Choosing the best ecommerce marketing agency can be a significant factor in how well your online business performs. If you’re looking to hire an agency, it’s crucial you find the right agency to help you create a strong brand identity, connect your business to your target audience, and attract increased visitors to your website.
When you’re hiring a marketing agency, it’s important to strike a balance between cost/value and services, ensuring you’re only paying for what you truly need, but that you’re still getting the expertise, knowledge and skills to boost your business.
What is an ecommerce marketing agency?
Ecommerce marketing agencies specialize in the online and offline promotions of online businesses. Generally, they offer:
- Brand discovery and searchability
- Strategic planning and consultation
- Ecommerce marketing activity implementation
- Reports on real-time data and analytics
The marketing services offered by these agencies range from basic SEO to fullblast campaigns that use integrated marketing techniques across multiple platforms. These techniques should focus on the integration of brand, content, and ecommerce technology, with a focus on how your brand strategy performs digitally, and how your content supports this strategy.
An ecommerce marketing agency formulates both a short-term and long-term ecom marketing strategy for your business, and will outline and implement tactics that will give your company a competitive edge in your market.
A good ecommerce marketing agency should also provide content marketing services. Some marketing agencies create various types of content, such as articles and videos, and help in the curation of your website content. This will be crucial to improving your website’s organic search rankings, which will in turn increase your brand awareness and generate more engagement, and therefore more ecommerce sales.
This infographic helps details why hiring an ecommerce marketing agency can be beneficial for your business:
The first step to choosing an ecommerce marketing agency: Know your goals
Before choosing an ecommerce marketing agency, you should carefully identify your ecom goals, both in the short-term and the long-term. Short-term goals are those that you want to achieve in a few months or a year. These include things like:
- Setting up or perhaps redesigning your website
- Improving site traffic
- Increasing conversions, or the number of people who purchase on your site
Long-term goals, on the other hand, are those that can be achieved over several years, and are typically outlined in a three- to five-year corporate plan. These usually include business growth objectives in terms of the number of customers, revenue, and profits. As much as possible, your goals must be specific and quantifiable, such as increasing sales by 20% or reducing cart abandonment by 40%. This will make them easier to approach, track and achieve.
Once you’ve identified your short-term and long-term goals, you can create a set of ecommerce KPIs that will allow you to measure your progress in each area. Doing this will make it easier to identify which services you need at every stage of your company’s development.
Identifying your goals can help you properly identify which ecommerce marketing agency best suits your needs. For instance, if one of your short-term goals is to increase the volume of site visitors, then you’ll probably need a marketing agency that offers SEO strategy support.
What makes a great ecommerce agency?
A great ecommerce agency is one that can provide you with the services you need, as well as their expertise, knowledge, and skills, at good value (note: good value does not mean cheap! It means buying the expertise and resources you need in order to get a great ROI). In order to be truly worth the investment, a marketing agency should offer comprehensive ecom marketing services for every stage of your business operations to facilitate growth.
A great ecommerce company shouldn’t merely provide the services that you’ve asked for – it should also guide you along the way and go the extra mile. In a similar vein, the ideal ecommerce agency shouldn’t keep you blind to how and why certain strategies may or may not work for your business. Instead, choose one that will communicate with you, and advise you on the best course of action for your needs.
How do I choose an agency?
When choosing an ecommerce marketing agency, look at quality services based on good reputation over affordable ones that have little to no reviews. Not all ecommerce marketing agencies are created equal: some provide better services than others, depending on what it is you need and how much budget you have. Therefore, it’s important that you do your background research so that you know exactly what you’re getting.
There are many competing ecommerce marketing agencies out there, but not every one can actually deliver on what they promise. When deciding on who to work with, try to align the expertise of an agency with your specific goals. For instance, if you need to increase your website’s organic traffic, you should consult an agency that has proven expertise in SEO strategies. Similarly, if you’re introducing a new product, an agency that is focused on brand recognition and searchability is a good option.
What to consider when choosing an ecommerce marketing agency
When choosing an ecommerce marketing agency, you’ll need to do more than a quick Google of local agencies. Narrow down your search for an ecommerce marketing agency based on their expertise and experience, their proven track record, and pricing. It’s also important to find legitimate client reviews – you could even talk to some of an agency’s existing clients.
If possible, visit or video conference with an agency so you get a better feel for the team and their expertise. It’s important to ask them a lot of questions and ensure (as far as possible) that they will be a good cultural fit for your business.
6 tips for hiring the best ecommerce marketing agency for your business
You should always narrow down your search for an ecommerce marketing agency to a few that will provide you with the services you need at a cost that’s within your budget and within an optimal schedule. Here are some tips that can help you in your search:
Specify your goals and target market
The first thing that you should do before hiring an ecommerce marketing agency is to clearly define your goals and target market. You must know what you really want to accomplish within a specific period of time, and you must know who it is that you’re trying to target. After that, the agency should be able to find ways of reaching and converting your audience and achieving your ecom goals.
Assess your budget and schedule
Time and money are crucial, yet limited, resources that you should budget for. Assess what budget you have and how long you may need agency services for. You can then use this to choose an agency that provides the services you need at the right price: you must be able to get the best bang for the buck.
Do some background research
Aside from the information provided on their website, you should do some background checks to verify the credibility of a marketing agency. For example, you could search for customer reviews, interview past clients, check if the company has won awards. You could also visit their office to get a really clear idea about how they operate, and the people you’ll potentially be working with.
Ask for case studies
If you want more detailed and in-depth information about the performance of an ecommerce marketing company, reading case studies is a great way to do it. Through these you should be able to find comparative data, testimonials, and reviews. You’ll also be able to see the efficacy of their services in action, as well as the results they yielded.
Compare fees
When you’ve found a few agencies that have good reviews and excellent services, cost might be a determining factor on which agency you choose. Compare the prices of each service offered, and choose the company that gives you the most value.
Is location a factor?
Finally, if you want face-to-face collaboration with an ecommerce marketing agency, office location might be an important factor for you (but in our opinion, where the agency is based isn’t crucial – most things can be done online). However, you may want to meet in person with the marketing team from time to time.
