GET IN TOUCH
Articles
ABOUT US

How eCommerce Companies Should Change Their Communication During the COVID-19 Crisis

Christian Bodine on April 2, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the eCommerce world upside-down. Many companies are either struggling with the reality of closing their warehouses and scaling back business, or struggling to keep up with skyrocketing demand while complying with ever-changing regulations. During this situation, we are happy to serve as a resource for eCommerce businesses, helping them thrive even in the face of uncertainty. 

While we know that all of this may seem overwhelming, and it may be tempting to just press pause on your development and marketing progress, we encourage you not to just maintain the status quo – or worse, halt your communication efforts. Instead, take this time to focus on really connecting with your clients and your online community. 

Buyers in the current market are experiencing a range of emotions. People are feeling fear over lack of resources and potentially contaminated items. There’s pride in seeing local businesses and communities come together to support front-line workers. Purchasers’ standards of on-demand convenience are being undermined by decreased availability and longer shipping times. On top of it all, many people are feeling overwhelmed as they try to adapt to a new balance at home with family. 

With everything happening right now, it can be hard to know what to say. But now is an important time to speak up. As a brand people trust, you can help bring people peace of mind.

Research tells us that purchasing decisions are strongly influenced by the level of identification or connection a buyer feels with a brand, and now is the perfect time to grow that connection.  When all of this is over, customers will remember the businesses who saw, addressed, and met their needs.

We highly recommend that all eCommerce businesses incorporate the following public relations messages into their communication with clients via website, email, social media, and any other appropriate communication channels:

Focus on Health and Safety 

Tell your customers what you’re doing to prioritize safety. Don’t just assume that they know you’re taking extra precautions. Your customers are likely very concerned about the safety of the products they are bringing into their homes, and the safety of those who work in the companies that make those products.  

If you are still selling/shipping products:

  • Clearly communicate the steps you are taking to keep customers safe.  Are you sanitizing packages before they leave the warehouse? Have you increased the cleaning schedule in your facility?
  • Share how you are working to keep employees safe while they are on the job. Have you decreased the number of employees on shift at any given time? Have you offered increased protective equipment or access to healthcare? Have you staggered shifts so that less people are working at the same time?
  • Share other ways you are caring for your employees, like increased pay, access to child-care.

1-800 Contacts is updating their header message daily on their COVID-19 response.

If you are no longer selling/shipping products:

  • Clearly communicate your commitment to keeping your employees safe. Explain that you value their safety and that you are gladly complying with regulations.
  • Communicate anything you are doing to help your employees who are not working – Are you continuing salaries or providing access to resources? Even a general statement that you’re “doing everything you can to support your employees at this time” will go far. 

Share Community Involvement

Your customers want to support companies that are supporting their communities. If you’re doing something to make the situation better where you are, tell that story. Even if folks can’t buy from you now, the goodwill you create will keep you top of mind later. Use photos and videos to tell the story whenever you can.

Showcase Your Customers

There’s a good chance that your online community members have found themselves with an increased amount of free time. Take advantage of that! Reach out to them and encourage them to engage with you!

  • Ask questions that will get them engaged! Use this time to gather feedback on new product ideas, ask how they’re using your products, or ask what new services they would like to see offered. 
  • Ask for and share their photos of your products “in the wild” during this time of social distancing. Give them a chance to show off what they’ve been working on.
  • Hold a contest. Ask your audience to use your products in a relevant way, and then reward the most creative submission.

Imperfect Foods is highlighting creative customers repurposing their branded shipping boxes.

Practice Excellent Customer Service

Your customers may have a lot of time to interact with your brand right now, especially online. It’s vitally important that you are ready and willing to respond.

  • Proactively respond to posts, comments, messages, and reviews.  Since more people are spending time online, the likelihood that they will see others’ comments about your brand – both positive and negative – is increased. 
  • Communicate clearly and frequently. Try to think of questions your customers will have for you, and communicate the answers before the questions are asked. Do this via social media, website content, email, or all of the above! 
  • Ensure that your responses give an extra dose of empathy. Many people are frightened, and their stress levels may be higher than normal.  
  • Don’t make jokes. Humor can be a great stress reliever in difficult times, but leave the jokes and memes for personal communication. As a brand, it could really send the wrong message to your customers.

We hope that this quick list of recommendations will help your eCommerce business navigate the uncertain circumstances we’re all navigating right now. Day-to-day operations for your business may look very different today than they did a month ago, and they may look very different one month from today. But you have the opportunity right now to take steps that will help your company maintain, or even grow.

If you find that your business needs more in-depth help, or you’d like to discuss how these recommendations fit into an overall eCommerce strategy, please contact us today.

Five Realities that eCommerce Businesses Must Adapt to During the COVID-19 Crisis.

Christian Bodine on March 31, 2020

During this time of uncertainty, we are seeing major shifts in the buying habits of consumers, especially online. Some of our clients’ sales are soaring right now, while others have taken a major hit.

While we can’t predict what the months ahead will bring, or even tomorrow, there are things businesses can do now to help guard against potential declines and build future success. This isn’t business as usual, and your messaging and marketing tactics shouldn’t be either. 

Our team is proactively strategizing with each of our clients to help them weather this season well. We want to share more about our approach to marketing strategy at this time and offer some tactics that we believe can be helpful for other eCommerce businesses.

What’s Happening Today

What’s true about the present times? Identifying some of the current trends will help us identify better solutions. For the structure of this blog, I’ll define a present trend and follow with some tips based on it. 

People are Spending More Time at Home

Most of us are spending more quality time than ever with our family and furry friends. Those who can are working from home and those looking to stay fit are needing to get resourceful while their gym is closed for the foreseeable future. Social gatherings are replaced by social networking and puzzles are now a shameless Friday night activity.

Show How Your Product is Still Useful

With most of the nation at home, do you have products that can be utilized to help fill their time? Don’t assume people will put two-and-two together. And don’t be afraid to directly address families being home and having more free time available. 

Our client, Tombow, knew there would be many crafters at home looking for a new project and hosted a free workshop for their site visitors. More than 9,000 Tombow followers registered!

Many people are using this time to learn new things or take on at-home projects. Create content with DIY project steps, how-to articles, and videos, that show your products in action. Send links to this content through email, social media, and even add it to product pages. 

If your primary products do not fall into a category that would be useful during this time, focus on secondary products. For example, if you sell clothing and/or shoes, data is showing purchase declines in this industry.

Slow marketing efforts for those products, and lean instead into other secondary products that may be a lower price point. Consider updating your messaging and content by gathering user generated content (UGC) such as “Your best mailbox looks”, or posting articles such as “What is the best way to clean your shoes?”

People Are Spending Less Money

The stock market is down and unemployment is up, so it makes sense for people to be a bit more cautious about making a non-essential purchase. I know that sounds a bit grim, but the good news is that this isn’t going to last forever.

Build Customer Relationships

Now is a great time to improve customer relationships through social media and email. Capture those email addresses and get new followers.

Do you have email pop-ups on your site? Offer a discount on their first purchase after sign up! 

Do you have cart abandonment emails set up? 

Are you asking people to follow you on social media? 

This gives you more opportunity in the future to upsell, cross-sell, promote new products, sales, etc. far beyond the current environment. This holds true whether your industry is booming right now, or sales are declining.

Build brand awareness and capture new potential customers for when they are ready to purchase again. 

Get Creative for Deal Hunters

While it’s true that most people are spending less right now, there will always be those who see the downturn as an opportunity to “buy low”. If your company is in need of cash, consider some deep cuts to prices to help attract deal hunters.

Offer bulk pricing, or create kits or grouped products at a discounted price. This will help move more product and increase average order value.

Another idea is to promote gift cards and give shoppers a free gift with their purchase. They may not need your product right now, but give them incentive to buy a gift card to get something later. For example, for every $30 in gift cards they purchase, give $5 for free for a future purchase. 

Shipping and Fulfillment is Backed Up

Amazon isn’t shipping non-essentials for weeks, and Prime is no longer promising two-day shipping. Even many smaller companies are struggling to keep up with shortages in manpower, packing materials, and product. For the businesses that are seeing an increase in sales, the delivery and supply chain are quickly becoming areas of challenge.

Be Transparent

If your fulfillment times are affected, get in front of it. Be transparent about shipping estimates and potential inventory issues early in the buying process. Don’t let customers go through the checkout process only to see in the last step that the product will not be available. This can cause them to become frustrated and choose a different company. Transparency with consumers builds trust.

Adapt Quickly

Much of our nation’s workforce is being confronted with layoffs as businesses are being forced to close. Would hiring temp workers help get your product packaged and shipped faster? Or contracting with another company to aid in your efforts?

Additionally, communicating these efforts will not only help you keep up with sales, but also signals to consumers that you are a business they would want to support now and in the future. 

Many businesses are struggling to meet demand due to packaging issues. Are you able to update the type of packaging you are using? Are there US suppliers, particularly local, that can provide a variation of what you are currently using at least temporarily? 

Focus marketing efforts on products you have a heavy supply of. Particularly if you know these are items that are getting harder to find in physical stores. Likewise, reduce or stop marketing efforts on low supply items. This can increase your ROAS (return on ad spend), and keep products moving through your doors. 

People Are Afraid of Catching the Virus

Shoppers are taking many precautions to avoid situations that could put them at risk of being exposed to the coronavirus. Of course, that means more people are going online for items they would have typically bought in store.

But we’re still learning about how the virus is spread and many fear the risk of transmission even by their packages. That’s why many warehouses and fulfillment centers are taking extra safety measures to protect both their employees and customers.

If you’re taking extra precautions, communicate this to customers! Share about the new practices your company has in place and how you are pro-actively responding to this situation. Our client, Marlow White, created a dedicated landing page with a helpful infographic to reassure their customers.

We Only Get Through This Together

Don’t be afraid to be open and transparent about how your business is weathering the storm and how you and your employees are doing. People want to feel connected, especially during this time. They want to know that your company cares about their employees, about the consumer, and that they are experiencing the same things at this time.

Let them know you are there to help them make this time a little bit easier. 

People want to feel good about their purchase, and feel good about the company that they are purchasing from. Has your business hired more employees? Given bonuses or pay increases? Kept paying employees despite layoffs? Let people know!

Are you able to donate a portion of your profits to a local charity that is supporting those out of work or medical professionals with food or other necessities? If so, choose a vetted local charity, and let your customers know. Our client, Jasco, gives 50% of their net profits to nonprofits. Right now, they’re highlighting groups aiding with COVID-19 response.

Data shows that charitable giving increases average order value because consumers feel as if they are directly donating to a cause. 

As Fred Rogers once said:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

As you and your business are navigating this difficult time, look to be a helper. Consider what you can do for your employees, your community, and your customers. People are looking for you, and they will remember you when things get back to normal. If you can be a helper now, you’ll be a business they’ll want to support when we all get through this.

Improving Tombow’s ROAS

Christian Bodine on February 13, 2020

Tombow’s office, arts, and crafts products are sold around the globe and in the United States’ most trusted craft and hobby retailers. Tombow came to Classy Llama with extremely low return on ad spend (ROAS) for their Google Ads.

As we learned more about their business and current efforts, we saw three major reasons for their low ad performance.

The first was a low average per product price. We needed to increase overall traffic and conversions to ensure revenue was sufficient. Low average per product prices aren’t typically an issue for organic traffic, but with paid traffic, it’s hard to improve your return on ad spend when you have a low average order value and each conversion costs a few dollars.

Another key challenge was competition online with resellers. Tombow sells both B2B and B2C and is carried by the largest craft and hobby stores in the nation. They also sell their products on Amazon which has a higher brand and ranking power than their own brand site. Tombow does not have MAP (minimum advertised price) rules in place and often they were being undersold by their dealers.

Finally, we found the Tombow wasn’t optimizing their ad copy and it needed to be improved. Ad text used inconsistent copy styles and weren’t reaching character limits, which limited the amount of keywords in the ad text. Sitelink, callout, and structured snippet extensions were not being fully utilized either.

Tombow has strong brand recognition in the world of craft and hobbies, so there wasn’t much of a need to assign a large budget to generic prospecting campaigns, which are campaigns focused on generic non branded keywords such as “markers for sale”. These keywords are usually the first point of contact with a business when a customer is still looking for the product they are interested in purchasing and has not decided on a brand.

Instead, we focused more heavily on Tombow’s brand and smart shopping campaigns. Smart Shopping was able to weed out the “researchers” with the product image, description, and price information. Our campaigns targeted customers who were ready to buy and gave them the ability to see the product, go to the site, and purchase. Otherwise, customers would have to click on each individual search ad of companies selling similar products and decide who had the product they were looking for, with the desired price. This was a win, since the average cost per click on Shopping Campaigns tends to be 30-50% less than Search Campaigns.

Finally, we implemented additional sitelink, callout, and structured snippet extensions. These new extensions were created to better use the available character limits and increase the real estate taken up by ads. Once these changes were made, Tombow saw the quality score on their ads increase and their CPC decrease.

The result was an increase in profitability through a reduction in paid ad spend, an increase in revenue of 25.47%, and an increase in ROAS by 154%.

Understanding the CCPA: A TLDR; Guide

Christian Bodine on January 30, 2020

The latest piece of legislation that has eCommerce merchants scrambling to stay above the law is the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act). If you’re in the eCommerce space, you’ve certainly heard of it. But many have lagged in doing their homework or taking action, so we’re offering a no-nonsense primer on the matter.

I’m going to give you enough information to not feel clueless when this comes up in conversation and, more importantly, know if this bill affects you and if you have some work to do. 

This isn’t a comprehensive guide. If you want one of those, Magento and BigCommerce both wrote good ones.

If you prefer legalese, you can drink from the source here.

What is CCPA?

The CCPA is a privacy law that defines the rights of California consumers to know and control what personal information is being used by companies.

Magento summarized these rights as the following:

  • Right to know the categories of personal information about them that is collected, used, shared, or sold in the past 12 months.
  • Right to delete certain types of personal information that is held by a business and/or their service provider(s).
  • Right to opt out of the sale of their personal information.
  • Right to non-discrimination in terms of price or service for having exercised a privacy right under CCPA.

Who does CCPA apply to?

At the time of writing this, CCPA applies to businesses that meet one or more of the following criteria:

  • Annual gross revenue of more than 25 million
  • Buy, sell, or receive the personal information of 50,000+ consumers, households, or devices.
  • Derive 50% or more of their annual revenue from the sale of consumer personal information.

Businesses located anywhere are responsible to meet these requirements for their California consumers. 

If you prefer pictures, BigCommerce has a helpful guide.

(source: BigCommerce – Intro to CCPA)

Am I covered if I’m GDPR-compliant?

Merchants and vendors suffering from GDPR PTSD might be wondering what the difference is between CCPA and GDPR. They’re both consumer privacy laws, but they define things a bit differently and have a number of conditions that make them a bit harder to compare directly. Don’t assume that you’re in the clear just because you’re in compliance with GDPR.

BigCommerce explains the difference in more depth here. 

My business needs to be CCPA-compliant. What now?

This law is in effect already, as of Jan 1, 2020. If the state of California believes you’re in violation of the CCPA, you may receive a notice of noncompliance. You have 30 days to comply, and if things aren’t resolved, you could receive a fine of up to $7,500 per record. That can add up fast.

By this time, leading eCommerce platforms have all published CCPA compliance documentation for merchants to follow. Additionally, you’ll want to work with any third-party service providers and tools that access your customer information to ensure they’ve provided the tools needed to remain compliant.

What does CCPA say about the future of eCommerce?

If GDPR wasn’t enough of a sign, CCPA clearly shows where things are headed for consumer rights when it comes to data. We’ll see this trend continue in more places than Europe and California.

Compliance with consumer protection laws will continue to be a focus for merchants, platforms, and technology providers. Expect regulations to expand to more places and begin to affect smaller merchants as well.

Google Smart Shopping – Experiences from an Expert

Christian Bodine on December 19, 2019

Smart Shopping Campaigns originally launched its general availability at the Google Marketing Live event in July 2018. Smart Shopping is a new campaign type that pulls data from the product feed and tests various combinations of the image and text provided, ensuring the most relevant products are displayed across Google networks. These networks include the Google Search Network, the Google Display Network, YouTube, and Gmail. Using historical data from standard Shopping Campaigns, Smart Shopping campaigns automatically maximize the conversion value within a budget.

In the campaign settings, you can set a target return on ad spend, or ROAS, (For more about ROAS check out our calculator here) or CPA (cost per acquisition) goal. Google’s machine learning will aim to reach your set goal within your budget. These campaigns have mixed reviews online, but in most cases we have seen great success with our clients. 

Am I losing control or losing my mind?

The transition to Google Smart Shopping campaigns seemed overwhelming, as I’d spent many hours developing and optimizing legacy campaigns. I was hesitant to give up the control of decreasing bids or excluding individual items, and knew that this new campaign type would have its own learning curve. Despite my hesitation, I dug in and have been impressed with the performance the new Smart Shopping Campaigns are producing.

Based on a number of factors, these campaigns are able to automatically adjust bids, which means less product segmentation to build out. The automation took some adjusting to, but I’ve found that the control hasn’t been lost, only shifted.  

The Results Are In

The performance of Smart Shopping campaigns speak for themselves. One of our clients was not failing to meet their goal of 10x (or 1,000%  ROAS on shopping campaigns. Using the old “legacy” Shopping Campaign, they averaged around 6x for months. Within just two months of machine-learning with Smart Shopping campaigns, performance is better than ever. Now, they are averaging over 10x monthly, and this new strategy has proven to be very successful. 

Potential Roadblocks

There are very few roadblocks that we have discovered while working with Smart Shopping campaigns. There tends to be a 2-6 week ramp up phase where the campaign isn’t performing at it’s full potential. During this time the campaign is learning how to bid effectively on your products to get the maximum amount of conversions. If you are planning to start testing these campaigns, we advise waiting until after the holidays.

Success So Far

For the client I mentioned early, their campaign generated an increase in revenue of 1248% on Black Friday over last year. We are looking forward to what these campaigns will do through the rest of the holidays for all of our clients. While they aren’t for everyone, it’s worth considering if these campaigns could simplify your strategies.

Overall, we’ve been impressed with the performance that these campaigns have accomplished. Having worked with Shopping campaigns since their inception, I am convinced Smart Shopping is best for our clients and recommend them for nearly everyone. You can learn more from Google about Smart Shopping here.

The Instagram Effect: How the Rise of Visual UGC is Transforming eCommerce

Christian Bodine on December 13, 2019

As anyone who’s ever gone on a first date will tell you, first impressions matter. A brand’s website is no exception to this universal truth. Visitors make snap judgments about the appearance of your website in a matter of seconds – 50 milliseconds to be exact. So, what can you do to make sure your brand gets a second date?

Authenticity Wins Every Time: The Case for Visual UGC

With everyone and their uncle posting photos of their day-to-day on Instagram, consumers are more and more interested in and accustomed to authentic, relatable content. 

If stunning, branded imagery was once a sufficient hook to entice shoppers, today’s consumers see right through glossy photo displays. In fact, Yotpo data shows that 77% of shoppers prefer user-generated photos to professional ones, resulting in a higher conversion rate.

When shoppers can see themselves reflected in a brand’s visual marketing strategy, it’s a lot easier for them to envision themselves wearing the outfit or using the product. Professional photos featuring glamorous models can fail to provide the full picture — and with 54% of consumers deciding against purchasing a product due to unhelpful photos, missing the mark on photos is a risky move.  

What’s more, authentic and relatable photos help browsers form an emotional connection with your brand and your customer community. These emotionally connected customers make more purchases, are highly engaged with brand communications, and are more likely to recommend you to their peers. That bond pays off: emotionally connected customers are more than twice as valuable as highly satisfied customers. 

Not only do shoppers themselves say they prefer visual UGC, but the aspiration and inspiration encapsulated in a customer photo also conjure powerful emotions in potential buyers. The first step in reaping those benefits is optimizing your UGC collection efforts.  

Collect More, Higher Quality Visual UGC

Collecting visual UGC can be as simple as asking for what you want at just the right time. We’ve gathered a few best practices to ensure that you’re getting as much useful content as possible: 

  • Ask for photos when you send a post-purchase review request. 
  • Optimize your reviews widget on-site to allow for easy photo uploads.
  • Ask for a photo when you receive a five-star review.
  • Offer a coupon in exchange for a photo, to boost retention while collecting UGC.
  • Run a photo contest on social media to engage your audience with your brand and encourage them to get creative. 

As we approach the holidays, you’ll have even more opportunities to put these strategies into action.

Make the Most of the Holiday Season

In the US, 23% of annual sales happen over the holidays. Brands have a golden opportunity to harness that massive momentum and keep it going well into the new year and beyond.  

Re-engage your holiday shoppers by sending post-purchase photo and review requests, or get your social following into the holiday spirit by launching a creative photo contest. Take L.L.Bean, for example. Their annual holiday Instagram campaign invites followers to share photos of their dogs with the hashtag #12DaysofPuppies. The winners get their pups’ photos featured on the official L.L.Bean Instagram account as well as a gift card, resulting in an effective, not to mention adorable, campaign that generates tons of quality UGC. 

New Year, New Visual UGC Display Strategy

No matter how much UGC you collect, you can’t win without a strong strategy for showcasing it. Here are three ways you should be incorporating customer content in the buyer journey in 2020:

Cover every stage of the on-site journey

Whether a customer is seeing your brand for the first time on your homepage, or they’ve clicked through to a product page from an ad, make sure they’re getting to see visual UGC. A homepage UGC gallery can encourage a shopper to keep browsing, while customer photos on a product page can be the final piece of social proof needed for them to hit the “add to cart” button. 

For example, Campus Protein saw a 29% increase in the number of shoppers who went from the product page to checkout when they added customer photos to their Fuel supplement product page. Even the checkout page is an opportunity to erase any last-minute purchase doubts with visual UGC. 

Give shoppers the Instagram experience

Our social feeds have turned us into endless scroll addicts. Replicate that experience on your site with galleries that incorporate your customers’ thumb-stopping Instagram images. Showcasing your products in a way consumers crave pays off: Vanity Planet boosted conversions by 24% when they added an Instagram gallery to their product pages, translating into almost $9,000 in additional sales over just ten days. 

Update your ads

Including authentic customer photos in ads has a major impact on click-through rates, since shoppers respond best to reviews from real people who have bought, used, and loved your products. Using customer content means that you not only create super impactful ads — including retargeting ads for shoppers who’ve browsed your product pages and need a bit more social proof — but you also save resources on ad creative. With so many channels to cover, visual UGC is the most scalable and effective way to create ads. 

The Future of Visual UGC: Customer Videos

64% of shoppers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video, proving that video has a serious impact on the consumer decision-making process. Similar to photos, consumers aren’t swayed by just any video — they crave authentic, user-generated clips from their fellow shoppers. Early adopters of customer videos stand to gain an edge on competitors.  

Bridging the expectation-reality gap

Videos are a persuasive tool for any merchant to have in their arsenal as information gets lost in translation with photos and text descriptions alone. Shoppers want to see the actual look, color, size, feel, and true use of a product. Customer videos are the best way to help shoppers visualize your product in action. 

Improving SEO

Videos also contain powerful SEO benefits. Including videos on-site can boost Google rankings by indicating to search engines that your site contains rich media that is relevant to search requests.

Merchants can easily collect on-brand, customer-created videos on Instagram and display them onsite at key touchpoints. They can also allow customers to upload videos directly, all without spending a single dollar on production. Video content is a critical addition to any UGC gallery, and keeps things visually interesting with a mix of different content types to engage and convert shoppers. 

About Yotpo

Yotpo, the leading eCommerce marketing platform, helps thousands of forward-thinking brands like Rebecca Minkoff, MVMT,  Bob’s Discount Furniture, and Steve Madden accelerate direct-to-consumer growth. Yotpo’s single-platform approach integrates data-driven solutions for reviews, visual UGC, loyalty, and referrals. Brands with Yotpo are empowered to create smarter, higher-converting experiences that spark and sustain customer relationships. Integrated with the tools you use every day, including Google, Instagram, top eCommerce platforms, and the rest of your tech stack, Yotpo is a Forbes Cloud 100 company with offices in New York, London, Boston, and Tel Aviv.

Yotpo and Classy Llama work together to accelerate growth for today’s leading eCommerce brands. Our strong partnership ensures success through innovative technology, one-of-a-kind design, and creative strategies that help brands convert, engage, and retain customers. 

Reducing CPC and Increasing Clicks with Google Smart Shopping

Christian Bodine on December 12, 2019

Northern Arizona Wind and Sun is a reseller of solar panels and equipment. Over the last few years, they have been working to grow their online presence and revenue. In 2018, they struggled to meet their advertising goals as Google Shopping was using a large portion of the budget but was not achieving a solid return. This campaign specifically was in need of an optimization. Using the performance data for 2018, we were able to optimize the account to ensure their goals were being met for 2019. 

Being a reseller of solar equipment, they have higher AOV’s. Generally when this is the case, we tend to see a longer buying window, which can cause issues when optimizing Shopping Campaigns. Depending on the price of the product, buying windows are about 30-45 days. For products with higher prices, the buying window increases to about 30-90 days. During this timeframe, if any products are spending but not actually converting, a PPC Specialist may decrease the bids to ensure return goals are met. This can take quite a bit of time to properly manage. If you are getting anxious about a product overspending and decrease a bid too early, those “big ticket” products may not display and sell as they could. 

One of our biggest wins for this client was migrating from the standard Shopping Campaign to Google’s Smart Shopping program, which nearly doubled their return. By using current and historical data, these campaign types take the average buying window into account to dynamically manage bids. Additionally these campaigns adjust bids based on a number of factors like demographic, location, time & device. We can then take the data from the product performance and exclude products that may not be what their customers are looking for. 

By switching to Smart Shopping, we were able to obtain more clicks at a lower cost. Our average CPC decreased by 24% while our clicks increased by 16.98%. Since these campaigns are primarily automated, we were able to shift that time to focus on Search Campaigns. This has allowed us to effectively test new types of Ads and extensions as well as new bidding methods, which has also increased revenue.

Partner Round-Up: Holiday Prep for eCommerce

Christian Bodine on November 22, 2019

When it comes to preparing your eCommerce site for the holiday season, there’s no shortage of advice available. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas sales, and the post-holiday return season can easily blur into chaos and frustration.

We understand that those 4-6 weeks are crucial for merchants, and want to help you cut through the noise. We’ve sifted through the ocean of blog posts and webinars, and brought together the resources from some of the voices in eCommerce that we trust most. From email marketing to fraud prevention, we’ve got you covered.

Preparing Your Site

BigCommerce has put together a holiday readiness kit, complete with an actionable checklist and expert tips to ensure your eCommerce website is primed for holiday success. This kit covers everything from Mobile Optimization to SEO and follow-up campaigns. Be sure to check out their blog for additional holiday prep ideas. Signifyd Fraud Prevention is also hosting a free on-demand webinar with tips to optimize conversion and prevent revenue risks this season. 

Boost Your Global Sales

It goes without saying that one way to increase revenue is to increase your amount of customers. One way to add more customers is to go global and expand your market geographically. This can be intimidating, but Klevu Search has your back. Their ebook, Tis the Season to Go Global, offers tips to help your international efforts stand out from the crowd, attract visitors to your site, and convert them into loyal customers. 

Set Shipping Expectations

Nothing is more frustrating than shipping delays on a purchased product. This is amplified in the holiday season. We’ve all received the classic “note in a box” saying the gift is on its way.

ShipStation created a guide to holiday shipping deadlines to help you have accurate shipping guarantees related to the holidays. Give your users a boost of confidence, knowing their packages will arrive on time. 

Capture Your Audience

The team at Klaviyo knows that holidays are the most pivotal time of the year for most merchants. To help create and optimize your holiday strategy, head on over to their eCommerce Holiday Marketing Hub. With content covering everything from email segmentation to content planning for 2020, there’s tons of really valuable insight for you.

Conclusion

As the holidays raise unique concerns and challenges for merchants, one thing remains clear: this season is where the most potential and opportunity lies for most merchants. Failure to prepare your site and marketing strategy means that you could be missing out on substantial conversions and potential revenue. When you’re prepared, your customers will notice the difference, creating return customers and establishing trust.

If your holiday prep has become overwhelming, feel free to reach out. Our llamas are always happy to talk shop, and want to help you exceed all expectations. Contact us today!

MSTS: Partnership Announcement

Christian Bodine on November 8, 2019

Subject: Classy Llama partners with MSTS

Springfield, MO – October 30, 2019 – Classy Llama, a full service eCommerce agency, has joined with MSTS as a partner to provide merchants an alternative payment and credit solution. MSTS is a global B2B payment and credit solution that eliminates the need for businesses to leverage their capital and back-office resources to provide credit and payment terms to customers.

Many B2B companies experience the pain of high transaction fees associated with utilizing credit cards. These companies are looking to provide easy payment options, such as real-time invoicing and 30+ day payment terms, while receiving their own settlements within 24 hours of a completed sale.

“We’re excited to partner with Classy Llama and provide companies with a robust, streamlined eCommerce experience,” said Brandon Spear, president at MSTS. “As the preferences of B2B buyers continue to evolve in a way that more closely matches a B2C shopping flow, it’s important that merchants are able to keep up and provide the desired experiences. We believe that together, we can offer a best-in-class experience for both the buyer and the merchant.”

By partnering with MSTS, Classy Llama enhances its ability to offer alternate payment solutions to current and potential clientele. Classy Llama believes that the partnership will enable businesses to create a seamless, customer centric payment experience. MSTS is a solution that eliminates pain points, providing an automated instant credit decisions, buyer onboarding, billing, customer service and more.

“More and more B2B merchants are trying to bring their existing ordering processes up to date and provide purchasers with a more self service eCommerce experience,” says Brandon Urich, Director of Solutions at Classy Llama. “B2B credit terms can be a challenging thing to streamline, however MSTS has done just that. They’ve been in the business for a long time. They know B2B payments and the needs of the sellers and buyers. We look forward to having a turn key solution that takes the complexity out of managing credit terms for our clients.”

Classy Llama’s depth of services include impressive capabilities in engineering, design, SEO, consulting, and other eCommerce needs. Now offering B2B payment solutions, powered by MSTS, Classy Llama plans to continue helping merchants effectively grow sales and increase customer retention. For more information regarding Classy Llama’s service offerings, merchants can easily contact a member of the team by clicking here.

About Classy Llama
Classy Llama is a full service eCommerce agency specializing in website builds, support and marketing services for online retailers. Despite the playful name, Classy Llama could not be more serious about the level of integrity, excellence, and commitment they bring to clients. Classy Llama is passionate about helping merchants leverage technology to sustainably grow and build their business. With over 150 commerce sites and 425+ customizations and integrations completed, the Classy Llama team is made of commerce veterans that have what it takes to create a great digital experience.

About MSTS
MSTS is a global leader in B2B payment and credit solutions, facilitating transactions for customers in more than 190 countries. InvoiceMe, an alternative payment tool within Credit as a Service® (CaaS), will allow SMBs and enterprise organizations to extend terms to customers when they’re completing a purchase online. CaaS is setting the stage for the future of omni-channel B2B payments with a suite of applications to accelerate business commerce. MSTS’ high-performance culture continues to be the catalyst for continued success in the ever-changing world of financial technology.

Jayme McCrimmons
Partner Marketing
[email protected]

Three Ways BigCommerce is “Thinking Big”

Christian Bodine on November 6, 2019

Three Ways BigCommerce is “Thinking Big”

At the end of October, BigCommerce hosted its Partner Summit in Austin, TX. I flew down early to hang out in ATX, and Jordan, our BigCommerce Solutions Architect, joined me in time for the event.

The BigCommerce Partner Summit offered an overview of the eCommerce platform’s direction, its competitive advantages, and a series of workshops that helped sharpen the skills and knowledge of its partners.

The summit kicked off with a keynote from BigCommerce CEO, Brent Bellm. This session turned out to be my favorite of the whole event. In less than an hour, Bellm summarized the eCommerce market with clarity and crystallized BC’s strongest selling points: 

  • Built for growth
  • Industry-leading performance
  • Cross-channel commerce
  • Lower total cost of ownership

The Disruptive Innovation Model

Brent framed the BigCommerce competitive position from the perspective of the Disruptive Innovation Model. This model, coined by Brent’s Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, describes the way in which a product or service gains footing by offering a solution to the bottom of the market, then steadily moves upmarket while retaining its commitment downmarket.

Source: Clayton M. Christensen, Michael Raynor, and Rory McDonald

BigCommerce has shed its reputation of being “just for small companies” and is now taking the lead in bringing cutting-edge technologies to SaaS eCommerce.

With each innovation and update, they don’t just create a more compelling product for mid-market and enterprise merchants; they also make world-class commerce experiences accessible for micro-merchants at their lowest rate (just $30/month).

As the day progressed, the BigCommerce team hosted sessions that informed partners like Classy Llama of the specific features BigCommerce is creating to serve merchants of all sizes.

For this post, I want to share more about how BigCommerce is “thinking Big.”

Below are three areas that show how BigCommerce is a strong choice for mid-market and enterprise merchants.

Headless Experiences

Headless architecture is one of the biggest trends in eCommerce right now. This is because brands are digging deeper into offering unique, branded experiences through their sites.

Headless as a concept basically means that the merchant’s eCommerce features are decoupled from the front-end, as well as other parts of the brand’s online architecture.

The brand is free to build their site on the CMS of their choice (WordPress, Adobe Experience Manager, Gatsby, etc.) and plug pieces of the BigCommerce platform like cart, catalog, and checkout wherever they need it.

When headless, brand’s online architecture can be a network of independent micro services communicating with one another in any way the brand desires.

BigCommerce is enabling merchants and agencies to build unique headless experiences with their platform as an eCommerce hub. 

One can’t talk about headless without talking about APIs. APIs are used to connect applications and let them pass information between each other.

Historically, REST was the standard for web-based APIs. GraphQL is a newer and more robust architecture for APIs designed by Facebook. To avoid getting too technical, I’ll say this: REST was released in 2000 and GraphQL in 2015. The internet has changed a lot in those 15 years, and GraphQL is an API solution designed for our modern web. 

BigCommerce’s support of GraphQL is in beta. The end result will be even more data than what was previously available through their REST APIs. Not only will there be more data to get, but there will be better control of what data is called for and received, making applications faster and more efficient. 

This future of BigCommerce with GraphQL makes it easy to imagine endless possibilities of headless configurations with BigCommerce as the eCommerce engine.

Multi

Multi-currency, multi-language, multi-brand, multi-channel, multi-store. With Multi, BigCommerce is continuing to push the limits of what’s possible on a SaaS eCommerce platform.

There are a lot of scenarios where multi makes sense. A single brand with multiple locales, multiple brands with a single storefront, multiple brands with separate stores, a single storefront with multiple currencies; there are a lot of possibilities.

Currently, BigCommerce supports multi-currency and multi-brand. This empowers merchants with scenarios like multiple brands on a single storefront, or a single storefront with multiple currencies.

Additionally, BigCommerce offers multi-channel support, equipping merchants with the tools to connect their catalogs to Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Google Shopping from a single dashboard.

One of the greatest areas of possibility for BigCommerce is multi-storefront.

Right now the only way to accomplish that is by having multiple instances of BigCommerce, with completely separate admin panels. This means, without any added custom integrations, everything between the stores is managed separate from each other. This is changing, though.

Multi-language and multi-storefront support are being expanded. Site owners will soon have the power to control global and site-specific settings, as well as manage products, customers, and more at a central location. For both implementation and ongoing support, this is going to save merchants a lot of time, energy, and money.

B2B

BigCommerce continues to excel when serving merchants who have B2B needs. 

As a whole, BigCommerce takes a unique approach to their feature roadmap and selection. They invest heavily into the support and improvement of their core platform and the enablement of partners to build upon it. This is an alternative to other platforms constantly adding new revenue streams and services, leading to feature bloat as they move upmarket.

Natively, BigCommerce can support large catalogs and offers customer and pricing segmentation down to the SKU level. Over the next year, improvements to customer account management are a focus, as well as account security features. Additionally, purchase orders are expected to be a native feature in 2020.

Through their partner network, many more of the usual suspects for B2B sites are supported. Punch out, net payment terms, advanced shipping, and re-ordering are all available through trusted third party extensions. Additionally, many integrations with major ERP, OMS and CRM systems are pre-built and ready to connect with minimal effort.

BigCommerce offers B2B sellers a consumer-like user experience and the flexibility and features they need. 

Conclusion

There’s no denying that BigCommerce has a compelling offer for merchants seeking the benefits of SaaS for eCommerce. What I find most exciting is how they continue to push the envelope on what’s possible for merchants with complex requirements. More and more, merchants are seeing that BigCommerce’s offering of “Open SaaS” for eCommerce isn’t a game of trade-offs, it’s a new world of opportunity, with a well-engineered core platform and a powerful network of partners. We’re proud to be one of those partners and love the value BigCommerce brings to our clients.

Contact Us