The pandemic changed the world as we know it. Customer behaviour and buying patterns have been fundamentally altered owing to pandemic-based restrictions and related financial stress — and we can safely say that these new habits are here to stay.
Shoppers were urged to turn to online retailers during lockdowns, leading to a sharp rise in eCommerce revenue. Physical shops are closing doors while the number of online stores is at an all-time high — and still growing. So while the eCommerce market has grown exponentially and still holds great potential, the competition has also multiplied rapidly.
Though online shopping clearly has a monopoly, customers are now less inclined to shop than ever before. Uncertainty about job security, the overall economic impact of the pandemic, and also the ever-increasing cost of living all contribute to this change in behaviours.
It’s high time for online retailers to diversify their marketing efforts in terms of development and distribution so that they can effectively tackle and rise above these challenges. This comes down to devising new strategies that will entice and encourage prospective customers, while still retaining full control over their online promotions.
With there being more social media users than ever before, leveraging the power of paid social and search marketing can exceptionally help growth-minded businesses catch the eye of more new and old customers — generating not only greater customer metrics, but greater profits as a result.¹ Let’s explore how your business can realise the maximum benefits of online promotions.
The importance of enhancing the customer experience towards excelling in the eCommerce world cannot be overstated. When you are focusing on making the customer happy, treating them as numbers will certainly not help. Research indicates that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when you offer a personalised experience.² So capitalising on the power of personalisation is a sure way to leverage more benefits from your promotional tactics while solidifying brand identity.
Promotional codes that are personalised to your target audience are much more likely to entice the right customers, giving your paid social and search promotions a boost. However, personalised promotions run the risk of code misuse and abuse, which can quickly eat up your profits and lead to poor ROI. Exclusive codes do not guarantee complete security as they still run the risk of being leaked. To make your personalised promos truly profitable you need not only exclusive but also single-use codes that will eliminate any chance of repeat use. This is exactly what Uniqodo specialises in.
Challenge: EE wanted to design personalised promotional campaigns to ensure that they don’t lose even a single customer at any point of the customer journey while seamlessly leading them to conversion without losing control over their campaigns.
Solution: Uniqodo delivered exclusive and single-use unique promo codes to cover all their personalised promotional campaigns, including affiliate activities and closed group partnerships. The codes enabled EE to offer exclusive employee benefits and student discounts on closed groups without losing control. We also added partner branded overlays and discounted pricing inline to their website.
Results: These sophisticated solutions helped EE drive new customers while increasing revenue over a 2 year period. As a result, EE saw a 1836% return on investment from Uniqodo.
Sticking to tried-and-true promotional strategies is not enough anymore because your competitors are doing the same. To make your mark and stand out, your promotions need to be sophisticated and unique — designed to catch the interest of your potential customers and enhance the experience of your eCommerce business.
Striking the right balance between having promotional strategies that are creative yet secure is key to driving critical customer metrics, from acquisition to retention. For instance, instead of cold emails, adding special offers like ‘free shipping’ through a secured code on the purchase of specific products that the customer has browsed previously will make your email marketing campaigns much more effective, helping you generate better ROI.
Challenge: OVO Energy lacked a promo code field on their website. While this might seem like a small issue, it was the biggest challenge stopping the brand from leveraging the power of exclusive offers and incentives, which in turn was affecting the overall customer acquisition and business growth.
Solution: Uniqodo’s solution involved adding a sophisticated promo code field to the sign-up page on OVO Energy’s website. This addition allowed the brand to offer special incentives for sign-ups and renewals. The promo code field was targeted by URL, so that a discount or credit could be automatically applied when a customer with a live supply redeems the code.
Results: This new addition ensured that OVO Energy could use the most sophisticated code-based online promotional strategies with maximum efficiency without losing control. It helped the brand acquire new customers and ensured a seamless onsite experience. The solution supports the development of new promotional strategies that add to the overall brand experience and growth.
To convert your target audience into paying customers, you need to design a valuable customer journey that enhances how they experience your eCommerce website. A well-curated customer journey not only ensures that issues like customer churn and browse abandonment are reduced, but that retention is improved upon — helping you capitalise on the power of word-of-mouth and customer loyalty.
The effectiveness of loyalty programs and influencer marketing campaigns are not a secret in the online business space. But that does mean your strategies need an extra edge to make them stand out and effectively add to your customer journeys. This can be achieved with unique, single-use promo codes. Issuing codes that directly bring your influencer’s promotion traffic to your website through a single click or swipe-up can ensure a seamless customer journey without the risk of code misuse. Similarly, unique code-based loyalty programs will allow you to offer better incentives to your loyal customers without losing control.
Challenge: Sky wanted to enable the ability to trial new user experiences on their website to improve their conversion rate, particularly from partnership generated traffic.
Solution: Uniqodo introduced 3 new onsite features that were targeted towards improving the conversion rates from 5 closed group publisher partners. A top-of-the-page canvas with a partner-branded marketing message and the discount amount was displayed throughout the buying funnel. The existing basket message was enhanced by highlighting the partner offer and savings.
Results: The new onsite additions helped Sky efficiently capitalise on partner-generated traffic and provided them with an uncomplicated solution to design their internal campaigns as per their changing brand promotion strategies. Uniqodo’s promotional journeys are set to help Sky see an uplift in conversion rates of 5% or higher, all whilst driving and nurturing partner conversions.
While your online promotions need to be personalised to your customers’ needs and desires, they obviously also have to be catered to your business-specific goals. To design truly effective promotional campaigns, you need to analyse and identify where profits are either being lost or generated. This will help you come up with strategies that can fill profit gaps by eliminating points of loss while capitalising on the factors leading to profit.
Be it promotions on social media platforms or content marketing through blog posts and press releases — knowing your customers will always help in devising more efficient strategies. In-depth analysis of customer data leads to the discovery of insights that can positively inform your paid social and search promotions. However, efficient analysis of the huge volume of customer data is practically impossible without the help of the right automation tool — a gap in the market that Uniqodo’s advanced capabilities fill.
Challenge: TUI, a prominent tour operator, was facing considerable revenue loss due to low occupancy on specific dates, destinations, and holiday packages. TUI only had basic capabilities to run standard destination-based discounts but they lacked the right support to provide offers at a more granular level.
Solution: Uniqodo implemented sophisticated validation criteria on their website to provide discounts on specific hotels on specific dates. CTAs on specific search results were deployed based on underselling locations, dates, and product types. This specific targeting was based on data layer variables. We also implemented mandatory validation on checkout to ensure that the codes can only be redeemed against specific units.
Results: The updates implemented by Uniqodo helped TUI overcome the profit gaps they were experiencing previously, leading to an increased conversion rate, reduced losses, and higher profitability. TUI had recognised that discounts always performed better than simply lowering product prices, and Uniqodo’s solutions enabled them to offer flexible discounts at a granular level without losing control.
When it comes to online promotions, even small businesses can enjoy the same benefits as a multi-million dollar brand by devising the right paid social and search marketing strategies. It is vital for eCommerce stores, irrespective of their size or revenue, to focus on enhancing their existing promotional strategies to smoothly sail in this sharply changing digital business space. The new strategies should reliably drive profit and growth while safeguarding against potential losses — and partnering with an automated promotion experience platform like Uniqodo is the best way to achieve that.
Uniqodo helps online businesses create a seamless promotional journey, from the discovery of a promotion to conversion. Our eCommerce platform provides the support needed to design a seamless, dynamic customer experience. It solves the challenges of developing and distributing profitable online promotions, whilst ensuring total control over how they’re redeemed. Uniqodo improves acquisition, amplifies conversions, drives engagement and increases retention. To learn more about how Uniqodo can help you leverage paid social and search for better online promotions, book a discovery call with us today.