Top traffic acquisition levers for your e-commerce in 2022

Every e-merchant asks himself the question of which acquisition lever to use to promote his site at the top of the search engines in order to generate as much traffic as possible on his site. While converting visitors into buyers and building loyalty.

In this article, we propose you discover the main traffic acquisition levers (advertising, social networks, referencing…), accompanied by some key figures to convince you of their importance.

1. Social Networks

Social networks are a very good lever for traffic acquisition. They allow you to communicate about your brand and to reach a qualified target, in order to attract your fans/followers to your website. It is very important to be present on all social media relevant to your target and your business. Therefore, you will need to validate which social media are most relevant to your business in order to be in the right places.

Some key figures on this acquisition lever:

• In October 2021, the number of active social network users was 4.55 billion, or 57.6% of the world’s population.
• 409 million new users between October 2020 and October 2021, a growth of 9.9% (October 2021)
• People spend an average of 2.27 hours on social networks (+2.1%).
• 71% of users who have had a good experience via social networks recommend the brand to others.
• 30% of people are more likely to buy a product directly from the social network.
• 75.2% of social users follow or search for brands and products on social media (July 2021)
• 43.2% of users search for information about brands via social networks (October 2021)
• 56% of subscribers to brands on social networks do so to see their products.
• 74% of people rely on social networks when making purchasing decisions and reading customer reviews.
• A user has, on average, 8.4 social accounts (January 2021)
• An average user connects to 6.7 social media platforms per month (October 2021)

2. Blog

Another way to attract quality traffic to your website is to create a blog and feed it with relevant content to your customers. Indeed, an inbound marketing strategy starts with a quality blog. It is one of the best ways to attract new visitors to your website. In addition, the blog helps to improve your search engine ranking.

The benefits of a company blog:

• 70% of marketers are actively involved in managing their blog.
• Companies with a blog have 434% more page views than those without.
• Thanks to their blog, these companies get 97% more links to their site, and 4 times more pages indexed by Google
• For 55% of marketers, the content of their blog is crucial in inbound marketing.

3. Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving a website’s ranking in search engines. In France, the number one search engine is Google with over 90% of the market. Worldwide, 65.15% of Internet users use the Chrome browser (-1.8%), ahead of Safari (18.4%, +10 points), Microsoft Edge (3.97%, +27 points) and Firefox (3.67%, -10 points). In concrete terms, more than 6 out of 10 queries are made on Google, which is why it is essential to optimize your referencing according to the constraints imposed by the Mountain View company.

Ideal for generating qualified, regular traffic and results, natural referencing often require several months before real effects are felt. But you don’t have time to wait… your e-commerce site must perform immediately; this is why it will be necessary to combine your SEO strategy with an SEM (paid search) strategy on Google Adwords, which we will talk about next.

Figures to remember:

• 81% of internet users do research in advance to prepare for a major purchase
• 91% of consumers trust online reviews.
• 6 out of 10 marketers say that inbound marketing is their biggest source of leads with 60%.

4. Digital advertising

In 2020, digital advertising experienced a decline due to the health crisis. Search and social remain the two main segments of digital advertising that have fared best during this crisis. But don’t panic, the advertising market has been recovering again since 2021. This will make it possible to become efficient in acquiring traffic via online advertising…

Even if 2020 was not a good year for digital advertising, it still officially overtook traditional media (64.8 billion vs. 63.7 for media). In 2021, there was also a 3.1% increase in additional digital search ad spend compared to 2020. An increase that should continue and be verified in 2022.

Focus on Google Adwords

Google Adwords will be your main traffic acquisition lever for your e-commerce. Indeed, 65% of internet searches in the world are done on Google.

Google Adwords is Google’s online advertising program. Regardless of your budget, you can place your ads on the Google ad market and immediately place your product offering in the top positions of search results. Online ads allow you to attract potential customers quickly, increase your visibility, and also measure your ROI (Return On Investment).

As you will have understood, to optimize your presence on the web, it is essential to use both natural and paid referencing. The former aims to position your site in the long term, while the latter is ideal for getting traffic quickly.

A study carried out by Google shows that combining Adwords with natural referencing brings 50% more traffic to your e-commerce.

70% of the people who click on these Adwords ads believe that the results of Google Ads correctly meet their needs.

Focus on Facebook

Advertising on Facebook, working on the same principle as Google, is another very interesting lever to consider. Indeed, among its range of advertising available to marketers, Facebook offers a type of campaign whose sole objective is to make users click on the links in these ads and thus bring visitors to your site.

5. Marketplaces and price comparison sites

For more than 5 years we have seen that price comparison services and marketplaces have been a key source of traffic for online sales activities.

As their name suggests, price comparison services are services that allow users to compare prices online. The Internet user makes a request for a product or service and the comparator will draw up a list of e-commerce sites offering the product sought.

In the same spirit, marketplaces are online spaces where buyers and sellers meet to carry out transactions. Comparison of offers and prices is the very nature of these services. Find a deeper definition of what is a marketplace here.

Today, the Google search results landscape gives a large place to price comparison services and marketplaces

This lever allows you to :

• directly highlight your product offer on third-party sites,
  acquire notoriety,
• reassure Internet users who do not know you thanks to the reviews on your site,
  generate qualified traffic interested in your products.
• It is therefore essential to reference your products on these media in order to capture a qualified audience and thus generate additional sales for your ecommerce site.

In this article, we teach you how to sell like an expert on marketplaces.

6. Email Marketing

The figures to remember for this acquisition lever:

• 82% This is the opening rate of a welcome email.
• 49% of consumers would like to receive more promotional emails from their favourite companies/brands.
• 300% is the additional engagement of consumers when emails contain video content.

88% of marketers are convinced of the return on investment of e-mailing, and almost 70% consider it to be a vital tool for their business.

However, 42% of marketers never or rarely use responsive design in their campaigns. Paradoxical, because for 41% of marketers, between a third and half of their emails are opened on mobile devices…

Thus, emailing remains one of the main levers of traffic acquisition, contrary to popular belief, Internet users are waiting for news and especially promotions sent by email. These contents must nevertheless make sense. You should not launch a campaign without a precise goal, Internet users attach great importance to novelty, personalization, and value. Furthermore, in view of the growing number of mobile users, campaigns must be adapted to mobile terminals if you want to obtain the best possible return on investment.

7. Mobile

Mobile is the acquisition lever that has been booming in recent years. It will continue to increase its importance in terms of traffic. In addition to reaching new customers, it will allow you to reach your core target in a new way (SMS, push notifications, geolocation, QRcode, applications).

The emergence of smartphones has changed purchasing behavior. Internet users are giving mobile an increasingly important role in their purchases.

In fact, worldwide, Internet users have spent 3,560 billion dollars on mobiles in 2021.

This distribution and communication channel is therefore certainly not to be neglected. It will bring you a large part of the traffic of your online shop:

• 81% of mobile users use their smartphones to surf the Internet
• 30% is the potential increase in turnover for companies that adapt their site to mobile and voice search

For 59% of advertisers, mobile marketing is essential to increase conversion rates, as well as to improve ROI.
49% of marketers say they do not consider deploying SMS campaigns. However, the ROI is rated as excellent, very good, or good by 87% of those who have implemented it.
Among marketers who have implemented mobile marketing campaigns, 80% believe that their efforts are generating or will generate a real return on investment.
57% of marketers are not yet using a geolocation option to optimize the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Conclusion

You now know the main levers of traffic acquisition in e-commerce, and the key figures of the market. Now the hardest part remains.

The levers presented in this article are only of interest if a strategy has been put in place, with precise objectives. The levers must be chosen with care; you must keep in mind that the objective is to acquire qualified traffic, not visitors who will bounce back within 3 seconds of arriving on your site. On this subject, we invite you to read these 2 articles:

• Develop your customer acquisition strategy successfully with a canvas
• The 6 key steps to a successful digital acquisition

Which acquisition lever is best suited to my business? To my objectives? Which platforms to choose from? What budgets should I allocate to each action? And besides, what objectives should I set? How can I measure the return on investment of my actions?

Powerlab supports you from start to finish in your e-business strategy, from the definition of objectives to the analysis of the results obtained, in order to ensure sustainable growth for your online sales activity. And much more besides. So contact us! After all, the best adventures start with a meeting.