During this time of economic uncertainty, where consumers’ pockets are tightening, growing an eCommerce business can be challenging. We want to help, which is why we recently assembled a panel of experts to discuss methods to drive Profit growth. 

We were joined by: (1) Johnny Bott, an Account Director at DemandMore, who has worked with leading retailers like Nike to drive their paid media performance, (2) Sri Sharma, the CEO of Increasingly, a product bundling platform, and (3) John Cave, the Managing Director of feed optimisation platform Shoptimised.  

The three specialists shared their opinions regarding strategies that retailers can use to drive profit growth. This topic is covered in this first blog of three. 

Product Margin Data And Price Benchmarking

John focuses on the quality of the data that is being used, and where it leads you. He advises that the right data sources should be imported into the retailer’s product feed. You should not only focus on product data such as images, titles and descriptions, but also the cost of goods sold. 

This enables you to calculate the margins of particular products, which can be transferred to Google Ads. You can then ensure that bidding is optimised towards profit. Especially within the fashion and apparel sector, further data such as product returns are also essential to product feeds.

Google Merchant Center also recently released multiple new features, which are not heavily publicised, and could be used to the retailer’s advantage. For example, they have made improvements on price competitiveness and benchmarking reports. These can also be used to drive more profit against best-converting products if fed into PMax campaigns. 

The 4 Levels Of Data To Import Into PMax Campaigns

Johnny reinforces the importance of this data quality, asserting that it is essential to feed relevant and accurate data into PMax campaigns to deliver the best results. He separates these into 4 key stages:

Importing Google Analytics conversions
The most basic form of tracking, used by almost all advertisers. 

Importing Google Tag with enhanced conversions
This allows you to track cross-device, and also track missed conversions if there are cookies being blocked. This only works if the email they are logged into Google with matches the email they purchase with.

Server-side tracking 
This is a form of tracking that is rarely used by advertisers. It allows you to collect data and interactions with your ads using a server side script, instead of relying on the cookies, which are often blocked or mistracked. This enables you to track 100% of conversions that occur on your website. 

Feeding in profit data
For this stage, we recommend using a tool called ProfitMetrics. This enables you to feed the cost of goods sold, in addition to shipping, packaging and payment processing fees. You can then optimise towards this extensive profit data as opposed to purely revenue.

If orders are made offline, you can also ensure that this information is fed into the platforms through the use of Dynamic Google Forwarding Numbers and Google Click IDs. If you want to understand more about the use of offline tracking strategies, click here to read our recent blog. 

Product Bundling And Customer Journey

Sri likewise supports the use of extensive data, highlighting the importance of using an appropriate customer data platform. Understanding the margins of each product can be a useful tool not only across your marketing, but also on your site. You can then more effectively show products according to their profitability.

Another strategy is to refocus your energy on determining which products give you more margin. These are usually your own brand items or accessories, which can then be incorporated into a sale to a customer. This can be achieved through the use of product bundling, a common feature on many sites and a way to easily add on products that have a high margin, often an opportunity where a lot of revenue is missed. 

If you want to understand more about the implementation of product bundling, click here to read our blog on how to drive more sales using this method. 

The final, most simple and yet often overlooked strategy, is keeping the customer journey both fast and straightforward. Ensuring your site has relevant images, accurate information, good product reviews, in addition to keeping the sale journey quick and easy, is a low-effort method that can have a significant impact. 

Keep up-to-date with the latest in digital marketing through our resources of blogs and webinars, which you can find here.

The post Part 1 of Our eCommerce Strategies: How To Drive Profit Growth appeared first on DemandMore.