How to get 6800% ROI from a single eCommerce marketing campaign

Back in 2014, my consultancy (Ideal Interface) had an eCommerce client who was having a couple
of major issues:

1. The Return On Investment (ROI) from their Affiliate Marketing efforts using voucher codes was highly variable, having a significant effect on sales margins
2. Conversions rates were falling at key points in the checkout process, as customers were entering invalid voucher codes collected from across the web

The challenge was to take ownership back of the voucher code arena and develop a
marketing programme which would meet the following objectives:

• Test and develop a Voucher Code campaign that users would go to directly and increase the ROI from Voucher Code usage
• Reduce the impact on shopping checkout abandon rates where customers entered a Voucher Code
• Encourage these voucher code users to join the e-mail marketing programme, to subsequently entice voucher code users to become regular customers
• Devise and test a specific e-mail marketing programme for this list of customers that would increase the likelihood of purchasing again

So what happened?

• It was established that users searching on Google for voucher codes were the best group of potential customers to target.
• The first step was to test and develop a Google AdWords campaign based around keyword searches by potential customer using a range of brand name and voucher code related terms such as “<brand> code” and “<brand>; discount code”.
• Then several adverts and discount offers were tested and optimised within the Google advert copy. This was done to see which would provide the best rate of return and to evaluate the propensity to sign up to an email marketing programme.
• The impact on the shopping checkout rate was also monitored.
• An e-mail marketing programme was subsequently devised for this specific list of customers and tests conducted to see which headings, offers and promotions encouraged them to buy again.

The results?

• The Google AdWords Voucher Code campaign produced a staggering return on investment of over 6800%.
• The drop-out rate at the shopping checkout stage for those attempting to use voucher codes halved.
• Over 30% of customers recruited from the Google AdWords Voucher Code campaign went on to join the e-mail marketing programme.
• Over 55% of customers joining the e-mail marketing programme purchased again within 2 months.

Offer sites are NOT digital shopper marketing

I was recently shown the discount & offers website Casabu and was quite impressed with it. This useful registration-based site has several promotions that offer up to 90% discounts for items that mums might want to buy for their children.

This site was shown to me by a friend as with the description "Hey, you work with digital shopper marketing projects. This is a great example of an online shopper website". However, on this point I took exception.

In my opinion sites that provide discounts and promotions are not digital shopper marketing initiatives, they are what they are... useful platforms for registered people to buy a restricted set of products at heavily reduced prices.

For me, digital shopper marketing sites (in theory part of your multi-channel shopper marketing strategy) should not just give you offers or promotions, which are tasks that you carry out once you've decided to make your move towards purchase. Online shopper marketing should also be there to to guide and influence the shopper's decision to buy with persuasive content.

So I have a mobile app developed - now what?

In today's final guest post from Mark Walsh from Nation of Apps, he answers questions on the important subject of what to do once you have your mobile application actually developed for you.

Do I need to promote my mobile app once it has been launched?
Well actually, the promotion should start before launch so that you have already generated interest in the app and your target audience are waiting in anticipation. Once the app has been launched you then have about a week to really push it and take advantage of being featured in the ‘new app’ sections of app stores. After this, you need to follow an ongoing programme of activities to maintain interest in your mobile app.

So how do I go about promoting my app?
There are a number of ways to promote your app and many depend on the type of app and target audience. Some ideas are:
- Consider a website to promote your mobile app
- Consider the use of social media to promote your app : Twitter, Facebook
- Present a YouTube video
- Post blog entries on your and other people’s blogs
- Consider getting app reviewers to review your app at launch to generate interest.

What if my app doesn’t work properly and I need to get it modified?
If bugs are found, resilience is poor, users are having navigation issues etc. then it is possible to get the application developers to make the necessary changes and re-deploy the app.
However, if this proves to be the case, you may well have missed the boat as it is likely users will have stopped using the app and maybe even deleted it. The app will also probably get bad reviews which will impact future uptake. It will be very difficult to recover from this and that critical week 1 impact will have been lost.
This is why thorough app testing is vital. Prior to launch, not only must the app be tested for technical issues but it should be tested by the target audience to ensure they ‘get it’. They need to know exactly what the app does without having to stop and think, be able to navigate easily, and achieve the desired result intuitively.

Mark's details:
company site: http://nationofapps.co.uk/
blog : http://www.nationofapps.co.uk/news-mobile-application-development.html
Twitter: @nationofapps