopping ad campaigns is that products are grouped aligned with the context of their sales goals and optimisation is done from there. In other words, on the SERP you immediately see the product title, how it looks like, the price and even shipping or promotional information (sometimes even showing up next to similar products). This is exactly what homeware and garden appliances consumers expect going online
• Customers of this segment tend to buy more from an offline store, while they can still browse from a desktop or mobile. This explains a relatively high share of direct and display channels when it comes to the traffic generated in this niche. This claims that building strong brand awareness is a must again
• Ensure a smooth omnichannel experience your customers will love. For traffic consider display advertising, for better revenue use the referral channel and collaborate with bloggers to create tutorials and insiders’ reviews

Beauty and Health

Facts & figures:

Average order value: $38.4

Average load speed: 7 sec

Conversion: 1%

The organic channel occupies the leading position in terms of traffic (38.7%). Paid search generates most of the revenues (35.8 %) on the digital market.

Referral marketing takes 18% of revenues, which could be the best indicator, but for the Home and Garden niche.

Why should this matter?

• Whenever you buy a multi-vitamin complex, Dior perfumes or Anastasia’s eyeshadow palette, you go into a comparison of prices and search for free delivery options. This is proven by the leading position of paid search when it comes to revenues. CSS programme offers a wide range of partners and saves money you spend on bids
• According to Statista, 45% of beauty content on Youtube are tutorials. This explains the high share of the referral channel in terms of traffic. Collaboration with local opinion leaders is not rocket science. We recommend not to limit your imagination when it comes to content creation: before-after images and videos, life hacks, insider reviews work fine here
• The stereotype about the cosmetic niche having the youngest audience has had its days. If your website does not convert, retargeting and remarketing should become your best friends!
• Go social. Pages on Facebook and Instagram rock this niche, which is justified – the audience here is younger than in other niches. Be creative: invent your brands’ jargon, create digests and rubrics with expert content

Wrapping Up

Paid search has been the king of digital marketing channels in the niche of electronics. Make your brand on top of people’s mind and you will win with both traffic & revenues!

Although paid and organic search dominate the fashion niche both in traffic and revenue, the shares of display and social channels keep growing. Use a combination of TV ads with digital marketing – this way you’ll gain the attention of both housewives and Millenials.

Email marketing started generating more revenues in the niche of travelling. To engage more interest, create emotional email campaigns that are likely to trigger spontaneous purchase, i.e. revenues for your business.

Paid advertising keeps driving the most traffic and revenue for the car parts niche. To ensure the smooth performance of your advertising campaigns we recommend using automation.

Email indicator in the books niche is the highest and occupies the third position both for revenue and traffic. Free delivery, special offers and recommendation emails work fine here. “You may also like” suggestions right before the checkout can increase the average order value.

Conversion rate in the children goods niche drops by almost 1% compared to last year. Make USP vocal and ensure your products’ value includes the safety of their little consumers and a list of reliable testimonials.

The share of the referral channel in revenues is exclusively high and equals paid search indicators for the home and garden niche. Ensure a smooth omnichannel experience. For traffic consider display advertising, for better revenue use the referral channel and collaborate with bloggers.

Referral marketing takes 18% of revenues in the niche of beauty and health products. We recommend not to limit your imagination when it comes to content creation: before-after images and videos, life hacks, insider reviews.

Regardless of the niche your business occupies, contact Promodo to improve your online presence in the digital market.

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