As new businesses launch ecommerce stores and established brick-and-mortar businesses move their operations online, selling online is becoming increasingly competitive. Standing out from the crowd means more than having great products; it requires a marketing strategy that connects your online business to your target audience.

If you are ready to take your online store to the next level, here’s our breakdown of the most effective ecommerce marketing strategies for building lasting customer relationships and increasing ecommerce sales.

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What Is Ecommerce Marketing?

Ecommerce marketing consists of tactics that drive traffic to your store, which converts into sales while building awareness and engagement. It’s an approach that combines marketing channels to attract potential buyers and convert them into loyal customers.

Ecommerce marketing focuses on digital touchpoints or online portals where customers interact with your brand. These touchpoints include search engines, social media platforms, an e-commerce website, and emails.

Using multiple marketing channels will ensure your products reach the right customers wherever they spend time online. This strategy involves customer targeting, measuring marketing efforts, and tweaking strategies in real-time based on analytics.

The best ecommerce marketing for small businesses requires at least a basic understanding of the technical side of digital marketing and the psychology of online shopping behavior. This knowledge helps create a seamless experience that guides potential customers from online searches to purchase while building a lasting relationship.

 

Types Of Ecommerce Marketing

Successful ecommerce marketing takes many forms; the most effective campaigns combine multiple strategies. For instance, a beauty product retailer might use influencer marketing on Instagram to showcase its products while running a targeted email campaign featuring the same products.

Another example is how some online retailers leverage user-generated content (UGC). UGC refers to content (e.g., reviews, photos, videos, or social media posts) created by customers rather than the brand itself. It’s a powerful marketing tool because it builds trust, authenticity, and engagement by showing real people enjoying a product or service.

Brands can encourage UGC through hashtags, contests, or incentives, using it to enhance credibility and connect more organically with their audience. For example, small businesses selling baby products or family-friendly items can reach out to well-known mom influencers on Instagram to feature their products, helping to establish trust and authenticity.

This approach provides social proof and creates a sense of community around the brand, which encourages customer loyalty through word-of-mouth marketing.

Product demonstrations through video marketing are also an efficient way to educate potential buyers about features and benefits. Businesses often use platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to showcase products in action, making it easier for customers to understand their value before purchasing.

While influencer partnerships, UGC, and video marketing focus on engagement and social proof, other key strategies drive traffic, conversions, and customer retention.

 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO remains a cost-effective marketing strategy for ecommerce businesses. A well-optimized online retail store will help ensure search engine rankings, which increases visibility and organic traffic.

When thinking about your website design timeline, consider implementing Schema markup, a code that helps search engines better understand your site content.

Here are some of the ways that you can incorporate SEO into your ecommerce marketing strategies:

  • Create high-quality, keyword-optimized product descriptions and category pages
  • Write informative blog content that targets relevant search terms
  • Implement clear site structure and internal links
  • Use local SEO optimization if your business has a physical location
  • Utilize Schema markup implementation to improve search results

 

Social Media Marketing

Social media sites have become the go-to tool for ecommerce brands, as they provide real-world ways to connect with potential buyers. A social presence can increase brand loyalty, encourage user engagement, and help drive sales to an ecommerce website.

Here is how you can make the most of social media marketing:

  • Develop an organic content creation strategy
  • Build and manage a community across all platforms
  • Consider using paid social media advertising for audience targeting
  • Develop partnerships with influences and create collaborative content
  • Make the most of social selling through platform-specific shopping features
  • Produce story and short-form video content to utilize engagement
  • Put on live shopping events and product launches

 

Email Marketing

Put together a well-designed email marketing campaign, and you will see one of the highest ROIs of any marketing channel. Use it to nurture leads, provide value, and retain customers through personalized messaging.

Here’s how email marketing can boost sales, retain customers, and establish brand loyalty:

  • Develop an automated welcome series for new subscribers and customers
  • Utilise abandoned cart recovery emails
  • Create post-purchase follow-up sequences
  • Create informative newsletter content featuring new products and promotions
  • Use customer win-back campaigns for inactive subscribers
  • Send seasonal promotional campaigns to old and new members
  • Celebrate customer birthdays and anniversaries with special offers

 

Content Marketing

Content marketing establishes you as an expert and drives organic traffic to your ecommerce store. Producing valuable, informative, and engaging content attracts new buyers and retains loyal customers.

Use strategic content marketing to improve SEO rankings and support other marketing efforts.

  • Write educational blog posts and buying guides
  • Consider product comparison articles and reviews
  • Produce how-to videos and tutorials
  • Collect customer success stories and case studies
  • Create interactive content like quizzes and tools
  • Share downloadable resources and ebooks
  • Encourage user-generated content curation and sharing

 

Paid Advertising

If you have the budget, use paid advertising, but research where your audience is to choose the best places to advertise your business. Whatever type of advertising you prefer, a well-planned ecommerce strategy can drive traffic and boost conversions.

It may be worth paying a professional to make the most of paid advertising, as navigating it can be challenging. If you choose to do it yourself, here are some things to try:

  • Google Shopping Ads for product listings
  • Search engine marketing (SEM) through Google Ads
  • Retargeting campaigns across multiple platforms
  • Display advertising on relevant ecommerce websites
  • Video advertising on YouTube and other platforms
  • Social media advertising on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook

 

Marketing Automation

Automation streamlines marketing, helping ecommerce businesses deliver personalized experiences at scale.

Brands can optimize customer engagement, boost retention, and drive revenue by leveraging data-driven workflows, triggered emails, and AI-powered recommendations.

Try the following marketing automation to help grow your ecommerce business:

  • Develop triggered email sequences based on customer behavior
  • Schedule social media posting
  • Build customer segments and personalization
  • Set up performance tracking and reporting
  • Use tools to map customer journeys

 

Marketplace Marketing

Many ecommerce businesses sell through marketplaces instead of or in addition to their websites, expanding their reach to new audiences.

Here are some of the benefits of listing your products on marketplaces.

  • Optimization and advertising tools
  • Multi-channel inventory management
  • Marketplace-specific SEO techniques
  • Established customer service automation
  • Marketplace rating and review management

 

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing extends your reach through strategic partnerships by building strong affiliate networks, providing incentives, and tracking performance.

Use affiliate marketing to drive ecommerce sales, leveraging the influence of content creators, bloggers, industry experts, partner program development, and management.

Here are some of the benefits that come with affiliate marketing:

  • Only pay commission on actual sales
  • Affiliates promote your products to new audiences
  • Quality backlinks from affiliate websites, improving your search engine rankings
  • No need for a large marketing team; the affiliate does the marketing
  • As your affiliate network grows, your sales potential increases

Each marketing type offers unique advantages and can be particularly effective when integrated with other approaches. However, ecommerce marketing is only truly effective if you understand your target audience and choose the type of marketing that best serves their preferences and shopping behaviors.

 

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Ecommerce Marketing In 2025: 10 Winning Strategies To Boost Sales

As online shopping and ecommerce continue to evolve, successful ecommerce marketing strategies must adapt to meet the changing needs of consumer preferences and emerging technologies.

Here are the top 10 strategies that will help increase online sales.

 

10. Host a Live Selling Event

Live selling events have grown in popularity and have become a powerful tool for engaging customers in real-time, resulting in immediate sales. TikTok encourages sellers on its platform to host live events, as they are proven to generate sales.

These events are popular because they combine the convenience of online shopping with an interactive experience for the buyer. They are the closest thing online shopping offers to shopping in an actual store.

Showcasing products in real-time while answering questions and offering deals creates a sense of urgency that motivates purchases. Consider partnering with social media influencers or industry experts to co-host your live events, bringing their expertise and audience to your brand.

Collaboration can expand your reach and give your brand and products more credibility. When conducting a Q&A session, be sure to record it. It’s a great way to add content to your social media channels and use the live stream more effectively.

 

9. Make the Most of Customer Reviews

Customer reviews and testimonials are crucial to building trust and credibility. They provide social proof, which helps your customers make informed purchasing decisions.

Consider offering a discount to encourage customers to leave a review. Remember to always respond to customer feedback, whether it’s positive or negative.

This genuine engagement demonstrates how much you value your customers and your commitment to providing excellent service. Implement a systematic approach to collecting and displaying reviews across your product pages and marketing channels. A review management tool can help automate review requests after purchase.

A good tip is repurposing positive reviews by creating graphics that display authentic customer testimonials for your social media platforms.

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8. Run An SMS Campaign

SMS marketing has evolved into an effective channel for reaching customers with offers and updates, particularly if you want them to take action. With open rates significantly higher than email, SMS campaigns can be particularly effective for flash sales, limited-time promotions, and order status updates.

Remember, when sending SMS messages, you ask your customers to pay attention, so be respectful. The last thing you want is to lose customers by sending annoying texts! Think about how you can enhance their experience of your brand by offering exclusive discounts, providing early access to new products, or providing essential account updates.

To maximize your SMS marketing, segment your audience based on purchase history, browsing behavior, and preferences to deliver targeted messages for specific customer groups. To encourage sign-ups, consider an SMS loyalty program that rewards subscribers with offers and early access to sales.

 

7. Optimize for Mobile

Consumers now shop on smartphones more than on any other device type, so don’t overlook the importance of optimizing content for mobile devices. Your ecommerce website must provide a seamless mobile experience from browsing products to making payments.

Consider how you can implement mobile-specific features like one-click purchasing and mobile wallet integration to make small-screen shopping as effortless as possible. These optimizations can help reduce cart abandonment rates, foster customer loyalty, and increase your average order value.

Pay special attention to mobile page load speeds, as even the slightest delay can impact conversion rates. Implement accelerated mobile pages (AMP) where needed, and remember that a really simple step you can take is optimizing images for faster loading.

 

6. Create Product Bundles

Product bundling may be a simple marketing strategy, but it can be highly effective in increasing the average customer order spend. It offers products at a discount, encouraging larger purchases and simplifying buying decisions.

Strategic bundling can also help introduce customers to new products they might not have considered otherwise, potentially leading to repeat purchases of individual items in the future. Promote your bundles through your email marketing campaigns and social media.

Although it’s a simple technique, creating successful product bundles requires some strategy. Analyze your online sales data to identify frequently purchased products and seasonal buying patterns.

Consider offering different bundles, such as starter kits for new customers, premium collections for enthusiasts, and unique occasion gifts. Use analytics to track performance, and remember to highlight savings and added value in your product descriptions and promotional materials.

 

5. Integrate With Instagram and TikTok

social media presence is essential. If you’re using social media, consider integrating with Instagram and TikTok, which have become marketing channels for e-commerce businesses. Their shopping features allow customers to purchase directly through them, which is excellent for you as it enhances the buying process.

Make the most of these platforms to showcase your products in action, use influencer marketing, and create engaging content to build brand awareness and drive traffic to your store. Success on these platforms requires understanding their content styles and what their audience wants to see and enjoy.

For example, create visually appealing photography on Instagram and develop engaging stories that demonstrate your brand’s personality. For TikTok, look out for the latest trends and provide value with authentic, entertaining content that subtly promotes your products.

User-generated content works well, so encourage customers to share their experiences with your products to create a steady stream of authentic content.

 

4. Create a Customer Loyalty Program

Customer loyalty programs are important marketing considerations. They help with customer retention and provide lifetime value that rewards repeat purchases, referrals, and engagement.

Use a loyalty program to provide exclusive access to new products and to offer rewards to loyal customers. A well-maintained loyalty program invests in customer relationships that can increase a customer’s lifetime value.

Remember that your loyalty program should align with your brand values while providing meaningful rewards that motivate your customers’ participation. A popular program is a points-based system that rewards purchases and actions like leaving reviews, sharing on social media, and referring friends.

Use data analytics to track performance, refine rewards and engagement strategies, and integrate the program with email marketing to update members about their points and special promotions.

 

3. Offer an Affiliate Programme

Get smart about using affiliate marketing to extend your store’s reach and generate sales through trusted recommendations. Partner with creators, bloggers, and influencers to reach their established audiences.

Offer competitive commissions and use an affiliate marketing automation platform to provide your affiliates with marketing tools and resources. Develop detailed onboarding materials and communicate regularly with your affiliates to maximize the success of your affiliate program.

Provide updated product information, promotional materials, and performance insights regularly to help affiliates optimize their efforts. You could also implement a tiered commission to reward the top-performing affiliates with higher rates and/or exclusive benefits.

Analyze affiliate performance regularly to help identify the most effective partners and promotional strategies. This insight will allow you to refine the program as it progresses.

 

2. Build an Email List and Create Campaigns

Email marketing is a great way to market your online store. However, building a quality email list requires work upfront. Once you have a list of loyal followers, you can create targeted email campaigns to increase engagement, recover abandoned carts, and encourage repeat business.

Segment your email list based on customer behavior and preferences to allow you to deliver relevant and personal content. Use automation in your small business to simplify email campaigns and send emails based on specific actions or milestones in the customer journey.

Develop an email marketing strategy that includes a welcome sequence for new subscribers, a post-purchase follow-up, and a re-engagement campaign for inactive customers. Learn how to use A/B testing to ensure that subject lines, email content, and sending times are all optimized for maximum impact.

By collecting and analyzing data on customer browsing history and past purchases, you can create highly targeted recommendations and offers. Remember, it’s essential that all of your email campaigns are easy to see and read on mobile devices and always include a clear call to action.

 

1. Implement a Comprehensive SEO Strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) is fundamental to long-term ecommerce success. By optimizing your product pages and overall site structure, you can improve the visibility of search results and attract more organic traffic.

Despite the popularity of AI, blogging as an effective SEO marketing tool still has a bright future. Consider introducing a blog as part of your ecommerce marketing plan.

Invest in comprehensive target keyword research, create high-quality product descriptions, and ensure your site’s technical SEO elements are correctly configured. This foundation will support all your other ecommerce marketing efforts and help reduce your reliance on paid advertising.

Develop a content strategy that targets different stages of the customer journey. This strategy should include informative blog posts that attract top-of-funnel traffic and detailed buying guides that help convert interested shoppers. You should also implement schema markup on your product pages to enhance their appearance in search results and improve click-through rates.

Audit your SEO regularly to identify technical issues and content gaps, paying special attention to your core web vitals. These are a set of key performance metrics that measure how fast, smooth, and stable your website feels for visitors.

These three core web vitals impacting search rankings and user experience are:

  1. Loading Speed (Largest Contentful Paint – LCP): How quickly the main content on a page loads.
  2. Interactivity (Interaction to Next Paint – INP): The speed at which the site responds when a user clicks or taps.
  3. Visual Stability (Cumulative Layout Shift – CLS): Measures how steady the page layout is, preventing unexpected shifts.

 

How Friday Supports Your Ecommerce Marketing

How can Friday help you implement various ecommerce marketing strategies while maintaining a professional and efficient online presence?

Our platform makes it easy to create professional-looking pages, set up email marketing campaigns, and track marketing performance through detailed analytics.

With mobile-responsive designs and built-in SEO features, Friday helps ensure your ecommerce store is well-positioned for success in the coming years. Our continuous platform updates ensure you stay ahead of emerging trends and can quickly adapt to changing market conditions.

Whether launching a new ecommerce business or expanding an existing one, Friday provides the technology and marketing support needed for growth. Its key features improve visibility, engagement, and sales, covering everything from SEO to conversion optimization and multi-channel expansion.

 

Start your ecommerce journey with Friday.

 

1. Optimizing for Search Engines (SEO)

Friday helps improve your store’s visibility on search engines, which makes it easier for website visitors to find your products.

  • Customizable SEO Tags & URLs: Optimize product page meta tags and URL handles for better rankings.
  • Product Schema Markup: Automatically generate structured data for better visibility in search results.

 

2. Enhancing Storefront Design & Branding

A visually appealing and professional storefront boosts customer trust and encourages conversions.

  • Design Freedom: Fully customize product pages and store layouts to match your brand’s vision.
  • Integrated Design: Maintain consistent branding with a seamless color palette and font style integration.
  • Fully Responsive: Ensure an optimized shopping experience across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

 

3. Increasing Sales & Conversions

Encourage more purchases and higher order values with strategic pricing and display options.

  • Display Discounts: Highlight slashed prices next to discounted ones to drive urgency.
  • Stock Count Visibility: Display stock levels to create urgency and encourage quick purchases.
  • Automated Store Emails: Send marketing emails for abandoned carts, purchase anniversaries, and more.

 

4. Expanding Sales Channels

Reach more potential customers by selling and promoting across multiple platforms and channels.

  • Sell on Social Media: Integrate your store with Facebook and Instagram to increase sales.
  • Social Widgets: Encourage visitors to your site to share with their followers by adding social media icons.

 

5. Driving Engagement with Digital & Physical Offerings

Diversify revenue streams by selling physical products, services, events, and digital content.

  • Sell Non-Products: Go beyond products and sell services, gift vouchers, and event tickets.
  • Digital Downloads: We simplify selling digital content such as videos, audio files, and documents.
  • Accept Donations: Enable online donations for nonprofits and organizations.

 

6. Simplify Inventory & Order Management

Efficient product and order tracking ensures smooth operations and enhances customer experience.

  • Inventory Management: Easily track stock, manage variants, set pricing, and organize products.
  • Product Categories: Group your products into categories for better browsing and organization.
  • Product Pages: Choose from various product page layouts with multiple image displays.

 

7. Streamlining Shipping & Fulfillment

Deliver a seamless post-purchase experience with flexible shipping and pickup options.

  • Shipping Providers: Offer flexible domestic and international shipping with FedEx, UPS, and USPS.
  • Shipping Options: Offer shipping speeds, such as overnight or standard delivery.
  • Delivery Zones: The ability to define multiple delivery areas with different pricing.

 

8. Automating & Scaling Marketing Efforts

Reduce repetitive manual work and increase efficiency with automated ecommerce marketing tactics.

  • Automated Taxes: Ensure accurate tax calculations at checkout with Avalara integration.
  • Tracking Codes: Monitor sales performance and track affiliate and PPC conversions.
  • Zapier Integration: Automate workflows by connecting Friday to other marketing tools.

 

Summary

To succeed in ecommerce marketing, you must adopt a multi-channel approach that combines proven marketing techniques with the latest trends and technologies. By applying our ten effective strategies, you can develop a strong ecommerce marketing plan to drive website traffic to your store, boost sales, and nurture lasting customer relationships.

Remember, the key to success is consistency. Keep testing and refining your e-commerce marketing efforts while staying attuned to your existing customers’ needs and preferences. With the right mix of strategies and tools, your ecommerce business can thrive in an increasingly competitive space.

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