Each year ecommerce teams set a new goal to achieve not only a specific Revenue level, but also maintaining and growing against their key metrics from previous periods. For many, that means their biggest competitor is their own efforts from the past, and that results in new tactics, stronger planning, and better projections. With Black November already upon us, there is still some time remaining to ensure everything is set for the holidays. Therefore Blue Acorn has produced three new tools in the form of a planning template that will help provide clarity around your goals, budget, and even marketing efforts.

Access the new tools and template here.

Revenue and ROI Projector

Before marketing budgets are set and contractors are brought in, each year ecommerce brands lock in their revenue goal for the holiday season. Where that specific goal comes from can be based on data from the past, industry thresholds, or even just experience; however, being realistic is the biggest key in setting expectations. The Revenue Projector is just what it sounds like, a tool that lets you realistically project how much revenue you can bring in based on numbers from last year and based on how much your holiday marketing budget is for the year.

By plugging in your desired revenue goal, average order value (AOV), average conversion rate, and your estimated percent of marketing investment, the tool will tell you not only how successful your marketing campaigns need to be (conversions, clicks), but also the return on investment. You can see a portion of what the tool looks like below, with blue boxes being your inputs, and gray and yellow boxes being the output/results. There are several other components to give you even more intel for the season though.

Traffic Estimator

Having realistic expectations about holiday revenue goals is important, and so are the metrics that help get you there. Not only do your marketing, Promotion, and ad campaigns have to be effective, the flow of traffic that results from each of these needs to be predictable. Using our traffic estimator you’ll be able to identify exactly how much traffic you need to drive to your site and web properties in an effort to achieve your revenue and KPI goals.

In an effort to properly estimate how much traffic you need to drive to your site, simply fill out the blue boxes, and the red boxes will display how many holiday buyers you need, the conversions you’ll need to achieve, and ultimately the amount of traffic to make that all happen.

Product Sales Tracker and Promotion Plotter

Holidays and deals go hand-in-hand, but not all promotion types were created equal. Sure, your customers expect to save money, receive various discounts, and maybe have the option for gift wrapping; however, there are other tactics that help your offering stand apart from competitors. Now that you have both your revenue goal set and the traffic estimator shows how many people you need, it’s time to lock in what promotions will be most effective.

Better yet, you can use a combination of promotions across the holiday season. So, will it be free shipping, a gift with purchase, or a discount that brings in more revenue and profit? This portion of the tool will help you see exactly how each promotion type will impact your revenue. In addition to comparing promotion types and their benefit, you can also use this part of the tool to track which items are selling the best.

This particular tool is a bit more complex in appearance, but it’s as simple as our other solutions. Simply go to the second tab of the tool, drop in the names of the items you’ll be including in promotions, then fill out all the relevant gold boxes. All of the light green and gray boxes will then be populated with information regarding which items are doing the best and which promotion type will drive the most revenue. Then if you look back at the first tab it will display this information in a visual format.

Disclaimer – ROI Tool and template may result in emulating success kid and his enthusiasm for sand.

The post Using Our New ROI Planner and Promotion Projection Tools appeared first on Blue Acorn.