Hi,

We hope you had a great summer! As we’re now in Q4, it’s crucial to start planning your holiday sales campaigns. With the busiest season for e-commerce just around the corner, aligning with your customers and understanding their needs should be your top priority when it comes to your lead-up strategy.

Data from marketing automation platform, Klaviyo, is reporting that 86% of consumers use loyalty programs when they can find them, yet only 50% of e-commerce brands offer them. Also, 79% of consumers read product reviews, yet only 60% of e-commerce brands post their reviews.

What does this prove? There remains to be a gap between what consumers value and engage with in a brand and what the brand is actually delivering. Really listening to what helps drive interaction, commitment and connection from your customers is key to long lasting success.

Today’s e-commerce marketing landscape is all about staying adaptable and keeping up with the ever-shifting target of strategy. HERE’S an article with some positive spending trends for this year, as well as more on the divide between what brands are doing vs consumer behaviour.

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Business:

AI-generated content is setting new standards by boosting content volume, enhancing content quality, and enabling hyper-personalization. As AI gets more advanced and more people and platforms use it, ‘good enough’ content will no longer suffice. Instead, content creators must strive for excellence in every piece of content they produce.

AI isn’t here to replace jobs but to enhance them, relieving marketers of repetitive tasks and allowing them to concentrate on strategic initiatives.

How do we use AI to simplify the content creation process, knowing it’s become the benchmark for quality? Here’s an ARTICLE that explores key AI trends and shared expert predictions on how this technology is reshaping how people engage with brands.

E-commerce:

What are some of the most effective e-commerce tactics these days? Do you have a marketing strategy for your brand’s busiest time of the year?

We have entered the calm before the storm. During the calm, focusing on lead-up strategies to big tentpole events could be key to their success.

💪 One powerful lead-up strategy for building awareness and engagement around your products is partnering with an influencer who authentically aligns with and complements your brand. The name of the game right now is brand awareness. Get as many people as you can aware of you and actively engaging with your social media channels so that when sale season arrives, you are top of mind.

Here’s a LIST Shopify has compiled of top e-commerce marketing strategies for 2024.

It’s not enough to simply let your website provider automatically optimize your site’s mobile experience. It’s also essential to manually verify that all optimizations are implemented on the mobile version of your website to maximize the user experience, as this directly impacts the sales generated from mobile devices.

The process of improving the experience for users on mobile devices is known as Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Shopify has compiled a list of tips on how best to boost mobile conversions.

✔️ Design your site with a mobile-first approach
✔️ Optimize page load times
✔️ Ensure usability for thumbs and fingers
✔️ Provide easy checkout and payment options
✔️ Write content specifically for mobile
✔️ Simplify mobile forms
✔️ Use pop-ups minimally
✔️ Analyze your data regularly
✔️ Implement a mobile-first A/B testing practice

More on CRO for mobile HERE.

General Intrigue:

Some Canadian Amazon Prime members will now be able to get their packages delivered to their garages. The convenience of Amazon continues to expand rapidly.

We’re right in the thick of summer and we’re also in the midst of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Gender parity was this year’s goal, in the same city where women made their Olympic debut in 1900.

The article HERE discusses how marketers are capitalizing on the Olympics’ emphasis on women’s sports to boost engagement. It’s also projected that Olympics viewership will be split nearly evenly between men and women (48% men vs. 52% women).

Because most people will be streaming events, along with watching highlights and replays across digital platforms, such as YouTube and TikTok, more time than usual will be spent on the web over the next couple of weeks. Depending on your brand, messaging, and advertising placements, this could be an opportunity to connect to your audience.

Researching how the Olympics is being marketed this year might make you consider whether your brand could leverage the event to boost awareness.

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Business:

The goal with our lead generation clients isn’t just to generate leads, but to generate quality leads. And, we know it’s important to find out if these leads are turning into revenue for the brand.

There are many reasons why your leads may not be turning into a profit, other than they aren’t ‘quality’ (not your actual target audience):

• They aren’t ready to buy
• Your follow up with lead isn’t timely or consistent
• You don’t have enough website content to adequately inform potential prospects
• Your sales pitch is ineffective
• Your website has a poor user experience

THIS is a great article on why your leads aren’t turning into sales and how to turn potential customers into buyers.

E-commerce:

While personalization has become a common term in marketing, many brands fail to deliver it in a way that meets consumer expectations. In a recent 2024 consumer insights report, which polled people from across the US and UK, 83% percent of consumers are likely to purchase from a brand that features the specific products they recently browsed in its messaging.

Also, according to the report, the most compelling financial incentives for a consumer were ranked as follows:

1. Free shipping
2. Loyalty points
3. One-time discounts

The digital landscape will continue to evolve, as it does. And while this evolution is taking place, delivering personalized, value-driven consumer experiences will set successful brands apart from the rest. Vital strategies in the new era of e-commerce will be adopting advanced technologies like identity resolution, along with utilizing multiple channels for personalized communication.

According to a report from Intuit Mailchimp, almost 100% of loyal, repeat customers said their preferred brand makes it quick and easy to purchase. Are there challenges hindering your customers’ path to making a purchase?

There’s definately a spectrum when it comes to brand commitment. Making sure you’re not losing out on any levels of this spectrum is the key to success and it’s important to have effective strategies to engage consumers at every level of their brand commitment.

Mailchimp’s ‘commitment spectrum’ includes the following customer loyalty levels:

⭐️ Inert

⭐️⭐️ Habitual Loyalty

⭐️⭐️⭐️ Dedicated Loyalty

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fandom

Click HERE to learn more about this spectrum to pay attention to when marketing your brand.

General Intrigue:

How is Canada expected to perform at the 2024 Summer Olympics? Find out HERE.

Hi,

Let’s talk activity versus results. Are you of the mindset that consistent activity and hard work in your business are futile unless they yield tangible results? Perhaps you lean towards prioritizing results above all else. Yet, a relentless focus on immediate profitability can foster a negative atmosphere, stifling creativity and experimentation.

In fields like marketing and sales, where returns aren’t always instant, you might instead be an advocate for laying the groundwork first — developing your brand, fostering connections, refining strategies — with the understanding that results will eventually follow.

• Is there a fine balance between both activity and results?
• Which side do you find yourself on?
• What adjustments are necessary to make to avoid being exclusively focused on either?

Exceptional leaders excel in harmonizing purposeful activity within their business with tangible results. They recognize that strategic and consistent effort underpins outcomes, while also acknowledging that results ultimately define success. HERE’S a great article with more on this subject.

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Business:

THIS is a great in-depth article on finding the best times to post your content on Instagram. Did you know there are better times to post based on your audience and industry?

The optimal time to post on Instagram varies based on…

• Your target audience
• Content
• Industry
• Post objectives

To determine the best times, conduct your own research and experiments. Keep in mind that timing is just one aspect; Instagram’s algorithm favors content with high engagement, so focus on creating compelling posts.

Begin by using Instagram analytics to understand your followers. Analyze the posting times of your main competitors to see what works in your industry. Consistently post and run experiments to refine your schedule, tracking and adjusting to maintain high engagement levels year-round.

Once you have a high engagement post, agencies such as Vantage, can take that post and turn it into a highly effective ad, capitalizing on the social proof the post has generated.

It’s crucial to realize that in each area where AI might be involved, the final decisions regarding AI recommendations, creations, and analyses still rest with humans. Your job in marketing might not be taken over by AI itself, but by someone who understands and utilizes AI more effectively than you do.

What skills are needed in an AI world?

• Socialization – Actively engage with others by listening attentively, collaborating effectively, and managing emotions.
• Creativity – One can excel at utilizing design tools (such as AI), yet creativity is needed to produce the original designs and ideas.
• Critical Thinking – It’s still required to scrutinize what AI comes up with for flaws or inconsistencies.
• Curiosity – AI can often answer “what?” and “how?”, yet struggles with “why.” Human curiosity drives the need to understand the reasons behind actions. It’s up to humans to ask probing questions about the reasons behind actions, making this skill even more crucial in an AI-driven world.
• Unbiased Decision-Making – Because everyone has bias, it’s inevitable. And, AI can easily perpetuate bias by producing skewed solutions. Without human intervention to identify and address these biases, AI could come up with unfair suggestions.

So, instead of being frightened of AI coming after your job, put that energy into enhancing your skills that could make you a frontrunner for learning how to incorporate AI into your industry.

E-commerce:

‘Ads get you traffic. Landing pages get you customers.’ This is what we tell our clients all the time. It’s one thing to create an exceptional ad, but it’s the landing page that ultimately gets the sale.

This is why, as a marketing agency, we need to look further than just ad creative to determine if a marketing initiative will succeed. We scrutinize our client’s landing pages as well.

What are some best practices for an effective landing page?

• Design is responsive across all devices.
• Refine the most impactful benefits of your product.
• Strategize on both copy and design.
• Show consistency between the ad and landing page.
• Once someone makes a purchase, ensure there is clear communication post-conversion (ie: confirmation or ‘thank you’ page).
• Do you have a post-conversion experience for capturing lead generation to turn your new customer into a customer for life (ie: newsletter, discount offer, subscription).

Check out THIS ARTICLE for more information on how to make the most out of your landing page.

At Vantage, we recognize that while marketing KPIs like return on ad spend and cost per acquisition are important, core profitability metrics such as gross margin, cash flow, and lifetime value are equally, if not more, critical to a client’s bottom line. By prioritizing these essential metrics, marketing can be transformed from a cost centre into a key driver of growth.

Many marketers demonstrate ROI to their clients as marketing metrics such as click-through-rate, conversion rate, cost per acquisition and cost per lead. However, these metrics alone do not tell the story of true ROI. They need to be looked at along with a company’s overall gross profits and gross profit margins.

At its core, marketing ROI should showcase the increased gross profits resulting from marketing investments. For more on marketing ROI and why it’s important to decipher the right metrics for your business, click HERE.

General Intrigue:

Did you know that digital food marketing to teens are predominantly unhealthy fast-food brands? A new research project is underway, uncovering how food marketers are trying to appeal to teen audiences. Learn more HERE.