An increasing number of retailers are going digital, and new eCommerce stores are popping up at a startling rate. And as the eCommerce market grows, so does the competition. However, many brands still have a hard time with eCommerce engagement and fail to grab potential customers’ attention.
The market is increasingly saturated with similar kinds of offerings, and consumers are more informed and capable of making conscious shopping decisions. To set themselves apart from the competition, companies need to offer more than lower prices or different products. They have to improve their eCommerce customer engagement strategies.
Understanding eCommerce Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is the sentiment of an emotional connection between a brand and its consumers caused by the delivery of an exceptional buying experience. This sentiment keeps customers highly engaged, incentivizing them to buy and promote more while growing more loyal to the brand. Providing excellent consumer experience is often the differentiating factor that leads to this.
eCommerce customer engagement helps set brands apart from their competitors even more effectively than price and quality because every consumer wants a different, personal experience when shopping. It’s a well-executed customer engagement strategy that will keep customers coming back for more.
The Role of User Experience (UX) in eCommerce Engagement
One of the most important aspects of the success of an eCommerce business is the quality of the design of the platform delivering sales. Visitors directly interact with this platform, and the quality of their experience will ultimately dictate whether they will convert to customers.
This is why user experience (UX) plays a vital role in eCommerce customer engagement and customer satisfaction. UX/UI design is responsible for well-thought-out, logical transitions, simple and clear micro-interactions, quick system feedback, attractive product presentation, easy payment, and many other important details.
Proven Strategies to Boost Engagement in eCommerce
From personalization to loyalty programs and fresh content, there are many proven strategies available to companies to boost their engagement.
1. Personalization
Customers want to feel valued and understood when communicating and engaging with a brand. It’s important that customers feel as though the brand understands their needs by providing them with an intimate and tailored shopping experience.
The best way to achieve this is through personalization. Brands may show different types of pages depending on whether the visitors are new or returning. Using cookies also helps pages sort products into categories that will better suit the interests of each shopper.
Widgets are also a great way to draw the attention of customers to different products or to keep them engaged and increase conversions. Trigger “welcome,” “thank you,” or product videos and “people also bought” widgets are good features to improve eCommerce customer engagement.
2. Gamification
Gamification is an eCommerce customer engagement strategy that involves integrating game elements into a company’s marketing strategy to entertain users and influence their behavior. Components like rewards and competitions encourage repetitive interactions with eCommerce platforms.
Duolingo is a popular language-learning app that mastered the gamification strategy. App-wide gamification makes learning foreign languages a lot more fun and engaging.
3. Loyalty Programs
According to a study conducted from 2015 to 2022, the average American is a member of over 16 loyalty programs. Indeed, these programs are a great engagement strategy, acting as a catalyst for customer loyalty and retention.
Offering customers rewards for every subsequent purchase through a customer loyalty program not only incites customers to buy but also to return in the future for more purchases. These perks and discounts associated with certain loyalty achievements make customers feel valued and appreciated.
The most notorious loyalty programs appear in the form of point-based systems where the brand awards customers with a few points after every purchase which they can use in following purchases as a way to save money. Other ways to reward customers using loyalty programs include offering discounts after a certain number of purchases or reorders or sending personalized discount codes every year to registered customers.
4. Social Media Integration
Nowadays, a successful engagement strategy requires companies to integrate several platforms to reach out to as many potential customers as possible, and this includes being present on social media.
According to Statista, there will be over 5 billion users on social media in 2024. This is more than enough reason for companies to want a social media presence as well. However, simply having an active account isn’t enough to build true customer engagement.
Social media’s interactive nature provides many opportunities for companies to reinforce their brands and develop loyalty among customers through shares, hashtags, and quality content that puts their businesses on the radar of millions. Social media integration is a great way to increase reach, improve credibility, and act as social proof.
5. Interactive Content
Interactive content is any type of content that encourages users to actively participate and engage, as it requires their complete attention. It is an effective way to educate buyers, increase customer engagement, and drive sales.
Apart from helping brands differentiate themselves from their competitors, interactive content can also help extract valuable customer insights, create qualified business opportunities, and increase the average time the audience spends on the company’s website.
6. Mobile Optimization
In today’s fast-paced digital world, where most online traffic comes from mobile devices, mobile optimization is imperative as a customer engagement strategy, to provide customers with a seamless and user-friendly experience.
Mobile optimization ensures that a website or app is responsive across all mobile devices, different screen sizes, and resolutions and that all design elements are accessible and readable, especially on smaller screens.
It involves optimizing page load times, minimizing multimedia content that could slow down mobile devices, and simplifying navigation. In turn, this process ensures speed and convenience for all mobile users, which translates to an improved user experience that boosts traffic and sales.
7. Improved Search Functionality
The two main types of website visitors include browsers and searchers. The searchers are two to three times more likely to convert, as they’re already using the website with a specific product in mind to buy.
However, the intent to buy isn’t enough to convert visitors and companies need to have a well-functioning, optimized site search functionality on their eCommerce website, guiding visitors to the right products.
Having an improved search functionality can be a deciding factor between a returning customer and a frustrated customer. A poor search experience—for instance, when a visitor receives null results—is more than enough to guarantee that the visitor won’t come back.
A robust search functionality should allow customers to look for specific keywords and retrieve close matches to what they’re searching for, even if they use vocabulary that differs from the one used in the catalog.
8. User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content is a highly valuable customer engagement strategy. User reviews, ratings, and photos offer insight into a product that the company could never provide.
UGC comes from people that are just like the current shopper, with the same tastes, interests, and problems. Because users who leave reviews don’t have an agenda to push, it makes them more trustworthy to other customers.
To leverage user-generated content to engage potential shoppers, companies can share quotes from positive reviews on social media, respond to positive feedback to show how much they value customers and their opinions, and associate positive reviews with products when promoting them.
9. Live Chat Support
Brick-and-mortar stores easily provide great customer service, assisting customers with their purchases, helping them find the right products, and answering any questions. High-quality live chat support does the same for eCommerce websites, boosting customer experience and brand authenticity and increasing conversion rates.
However, the online market is immense and continues to grow, which means that there are certain limitations that human manpower won’t be able to achieve. The best way to solve this issue is through using intelligent chatbots.
According to Gartner, chatbots will be the primary channel for customer service in a quarter of all businesses, by 2027. They’re always available and are great at generating leads, cutting operational costs, cross-promoting products, and retaining customers through powerful customer engagement.
Continuous development in AI and machine learning contributes to the improvement of chatbot efficiency. Newer chatbot versions almost have a human-like feel and negligible response times.
10. Seamless Checkout Process
According to the Baynard Institute, almost 70% of consumers browsing eCommerce websites will abandon their orders due to surprise costs, slow or complicated checkout processes, and limited buying options.
The best way to optimize customer experience and improve engagement is to eliminate as many obstacles as possible, creating a seamless checkout process. To do so, companies should:
- Provide several payment methods
- Ensure the checkout process is mobile-friendly
- Create one-page checkouts
- Allow guest checkouts
- Use functional “Buy Now” widgets and buttons
A seamless checkout process will always translate into increased conversions and customer retention. Customers will most likely return and also recommend the brand to other users.
11. AI-Driven Recommendations
AI-driven recommendations use machine learning algorithms that suggest products to customers based on historical data. These systems review previous purchases, search history, and reviews to identify items that a shopper would likely buy.
They strive to improve product sales, engagement, customer experience, and personalization. Their ability to gather and analyze a great amount of data, find patterns, and act accordingly is what makes these systems so powerful in eCommerce.
AI devices get “smarter,” the more they interact with existing customers and process data. By analyzing previous purchases and interactions, AI can inform eCommerce companies regarding what items a customer might want and what messages will resonate with their target audience.
Powered by AI, Netflix’s recommendations engine (NRE) provides detailed and tailored recommendations to millions of subscribers based on their profiles and preferences. It uses more than 1,000 recommendation clusters to create hyper-personalized recommendations and pinpoint exact titles that a user might want to watch.
12. Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting campaigns involves reaching potential customers that interacted with a brand in the past without completing a purchase. The main goal is to reach out to them and bring them back into the fold. Retargeting campaigns improve eCommerce sales engagement by using ads, emails, and messages to reach these particular visitors, instead of trying to find new potential leads.
Online stores find that because of their previous contact with the brand, these customers will have higher brand awareness. Sometimes, all it takes to convert these visitors is a reminder that the company exists and that the product they searched for is still available.
13. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great tool for customer engagement. It provides a direct connection between the brand and the customer, allowing the company to further engage with its existing customers using personalized messages.
The most common way for brands to build a solid email list is through website subscriptions and user accounts. After compiling a list of interested parties, companies can use this tool to promote items, alert customers to new products or restocks, or send out monthly newsletters.
14. Augmented Reality (AR) Experiences
There is a wide variety of similar brands in the market and customers tend to go for the ones that can provide a more immersive experience. Lately, customer sentiment pins for situations where they can virtually test and experience products before buying them.
Augmented Reality (AR) makes these sorts of experiences possible, having a deep impact on customer engagement. Forty percent of shoppers say they will buy products faster if they can experience them through AR first. AR in eCommerce allows customers to virtually try products such as clothes, jewelry, or glasses as well as see how products would look and fit in a real space.
IKEA is potentially one of the biggest companies that use AR to effectively engage customers and increase sales. Using their AR-focused app, shoppers can virtually place IKEA products in their homes to have a better understanding of which models would suit their preferences better.
15. Regular Updates and Fresh Content
Regularly updating an eCommerce website using high-quality, fresh content greatly improves user experience and brings in more traffic. Updated content helps build trust, as the customers will likely rely on the company’s website for useful information regarding their products, and services and the overall industry.
Implementing a Customer Engagement Strategy: Best Practices
When implementing eCommerce strategies to boost engagement, companies should follow a few best practices, such as:
- Creating content around in-demand products – Brands should create engaging content for products that are the most popular. This content can include product usage videos, hacks, celebrity endorsements, and even DIYs.
- Reducing customer risk perception – All customer engagement strategies are meaningless if customers don’t have enough confidence in the company to buy from them. Perceived risk is directly proportional to the existence of uncertainties or lack of information. Companies need to be clear and detailed about each product, delivery, replacement, and refund policies.
- Implementing an A/B testing marketing strategy – Using this technique, companies compare two versions of a web page, landing page, or email campaign by testing them on different halves of their audience. Identifying what works better enables the company to create effective marketing campaigns and increase conversion rates.
- Allowing real-time customer reviews – Soliciting customer feedback and reviews helps brands understand what’s working and what isn’t so that they better adapt their offerings to their audience. At the same time, it is great for engagement because it allows companies to communicate with their customers directly by solving their issues and offering advice.
Conclusion
Engagement is critical and can help guarantee eCommerce store success. From loyalty programs and social media integration to seamless checkout processes and AR experiences, there are several ways for companies to achieve their eCommerce goals. However, they shouldn’t focus on too many tactics at the same time.
To improve customer experience and encourage customers, companies should focus on one or two engagement strategies at a time, perfecting each one before moving on to the next. Doing so will ultimately help increase conversions and customer loyalty, turning prospective customers into existing ones. Addressing unhappy customers promptly can also be beneficial to improve the reputation of the online store.
FAQ
How can I measure eCommerce engagement?
To measure eCommerce engagement, companies can use a few key metrics, such as conversion rate, cart abandonment rate, repeat customer rate, and customer churn rate.
Are these strategies applicable to all eCommerce businesses?
Not all strategies apply to all eCommerce businesses. Different brands have different goals, and while some of them will need to apply and work through many of these strategies to achieve success, other brands will only need to adjust using one or two strategies.
Future Trends in eCommerce Engagement
The best way to stay ahead is to identify trends and invest in them at the onset. Following the future trends in eCommerce engagement can help customers instantly find the exact products they need at the right time, encouraging timely purchase decisions with trust. Some of these trends include:
- Voice search – Ensuring eCommerce websites that are speech-query friendly and accommodating to consumers that prefer contactless options might be a great way to increase engagement and conversion rates.
- Visual search – Visual search functionalities help customers upload an image of an item, enabling a greater accuracy of results when shopping.
- Virtual consultation – Virtual consultations allow brands and potential customers to interact directly, in real-time, just as would happen in physical stores. Brand representatives offer human interactions with shoppers, answering their questions, solving their issues, and providing recommendations with 24/7 accessibility.
- Partnerships with interest-free wallets – Interest-free wallets offer flexible payment options with less stringent onboarding processes and low-risk credit ratings.
