How can you improve your e-commerce marketing?

As an online retailer, you’re operating in an exploding market. In 2024, worldwide e-commerce sales reached $4,320 billion, representing over 17% of total retail¹. E-commerce presents many opportunities, but also faces increased competition between sellers.

In this context, effective e-commerce marketing is a necessity and an indispensable lever for capturing attention, convincing customers and selling online.

That’s why you need to develop a solid strategy capable of attracting new customers, increasing your average shopping basket and building customer loyalty.
So how do you implement an effective e-commerce marketing strategy? Which levers should you focus on to strengthen your digital presence, optimize your conversion rates and capitalize on every interaction? Here’s how!

The pillars of successful e-commerce marketing

E-commerce marketing refers to all actions designed to promote and sell your products on the Internet. It relies on digital channels that enable direct interaction with your customers, precise personalization and real-time tracking of your campaigns, conversions and purchasing behavior.

Where conventional marketing generally delivers a uniform message to a wide audience, e-commerce marketing exploits customer, behavioral and transactional data to adapt the messaging, analyze purchasing behavior and instantly adjust campaigns.
E-commerce marketing rests on three essential pillars: customer experience personalization, omnichannel consistency and continuous performance analysis.

Together, they form an essential foundation for attracting new customers, reinforcing your brand image and steering your actions on the basis of concrete data.

Personalization at the heart of the customer experience

In a world saturated with sellers and offers, addressing your customers as an interchangeable crowd is a mistake. Your customers expect a unique experience, tailored to their individual needs. Personalization is therefore a decisive lever in e-commerce marketing.

An Epsilon² study shows that 80% of consumers buy more when they have a personalized experience.

This personalization can be reflected in your marketing strategy in a number of ways:

• Adapt the navigation interface: different colors, banners or dynamic highlights according to preferences.
• Leverage customer data to target and insert their first name or relevant recommendations in your emails.
• Implement relevant product recommendations based on purchase history, or suggest upselling.
• Deploy personalized promotions, such as a birthday voucher or a targeted offer based on average basket size.

Let’s take a concrete example of marketing personalization on Rakuten:

• A user browses the marketplace. The banners that appear in the margin of their screen reflect their recent preferences.
• After adding headphones to their basket, an intelligent recommendation suggests a compatible carrying case.
• If they abandon their purchase, a push notification is sent to them with their first name.
• Finally, on their birthday, Club R awards them an exclusive coupon.

This journey illustrates the power of personalization, which strengthens engagement and increases conversions

The omnichannel experience: a seamless customer journey

Today’s consumers juggle multiple channels before making a purchase:

• E-commerce sites
• Marketplaces
• Social networking sites
• Search engines

Today, prospects no longer navigate online in a linear fashion. On average, 73% of consumers use several channels (website, social networks, advertising, emailing, etc.) before making a purchase³.

To implement a successful omnichannel marketing strategy, you need to :

• Guarantee brand consistency across all media: logo, typography, tone, colors.
• Simplify the purchasing path as much as possible: integrate one-click payment, reduce the number of steps, direct referrals from your posts on social networks (such as Instagram or Facebook) to your online store.
• Implement cross-channel communications. For example, an addition to the shopping cart on the desktop triggers a push notification on mobile and a follow-up email.

This cross-channel approach strengthens your relationship marketing and improves your conversion rates. The more seamless the experience, the more your prospects become loyal customers.

Good to know: marketing automation tools can help you automate certain tasks and be more responsive.

Performance analysis and ROI optimization: measure for better action

To improve your e-commerce marketing, you need to analyze and measure your results and adjust your actions. This involves rigorous monitoring of e-commerce marketing KPIs. Three segments need to be analyzed:

• Your target customers: identify your marketing personas based on your demographic and behavioral data. Good targeting enables you to adapt your messages and offers.
• The customer journey: analyze the ergonomics of your website, the speed of the purchasing funnel and the efficiency of your CRM. Each step must be optimized to reduce friction.
• The impact of your digital marketing campaigns: whether it’s Google Ads, email marketing or influencer marketing, every action needs to be evaluated and linked to concrete results (add to cart, sale…).

KPIs to track include cost per click (CPC), conversion rate, average order value (AOV) or ROI.

Good to know: By regularly analyzing these indicators, you can optimize your budgets and maximize the impact of your advertising investments on marketplaces

The best e-commerce marketing levers to boost your sales

In such a competitive environment as e-commerce, limiting yourself to a single marketing channel or lever is not enough. A holistic strategy or integrated approach combines several complementary marketing levers. Each addresses a distinct objective: acquisition, loyalty, brand awareness or conversion. Here are some of the most effective:

• Email marketing remains one of the pillars of online marketing. Inexpensive and effective, it enables you to follow up with your customers, distribute personalized promotions and maintain contact. The key KPI: open and click rates. To maximize your results, segment your lists and personalize your subject lines.
• Social media marketing is essential for building brand awareness and engaging your community. Measure your performance through engagement (likes, shares, comments). A good practice is to use short videos to capture attention and generate qualified traffic.
• E-commerce SEO ensures lasting visibility, and above all, at lower cost. By optimizing your product sheets, tags and internal linking, you’ll gain constant organic traffic. The key indicator: your positions on Google and the volume of visits resulting from natural organic search.
• User-generated content (UGC) builds trust. Reviews, photos and customer testimonials serve as social proof. The more UGC you collect, the greater your credibility. Track the volume of published reviews and their influence on your conversions.
• Influencer marketing allows you to associate your brand with recognized creators. Effectiveness is measured in traffic generated and sales linked to these campaigns. Working with targeted micro-influencers ensures greater authenticity.
• Finally, video marketing increases engagement and recall. Tutorials, demonstrations and interviews give your communication a boost. Monitor your viewing rates and adapt the duration of your content to maintain attention.

Choose the right platform to simplify and optimize your e-commerce marketing

Implementing all these e-marketing levers requires time, resources and fine-tuned coordination. So, to gain efficiency and centralize the heart of your marketing strategy on a single platform, why not join a marketplace like Rakuten?

First of all, you benefit from an existing, qualified audience: millions of active buyers search for products on Rakuten every day. So you don’t have to build your traffic from scratch. You also benefit from the credibility and trust of a recognized brand, a decisive factor in the purchasing process.

Rakuten also simplifies your logistics management with its Rakuten Fulfillment Network service. You can delegate preparation and delivery, while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. Each seller is accompanied by an E-Commerce Consultant who is an expert in their sector, able to advise you on your marketing campaigns, personalized promotions or strategic choices.

Finally, joining Rakuten means access to powerful promotional operations: the monthly Mega Peak, Black Friday and back-to-school campaigns. These massive events, supported by advertising and display, enable you to compete with the big names, without incurring the costs of an individual campaign.

E-commerce marketing is based on a clear equation: personalization, omnichannel and continuous KPI analysis. By combining complementary levers such as direct mail, SEO, social networks and video, you build an integrated approach capable of attracting, converting and retaining customers.

Joining Rakuten means benefiting from a complete ecosystem, where your digital marketing actions are simplified, your costs optimized and your performance reinforced

Sources
¹ Statista, Worldwide Retail E-Commerce Sales
²Epsilon
³ Bloomreach