5 steps to create a customer-centric ecommerce marketing strategy

An ecommerce marketing strategy is a research-backed plan to attract, engage, and convert leads and customers. 

Creating campaign after campaign without a solid ecommerce marketing strategy is like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. The problem? That spaghetti—random marketing tactics—can quickly blow your budget, with no guarantee of results.

This guide shows you how to create your own ecommerce marketing plan in 5 steps, along with 5 proven tactics to use to ensure your strategy’s a smashing success. 

Here’s how to create a unified, customer-centric marketing plan guaranteed to attract and engage more prospects:

1. Evaluate your data

To create a digital marketing strategy that remains effective well into the future, you need to revisit what worked (and what didn’t) in the past. 

Start by gathering all of your data in one place. Make sure you have a variety of quantitative and qualitative data.

Quantitative data is numerical; it tells you what’s happening. Qualitative data, including text-based information from surveys, interviews, or social media comments, tells you why something’s happening.

Pull data from the following sources:

• Ecommerce platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce

• Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms like HubSpot or Salesforce

• Email marketing platforms like Omnisend or Klaviyo

• Advertising platforms like Google Ads or Meta Ads

• Website analytics tools like Contentsquare or Google Analytics 4  

• Experience analytics tools like Contentsquare 

• Social media platforms like TikTok or Instagram

Then, conduct data analysis, paying close attention to your company’s successes and areas for growth. Effective data analysis starts with asking insightful questions that uncover weaknesses in your previous strategy—as well as strengths you can leverage further.

Ask questions like:

• What marketing channels generated the most leads?

• What tactics led to higher conversion rates?

• Which campaigns underperformed? Why did they fall short of expectations?

• What opportunities did you overlook?

• What were your biggest customer segments?

Data analysis is often overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Select the right data analytics tools and follow a simple method, and you’ll have all the information you need to shape your marketing strategy.

💡 Pro tip: save time analyzing website traffic and sales data for your ecommerce store with Contentsquare.

Contentsquare lets you create an unlimited number of customizable dashboards to monitor your most important metrics. You can share these dashboards with teammates and even subscribe to them to receive email updates on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. There’s a series of dashboard templates to help you get started quickly. 

Contentsquare’s Dashboards help you visualize your important metrics, turning them into line graphs 

2. Set goals

Once you analyze your data, you can create new goals for the year or quarter. Look at the numbers you hit last year, and use these to set realistic targets, such as

• Increase website traffic through SEO or paid ads

• Build brand awareness through guest blogging or creating referral programs

• Diversify your lead-gen sources to include brand partnerships or an additional social media site

• Retain current customers by improving customer support or starting a loyalty program

Make your goals as clear, specific, and measurable as possible, attaching specific numbers and timeframes to each one. 

3. Get to know your target customers

Once you have goals, you need to figure out how to achieve them—and that involves diving deep into who your audience is.

Start by building or updating your user personas: simple psychographic profiles that capture who your customers are, what they want, and what obstacles stand in their way. User personas let you add more personalization into your marketing strategy, improving your customers’ experience and encouraging them to purchase.

Create a user persona—like this one by Crayon’d—for each type of customer at your online store

The jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework is the perfect complement for user personas, helping you consider your customers’ end goals (or ‘jobs’) in your strategy. This approach shows you what users want out of your products, i.e. why they are looking for a certain thing now.

Then, create or revisit your customer journey map (CJM) to visualize shoppers' interactions with your brand or products. Understanding each touchpoint not only helps you empathize with your customers, but also shows you how to target your digital marketing efforts to achieve your goals.

Creating user personas, JTBD, and a CJM ensures you understand customers’ demographics, problems, goals, shopping habits, and behaviors so you can effectively meet their needs and attract qualified leads to your site.

💡 Pro tip: Contentsquare offers everything you need to create a customer journey map that truly reflects your users’ experiences.

• Use Journey Analysis to visualize the touchpoints your users typically pass through before becoming customers—even if that involves multiple sessions and devices 

• Create an exit-intent survey that launches when would-be customers abandon their shopping carts, and ask them to leave their email for a follow-up conversation 

• Use Contentsquare Interviews to meet 1:1 with users who leave insightful survey responses

Draw your findings together in a diagram, and you’ll have a holistic view of your buying journey.

Build your marketing strategy around your customers’ experiences using insights gathered with Contentsquare’s Interviews tool 

4. Find market gaps

Next, you need to think strategically about the market landscape and your place in it. This will help you find new ways to reach your ideal customer and position your products effectively.

Start by conducting a competitor analysis to identify your main competitors and their strengths and weaknesses. By looking at what they do well—say, engaging with customers on social media—you might find ways to up your own marketing game. 

On the flip side, discovering their weaknesses, like slow-to-load pages or a lackluster SEO strategy, might help you identify customer needs that aren’t being met (read: opportunities).

Here’s how to identify market gaps:

• Monitor social media. Use social listening tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to monitor conversations related to your products to discover customer needs.

• Use competitive intelligence tools. Try Market Explorer from Semrush to find emerging players in your niche or craft for real-time snapshots of key players. 

• Gain qualitative insights from surveys. Include open-ended questions on Contentsquare Surveys, so customers can tell you what products they currently use.

5. Decide on tactics for each channel

By this point, you know who you want to reach, what they need, and why they might choose you over a competitor. Now it’s time to dive into the how.

Based on all of the research you’ve completed, decide how you’ll attract your target audience to grow your ecommerce business.

Create a separate plan for each channel that includes your

• Budget: how much of your total marketing budget will you allocate?

• Tools: will you need a keyword research tool for SEO to direct organic traffic to your site or live chat software to support new users?

• Objectives: how will you measure success in this channel?

• Tactics: what strategic actions will you take to accomplish your objectives? 

Remember: your plan should address the needs of your potential customers at every stage of the marketing funnel, from awareness to conversion, to ensure you meet customers where they are.

5 effective ecommerce marketing tactics 

Once you have a solid marketing plan in place, you need to fill in the details. Be specific about the approaches you’ll use to reach your goals and objectives.

Let’s examine five popular tactics, why they work, and how you can start using them today.

1. Build awareness through social media marketing

The average person spends 2.5 hours per day on social media, giving ecommerce brands a major opportunity to connect with their target customers where they already hang out.

Building an active presence on a site like Instagram or TikTok gives prospects an opportunity to know, like, and trust your brand. You create a community of loyal customers who choose you over competitors.

The Honest Company creates Instagram content that resonates with its target audience. With over 1 million followers, its posts get hundreds or thousands of likes.

Create more brand awareness across social media through

1. Influencer marketing: pay popular social media personalities to promote your brand or products to their audience

2. Paid ads: target specific segments and reach new leads by launching a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign

3. Contests: ask users to comment, like, or share your posts to win prizes

💡 Pro tip: test creative content before you post it on social media with concept testing. 

Use Contentsquare Surveys to put a pop-over survey on your site to get feedback on a single design or ask visitors to compare 2 prototypes. You show users that you value their input—and get invaluable feedback before you invest time and effort in your campaign.

Contentsquare offers several survey templates perfect for validating early-stage creative content

2. Grow your email list

Over 80% of marketers worldwide rely on email to reach customers—and for good reason. In 2023, email marketing generated more than $10 billion in revenue.

An email list is a quick way to inform shoppers about deals and offers, but it also lets you nurture a relationship with customers and show them you have their best interests in mind.

Makeup brand Il Makiage uses a personalized foundation-matching quiz to collect leads’ email addresses

Grow your email list by:

• Sending newsletters with content tailored to your audiences’ preferences, from engaging stories to special offers

• Hosting virtual or in-person events, like conventions or summits with relevant experts

• Offering appealing lead magnets, like interactive quizzes or shopping guides

3. Showcase social proof

Shoppers want validation before making a purchase. For that, they turn to social proof—evidence that others have had a positive experience with a product.

Great reviews, endorsements, and ratings help buyers feel more confident in their decision-making, encouraging them to take the plunge and convert.

Meal-service delivery company Blue Apron includes social proof on a prime piece of real estate—right below the hero image and above the call-to-action (CTA) button

Offer social proof by

• Highlighting happy customers’ social media content on your website 

• Using customer testimonials throughout your site, including contact, product, and landing pages

• Making reviews searchable on product pages, helping customers find the ones that will facilitate their decision

4. Optimize your product pages

For an ecommerce company, a product page is where the magic happens. It’s that critical juncture in the customer journey where a shopper decides whether to click ‘add to cart’ or exit out.

By optimizing these pages—thinking critically about each component on the page and its overall design and layout—you show new shoppers what makes your product so great and provide a seamless experience that keeps returning customers coming back for more.

Mattress company Casper creates an all-in-one product page with photos, videos, testimonials, product details, comparison charts, and reviews

Optimize your product pages by

• Launching exit-intent surveys to find out why users leave your site, so you know how to make it better

• Conducting A/B tests to compare 2 versions of a product page and see which one performs better

• Writing SEO-friendly product descriptions to ensure your product page attracts traffic from search engines like Google and Bing

💡 Pro tip: use Contentsquare’s Heatmaps + Session Replay tools to decide how to optimize your product pages for users.

Each micro-movement—a small but critical action a shopper takes—matters on your product page. Investigate with this 2-step process:

1. Use Heatmaps to generate visuals of aggregate data on users’ clicks, scrolls, and mouse movements. 

2. Then, watch relevant session replays to see how individuals navigate your product page. Where are they rage-clicking? How can you optimize the page to improve the customer experience and create delight? 

When you watch a session replay with Contentsquare, any rage clicks will show up on the timeline so you can understand what happened in this moment 

5. Minimize cart abandonment

Cart abandonment is a major issue for ecommerce retailers: according to the Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate is 69.99%. If you can reach even some of your wayward shoppers, you’ll increase your conversions and boost your revenue.

Cart abandonment emails, like this one from online store Wayfair, nudge on-the-fence shoppers to purchase 

Minimize cart abandonment by

• Launching cart abandonment surveys to learn the real reasons your customers abandon their carts, like a long checkout process or unexpected shipping costs

• Sending SMS or email reminders—sometimes customers simply forget to complete checkout

• Providing on-site abandoned cart notifications, via banners or push notifications, for users who aren’t on your mailing list

Put your ecommerce marketing strategy into action 

Once you get your marketing strategy for ecommerce in place, it’s time to execute it. But remember, a marketer’s work is never done. Evaluate your marketing campaign’s success and tweak your plan as needed to boost your ecommerce conversions and create satisfied customers.

FAQs about ecommerce marketing strategy