6 Highly Effective Ecommerce Marketing Automation Strategies and Tools

Marketing is never easy. It requires considerable effort and resources which makes it feel complex. The level of complexity is even more when an ecommerce business is involved. After all, such enterprises have a lot to do and manage – from running campaigns to managing posts, optimizing copies to updating products. The tasks seem never-ending. This is when you think of automation. Yes, you can make things and life easier with ecommerce marketing automation. 

But the question is, how exactly does automation help for ecommerce marketing? 

Well, marketing automation can be an invaluable tool for eCommerce businesses in many ways. It can help streamline the processes and boost overall efficiency. Above all, automating some, or most, parts of marketing gives your business the freedom to complete tasks without requiring a lot of people and capital. 

So, marketing automation is an investment that your ecommerce business must make without blinking an eyelid. The benefits will easily outweigh the cost. 

In this blog, we will explore marketing automation for ecommerce, and understand its uses, benefits, tools, software, and platform. 

Before going further, let’s first look at what exactly marketing automation for ecommerce is…

What is Ecommerce Marketing Automation? 

E-commerce marketing automation is the process of automating and streamlining marketing tasks using a tech platform or software. It’s a strategic approach to putting marketing on autopilot and increasing the efficiency of the processes. For online retailers, automation is a powerful tool to automate, economize, and optimize operations. 

An e-commerce business can leverage automation to improve customer engagement and drive sales. There are plenty of software that can manage repetitive marketing activities with efficiency and ensure value to the business.  

Marketing automation for ecommerce can be a huge differentiator as tasks can be automated so that teams can focus on more critical aspects. This is why more online stores look to benefit from the power of automation.  

Benefits of Marketing Automating For Ecommerce   

Marketing automation is growing in demand across industries and ecommerce is no exception. More online retailers now look to benefit from automation and achieve their marketing goals timely. 

There are many benefits of ecommerce marketing automation, including – 

• Time Savings – Automation reduces the time spent on manual tasks. It also enables marketers to schedule and execute marketing strategies, activities, and campaigns in advance. This can free up, or save valuable time to be used elsewhere on other key aspects of the business. 
• Reduced Human Errors – Chances of error are always high when repetitive tasks are done manually. Your ecommerce enterprise can reduce human error by automating those tasks, resulting in improved efficiency in your marketing efforts.   
• Data-Driven Results – Implementing automation in marketing provides tons of useful data that can help you gain deep insights into customer behavior and campaign performance. The data can help you optimize your campaigns and gain better ROI and results.
• Improved Customer Engagement – Marketing automation is key to delivering personalized messages and experiences based on the demographic data and purchase history of customers. When you adopt a personalized approach, it leads to increased engagement and stronger relationships with your customers.  
• Increased Sales and Conversions – When an ecommerce business automates its marketing campaigns, it can nurture leads better and recover abandoned carts. This can result in increased conversions and sales for the business.  

Key Stats on Marketing Automation for Ecommerce 

Effective marketing is key to growing your ecommerce business. There are different ways to make marketing more effective, and automation is one of them. More online stores now look to automate parts of their marketing to achieve success and drive sales. 

Let’s look at key statistics on the role of automation in ecommerce marketing – 

• 55% of eCommerce marketers use email marketing or marketing automation software. ( Source – Spotler) 
• The global marketing automation market size for ecommerce is projected to grow at a CAGR of 19.4% from 2021 to 2027. ( Source –  Grand View Research )
• 77% of marketers in the e-commerce industry agree that they witnessed an increase in conversions due to marketing automation. ( Source – Email Monday )
• 35% of marketers accept that streamlining marketing and sales efforts is the top reason to implement marketing automation. ( Source – Ascend2.Com) 

Key Considerations Before Automating Your Ecommerce Marketing 

Automating your ecommerce marketing is a strategic decision that requires serious consideration of some factors. The more things you consider, the better you can handle the potential challenges along the way. 

Let’s look at some of the key considerations – 

• Resource Allocation – Automating your ecommerce marketing often requires an investment in tools and technology. So, you need to plan the kind of budget, time, and personnel you can dedicate. 
• Business Goals– The automation you plan must be aligned with your overall business goals, or else its entire purpose will be lost. The key is to analyze and decide the tasks, activities, and processes best suited for automation. 
• Target Audience – Automation can serve its intended purpose well when you understand your audience well and have data on their demographics, behavior, and preferences. This is how you can personalize marketing messages for them.    
• Customer Engagement – Your customers will engage with your messages and campaigns when your automated marketing efforts are relevant. Make sure you prioritize the customer experience for each stage of the journey through the automation process.  
• Adaptability –  Adopting a rigid approach with automation is never an ideal strategy as it does not consider changes in consumer behavior and market conditions. Ensure your approach is flexible so that you can adjust your tactics accordingly. 

How to Automate Your Ecommerce Business? 

Automating an ecommerce business marketing is a strategic decision to improve the efficiency of your operations. It involves the use of different tools and technology with capabilities to help streamline marketing operations and processes.  

Let’s look at how to automate your ecommerce business –   

Step 1 – Define Your Marketing Objectives 

Have clear goals and define the key performance indicators (KPIs) to effectively guide your marketing efforts. Whether you want to boost sales, improve customer retention, or expand the customer base, clarity in goals is essential for success.    

Step 2 – Select a Marketing Automation Platform

Once your goals are set, you can go ahead and choose the right platform for automation. Make sure you choose a platform that offers all the key features and capabilities for automation. 

Step 3 – Create Personalized Campaigns 

Segmentation is the next step where you need to divide the audience into different groups. This is essential for creating targeted marketing campaigns specific to each segment.

Step 4 – Set-Up Automated Emails 

Once the audience is segmented, the next focus area is to set up automated emails to engage with them throughout their journey. You can personalize those emails based on customer data and behavior.  

Step 5 – Implement Workflow Automation 

Workflow automation is the next step where the purpose is to automate repetitive processes and tasks using the right tools. 

Step 6 – Analyze Data 

Analyzing data and predicting customer behavior is the next stage where the focus is on optimizing marketing strategies. You can use analytics and AI tools to gain valuable insights into customer interactions. 

Step 7 – Monitor and Optimize Performance 

Identifying areas for improvement is the last stage, so you should focus on monitoring the performance of your marketing campaigns. Make sure you A/B test different versions of messages, strategies, and workflows to achieve your automation goals.

How Does Marketing Automation Software Work? 

Automation software can help automate repetitive marketing tasks. They have a big role in streamlining your workflows and processes, resulting in improved efficiency. But how do they work? This is something you should know to leverage their features better. So, let’s look at how this software works –  

• Automation software can collect data from all your marketing tools and aggregate the data.
• The software can help you leverage marketing data and segment your audience. 
• Marketers can create ad campaigns across channels using the software’s interactive interface.  
• Customer workflows and automation rules can be designed to specify how and when you can send messages to your specific audience or segments.   
• The software allows us to set up triggers and actions based on user data that can make marketing efforts more effective.  
• Using automation software can help you personalize your marketing messages based on each user’s preferences and interactions. 
• You can deliver targeted content to prospects at each stage of their journey with your brand which can result in lead nurturing.  
• The software provides detailed analytics for performance tracking of your marketing campaigns.   
• Automation software can be integrated with other marketing tools, platforms, and CRM systems for the smooth flow of data between different systems.  

Things to Look for in an Ecommerce Marketing Automation Platform 

Choosing an automation platform for your ecommerce marketing needs careful consideration. The focus should be on selecting a platform that aligns with your business goals and budgets. It’s equally important to consider your marketing teams’ various tech requirements for automation.  

Here are the things to look at before choosing a platform for ecommerce marketing automation – 

• Features and Functionality – An automation platform can meet your specific marketing needs only when it has standard features and functionality. Make sure the platform you choose has features for email marketing, segmentation, social channel integration, cart recovery, etc.  
• Integration Capabilities – A good automation platform must seamlessly integrate with your CRM system, ecommerce platform, and other tools. Without these features, you might not be able to streamline processes and synchronize data as effectively as needed.  
• Scalability – The platform you select for marketing automation must scale with your business growth. Its pricing and features should be flexible to scale with the increase in sales volumes and marketing needs. 
• Level of Customization – When you select an automation platform, it’s important to analyze the level of customization it offers. It should help you customize various aspects such as workflows and email templates to make your marketing campaigns effective.  
• Analytics and Reporting – Quality automation tools come with robust customer analytics and reporting features. This helps them provide detailed insights into campaign performance. Some of the key analytics and reporting features to look for include A/B testing, conversion tracking, and ROI analysis.  

 Popular Marketing Automation Tools for E-commerce

1. Salesforce Pardot

Salesforce Pardot is one of the best automation ecommerce marketing tools to help businesses streamline their marketing processes and generate more leads. It offers a comprehensive range of features that can help improve marketing efforts on any scale. The main focus of this tool is on lead generation and nurturing, and it also gives control over email campaigns. Key features of Salesforce Pardot include lead scoring & grading, engagement studio, triggers, actions, and automation rules. 

2. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is another effective marketing automation platform that suits the varied needs of small and mid-sized enterprises. Its main focus area lies in sending personalized emails, nurturing leads, and measuring results. It provides several event-tracking options for measuring the length of the customer journey or sales funnel. The tool allows you the option of creating campaigns and autoresponders and setting up rules for email triggers. 

3. Autopilot 

Autopilot is the right option when you are looking for an easy-to-use marketing automation tool. By using this tool, you can automate the entire customer journey. It also has a robust canvas for building email automation sequences. More so, marketers can annotate the sequences with fun stickers, explanations, and emojis. This tool can be applied to various marketing channels including email, SMS, and in-app but it lacks a built-in CRM.  

4. MailChimp 

MailChimp is a popular and easy-to-use tool for ecommerce marketing automation. It has robust features for tracking all leads, managing contacts, and automation marketing emails. This tool suits businesses of all sizes and helps in creating, sending, and tracking emails. Using this tool’s Contact Tracking feature, it’s easy to track all your leads from signup to purchase. More so, it allows the creation of custom email designs for each stage of the journey. The Automated Emails feature is beneficial for sending out automated messages based on specific events. 

5. Mailmodo 

Mailmodo is a feature-rich marketing automation tool that proves effective for ecommerce businesses looking to increase conversions through interactive emails. You can leverage its functionalities to dispatch dynamic tailored product recommendation emails. More so, this tool is very effective for creating easy workflows and automating the user journey. Marketers can launch AMP email campaigns using its drag-and-drop builder and mobile-friendly templates. Plus, it has tons of responsive email templates with built-in email flows. 

6. Rejoiner  

Rejoiner is a very effective marketing automation tool for those ecommerce companies that need basic automation features and tons of support for SMS marketing. It can add great value if you don’t want to allocate considerable resources to crafting campaigns. Using this tool, marketers can find various things including analytics and design. Some other key features of this tool include a drag-and-drop email builder and an interactive automation builder. 

Tips for Creating an Effective Ecommerce Marketing Automation Strategy 

It takes careful planning and execution to create an effective automation strategy. You also need to optimize your efforts and strategies for driving meaningful results your way. 

Let’s look at some useful tips for crafting a successful marketing automation strategy – 

• Understand your audience well and get a complete knowledge of their pain points, behaviors, and preferences. 
• Consider customer research so that you can achieve value with audience segmentation. 
• Set measurable and specific automation goals so that your efforts are easy to track and quantify.  
• Look for an automation platform that aligns with your business goals, offers features for all types of automation, and comes with plenty of integration capabilities.   

• Focus on delivering relevant content to each audience segment as it can help improve engagement.  
• Map out the customer journey and various touchpoints as it helps you deliver targeted messages at each journey stage.  
• Prioritize re-engagement with customers who visited once but did not complete the purchases.  
• Create an omnichannel experience for customers by integrating marketing automation with other channels such as social media, paid ads, etc.  
• Analyze key metrics such as CTR, open rates, ROI, and conversion rates regularly to make adjustments as and where needed.  

Final Thoughts  

Automation is essential for improved efficiency of marketing activities and processes. So, your ecommerce business should focus on leveraging powerful tools to make its marketing automation effective. 

At REVE, we understand the big role automation plays in boosting ROI, and increasing sales and conversion. That’s why we bring you a whole range of tools to automate various aspects of your marketing, sales, and support. 

With us, you can sign up and check how our tools can add great value to your marketing automation efforts.