Media Buying Strategy for eCommerce 2022

E-Commerce is defined as the process of buying and selling of products or services with the help of the advanced technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange and Electronic Funds Transfer which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. It started back in the 1960s when organizations began to use Electronic Data Interchange to transfer documents of their business. The 1990s saw the emergence of online shopping businesses, which is the most common practice of shopping today. Now, with the exponential increase in internet penetration across the world and rise in the number of smartphone users, e-commerce has slowly become one of the biggest markets with almost 21% of the world’s population ie. 1.66 billion people actively transacting in any form of e-commerce.

The reason behind this is that e-commerce technology is different and more powerful than any of the other technologies which have evolved in the last decade. Media Buying is the business of buying ad placements at the lowest cost in different media channels from publications to advertise a product or a brand to make it visible to the maximum number of targeted customers. There are several Amazon market research tools that can be helpful. Media Planning should be started by conducting an extensive market research about the structure of audience; then selecting the right channel for the ad placement, optimizing the budget & finally reporting about the estimated ROI.

Both the processes are complementary to each other. Some agencies prefer one over the other, which is not the right way to go if you expect to optimize your marketing fully. There are several Amazon keyword rank tracking tools that can be helpful with tracking. There are several media buying tools to help the owners of businesses manage their media buying efficiently. Different popular adtech companies launch their own suite of media planning toolkits.

Media buying Strategies for eCommerce 2021

e-Commerce growth strategy depends on the media buying capabilities of the Brand. Here are some best practices of e-commerce media buying in 2020:

• Ad Networks: Ad networks act as a specifically designed platform to extend the reach of your advertising efforts and boost your website visitors statistics. Get connected by signing up with popular Ad networks. Initially open up a free account for demo campaigns. 
• Cost: A cost-effective media buying and planning process that helps your ROI and in turn drives and converts traffic.
• Strategic Planning: A high level of research and strategic planning based on your target audience as well as the niche websites where they are most likely to visit your ads. Media buying and planning requires a dedicated team of researchers, negotiators, and strategists to constantly evaluate buying opportunities and monitor the market for changes.
• Tracking: Whatever be the ad network you are using, tracking the end results though not the main goal but should be of utmost priority. Follow up with the marketing strategy based on analysis and actual results. Google analytics is the perfect tool for this. Google will generate a custom URL that is tagged with the campaign specific information. You give this URL to the webmaster to link your banners. Some traffic, like those from Facebook Ads, cannot be automatically tracked. These visits will come in as referrals or direct traffic, which makes it hard to know what is working. For that, you need to add extra parameters at the end of your links. You can also use this technique to track visitors that come via links from other places like email or social media.
• Banner Location: Buying ad spaces anywhere in a website won’t fetch you proper viewability. Best three locations are Header ( 728 x 90 pixels); Right top corner right below the header area ( 300 x 250 pixel); Right column (120 x 600 pixels).
• Retargeting: One of the reasons for a site bounce could be that the visitor didn’t stay around long enough to learn about all the products, offerings in your site. In this case, you can retarget this prospect with additional information about the various features of your offering. Retargeting is connecting with people who have previously shown interest in your site. This guarantees a higher conversion and a lower cost per conversion. 
• Banner Design: Keep the banner design simple which you can create even without hiring professional designers. Split testing two or more designs and running them simultaneously will let you know which one is performing the best.
• Direct Sale: Direct media buying from the seller or programmatic direct is the most beneficial form of media buying. You can find blogs, websites, forums where your potential customers visit frequently and contact the webmasters directly about buying the available ad spaces on their website. This way you can be super selective with who you contact and can choose to only advertise on highly targeted websites with local traffic that is good for your business. Many websites and blogs will have Advertise links clearly displayed somewhere on their site which makes your life even easier.
• Advanced approach: Using ad servers there will be transparent reporting and viewability options. It will help to match the products, advertisements with customer browsing behavior, targeting methods and campaign performance. This provides increased CTR or conversions to the advertiser also benefiting the publisher by earning more income.  It might sound difficult but you can start using your own ad server.
• Web Hosting: Web hosting service is best suited for beginners and small businesses because of its high levels of customer support, easy-to-use tools, and comprehensive options. Shared hosting providers take care of all the technical aspects of a website’s infrastructure, handling infrastructure security, updates, and other maintenance. The only focus is to be on building an online presence representative of their brand or business goals, as most basic shared hosting plans include a free domain name registration, unlimited email accounts, eCommerce functionality, a drag-and-drop website builder, and hundreds of one-click installations for popular software programs. Because so many websites exist on the same server, there is a shared responsibility for security and stability. A premium web hosting service should be bought for a seamless and sophisticated experience.

Round Up

In the emerging global economy, e-commerce and e-business have increasingly become a necessary component of business strategy and a strong catalyst for economic development. An e-commerce marketing strategy provides an in-depth perception of a company’s proposed actions and responses to the most prominent trends in online marketing. This includes a thorough study and analysis of consumer behavior patterns, along with a series of actions that the company must perform in order to achieve a specific marketing goal. If you want to build a successful e-commerce site, the only way to keep acquiring and retaining customers is to remain updated with the latest marketing and technology trends. Whatever business strategy you choose, staying close to your customers and personalizing the shopping experience is of the utmost importance. Only creating Ad campaigns for your product is not going to help in increasing the revenue, you need to have a strong presence over multiple media Channels. You can rely on the Amazon feedback software tools to help keep track of the feedback. Digital Media Buying involves a lot of careful planning, strategies and execution. There is a constant need for a source of information and advice. This requires a lot of creative skills, ability to learn new tools.