Category: General

When it comes to marketing, there’s no room for guesswork. Every eCommerce merchant needs marketing analytics tools that keep track of website visits, product reviews, conversions, paid marketing campaigns, and events to stay up-to-date with all the essential information of your e-commerce business, and you can constantly look to improve your campaigns. Luckily, there are a ton of great marketing analytics tools out there that can help you do just that. In this post, we’ll share our picks for the 20 best marketing analytics tools for 2022. So, whether you’re just starting out in marketing or you’re looking to take your campaigns to the next level, these tools will help you get there. 

Why Do You Need Marketing Analytics Tools?

Marketing analytics tools allow eCommerce business designers or analysts to process different types of data related to the company’s economic indicators like profits, losses, sales turnover, etc. These software-based solutions simplify the information processing and provide users with the requested results.

Indeed, these tools are helpful platforms that monitor key information sources and form relevant detailed reports. These deliverables facilitate your business planning proceedings, including:

• forecasting risk assessment and development strategies or plans,
• an effective approach to finding out the company’s sales optimization vision,
• productive ways for the company to make scaling decisions.

eCommerce merchants should focus on particular data categories subject to marketing analysis manipulations to fulfill all those actions. So, analytics tools, designed for digital marketing information breakdown, observe primary statistic data:

• Website visitor data. Each visitor could be asked to subscribe to your specific offers or accept cookies. Such actions are a starting point to gathering essential information showing the online store hosting ups and downs and its popularity, influencing random visitors to become regular clients.
• Customer touchpoints and event data. Your branded eCommerce products or services, usually disseminated via different ad channels, collect many valuable, informative insights to make your business customer-centric. The same could refer to your advertising campaigns, promo sales, or thematic events.
• Paid campaign performance data. When your advertisement campaigns, especially paid ones, connected with marketing analytics platforms cover a broad share of information channels, social media, etc, you will receive detailed reports about their efficiency related to product sales indicators.
• Customer purchase data. Purchase-related information helps to assess sales trends and improve post-purchase services in order to enhance the company’s brand status.
• Email marketing data. eCommerce promotion activities are hard to imagine without marketing communication means like personal emailing. Reminder notifications, unique offers and scheduled questionnaire messages are major marketing information sources to reach a company’s target audience and draft options to stimulate them to make more significant purchases.

What Are Different Types of Marketing Analytics?

eCommerce business is a complicated amalgam of different types of data sources. To manage information flows and capture required figures, you need a professional and highly experienced marketing research team or specialized software solutions to simplify the analytics activities.

Marketing designers and data analysts determine five critical types of marketing analytics:

• web analytics to examine customer activity on your online store,
• social media analytics to collect data about viewers’ reactions to ads and various promotional campaigns,
• lead generation and attribution to perform analytical forecast and compare B2C marketing interactions at each step of promotional activities,
• SEO analytics to check content marketing aspects, 
• email marketing analytics to evaluate emailing distributions, and sales indicators resulting from such operations.

That division allows us to split vast amounts of information and investigate the exact elements for a more clarified picture of business development status.

Before deciding what platform is perfect for marketing analytics services, we should distinguish different types of marketing analytics such a platform is expected to collect and successfully process.

Any digital marketer knows that an eCommerce brand would be deemed successful and profitable if all five types of online commercial business work in unison. Making parallels with major business profit impacts, we may agree that customers, their demands and requirements, are boosters for our business progress. So, attracting a wider audience is a task for marketing analytics.

Indeed, marketing researchers diversify the main information sources such as your website searching opportunities, social media promotions, paid marketing events, communication attributes, content management, and direct or random emailing. These items should be evaluated in complexity to visualize the comprehensive picture of business growth and failures. Fortunately, marketing analytics platforms have enough tools to find gaps and weaknesses which restrict your business and make it less attractive in comparison with competitors.

Understanding all aspects of the products’ popularity will surely be provided by the detailed reports and graphical findings generated by professional tools.

Web analytics

Web analytics is a primary marketing analytics type that provides reliable data about your customers and other visitors who click some of your product pages. In practice, the trivial channel for eCommerce business activities is a web resource. So, it is pretty obvious to expect the majority of customers to be concentrated in your online store.

To find customer data by analyzing your website, you can collect bounce rates, unique users, user sessions, and on-site search queries. The tracked information is your answer to when you should integrate the platform to optimize traffic and sales.

Social media marketing analytics

Social media activities are essential to attract a broad audience and boost sales. However, to achieve that goal, you should measure your social channels per visitors, reactions, feedback, etc. All these factors directly influence your business sales and profits.

Experienced digital analysts should permanently track social media events and ads to analyze product promotion and progress. However, social media is a global source of information. Therefore, marketing analytics software that is easily integrated with Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms will sum up data flows and generate quick reports. 

Lead generation and attribution

Attribution is a method for interaction between your business and clients. This type of analytics activity could qualify as the simplest one because they refer to different forms of conversations like sales or form submissions. In this case, you can collect the field data and assess information from a focus group to sum up the comprehensive situation and make the appropriate decisions.

Lead generation and attribution models are a source of information about credit level to be assigned to marketing channels and customer touchpoints. Overall, all these approaches enable digital marketers to improve their programs for better marketing feedback.

SEO analytics

SEO and content marketing are staples of digital business in 2022. At first glance, SEO analytics may seem to be a simple action. However, creative and client-oriented content will significantly improve your business profit positions.

Managing keywords, tracking global trends, and targeting audience investigation in detail are primary measures any digital marketer should take.

Also, marketing analytics tools could assess the features of your partners and counterparts’ content to find ways to defer your organic web performance.

Email marketing analytics

Emailing is a communication tool that shows many valuable marketing data. The purposes of sending emails and other forms of notification to your customers are to attract new clients, remind them about your business offers, and present unique propositions that enhance interaction activities between business and their target audience.

To leverage successful emailing campaigns and distribution analysis, you will need specialized tools to collect inputs and detect feedback reactions. Indeed, the findings determine your post-sale services and reliability in the client’s eyes.

Top 20 Marketing Analytics Tools

In terms of eCommerce activities, marketing analysis is a specific process. Your online store is operational 24/7 and services many customers; you need to integrate specialized marketing analytics software to maintain your business successfully. Applying the automatic analytical platforms is a rational decision because they can process different types of information and provide ready-made findings to discover the potential opportunities and scenarios for business growth.

Here we gather popular marketing analytics platforms which could be helpful in 2022 and ready to fulfill all requirements imposed by future eCommerce perspectives. To find your perfect analytical service, you should balance its performance parameters, functional capacities, price, and other benefits applicable to your business progress.

Google Analytics

The free Google-developed marketing analytics solution has basic information sorting and exploring features that make your eCommerce business more successful. This tool easily creates a comprehensive picture of your online store activities as a website. It tracks your website visitors, collects data about their location and journey points, and assesses the time spent by random customers swiping your online galleries, etc. Therefore, Google Analytics is key to providing a detailed report comprising information about your marketing, content, product, and custom modifications.

This Google product, along with Google AdWords and Google Data Studio, could connect your insights with desirable results aimed at your online business prosperity.

Regarding pricing, this tool is entirely free for all types of eCommerce businesses. However, those who wish to receive advanced data elaboration and maintenance support by Google should foresee approximately 100k USD in their annual company budget.

MixPanel

eCommerce success is based on the simplicity and effectiveness of the marketing analytics services. This statement could be deemed the main operation principle for MixPanel.

It is a strong candidate worthy of being enlisted in the top range of marketing analytics tools for eCommerce business in 2022 because of its productive events elaboration.

MixPanel analyzes all events on your website, apps, and products. The provided information shows customer journeys on your online store channels.

Any added event empowers MixPanel to describe to you a full picture of trends, counts, and users who prefer your post. In other words, this platform wants you to create a new event to start analytical activities. 

MixPanel qualifies as marketing analytics software because it owns enough funnels and A/B testing to boost the performance of your mobile apps. Offering many advantages, this platform’s major specialization is pretty narrow. The business designers ascribe it to a product-oriented analysis tool rather than a marketing one.

Cyfe

Cyfe is the king of multitasking analytical activities. This software solution is designed for market researchers who work with several marketing channels, omnichannels, social media, mass media resources, etc. They need to process vast amounts of data and expect to receive quick analytical reports to make effective decisions.

This multi-purpose marketing analytics tool can satisfy all requirements made by its clients. Due to the functional features, it can provide client-branded reports, online statements, user insights, fast setting options, ready-made integration opportunities, etc.

Along with other marketing analytics platforms, Cyfe supports pre-built widgets which simplify a connection to Google Analytics, Google AdWords, and SalesForce accounts.

SEMrush

You might find the most interactive marketing analytics software to be SEMrush. The primary reason for its popularity is the possibility to track your marketing activities and your competitors. 

Information is a lethal weapon in the eCommerce business. So, suppose you can receive the analytical investigations about your keywords used in your marketing campaigns like AdWords, improve SEO tasks, manage the entire cycle of the project implementation process, review domains, links, and other eCommerce visibility channels. In that case, this is half of your business’s success. However, the data findings concerning the same activities as your counterparts will prevent your possible failures and risks of launching weak promotion events or poorly demanded products.

Klipfolio

This solution is an easy-to-use analytics tool designed for relevant digital marketing data of several channels using the ready-made informational panels. The offered patterns save the digital market investigation specialists time and effort by managing multiple channels in one tool. 

Thanks to the opportunity to attract unlimited users, Klipfolio is preferable for marketing agencies that create their information panels and share them with their clients.

The key features of this analytics software are specific administration settings, a reliable model for tracking information from Facebook or Google Analytics, availability for mobile apps, branding options, including logo replacements, a self-servicing platform to edit KPI, etc.

Crowdbooster

This marketing analytics software is a synonym for audience involvement because it allows users to track the ups and downs of representatives of eCommerce business target groups. Social media is an investigation field where Crowdbooster monitors the outcomes of particular marketing campaigns.

This tool forms short reports in real time. This feature is pretty valuable if you wish to observe who shares your content via social media and how many times they do so.

Crowdbooster is a digital helper to improve partnership with your clients, potential and current, and generate creative ideas for enhancing your online media content. Also, this platform strengthens your digital communication activities, providing a pretty helpful option like the scheduled distribution of tweets and messages. All these benefits directly impact your online business marketing planning.

Heap Analytics

This tool was developed to analyze the website and mobile app activities. The operation concept is similar to MixPanel’s technical specifications. Nevertheless, this platform tracks all visitors and their manifestations on your web resources.

The collected information will be presented in easy-to-understand and graphical forms. You may use a valuable option showing the number of users who executed queries per a particular event. As such, you can assess your eCommerce business marketing campaign and respective policy in general.

This marketing analytics software is great for determining the deleted customer and product segmentation and forecasting the consumption trends which optimize your sales. 

The marketing data detector also has many advantages concerning statistics elaboration in real time, retroactive statistics, visualization of promotion events, stream of customer actions, etc.

The only weakness of this software is that it works with iOS-supported gadgets. Android environment users are restricted to using Heap Analytics for marketing research purposes.

The AdWords Performance Grader

Driving traffic to your website and increasing your online market audience is a priority for any eCommerce company, especially those just starting out. However, this goal could be challenging due to some marketing omissions, and online merchants should detect them before their competitors make good progress in the market.

The problems are frequently a result of weak account ads, and marketers need to attract productive analytics tools for digital marketing elaboration. In this case, AdWords Performance Grader is a safe and cheap alternative.

This platform is dedicated to analyzing your account linked with all possible Google Ads and generating detailed reports that focus your attention on the strengths and weaknesses of your business. Getting insights and transforming them into a comprehensive business plan is an operational task for AdWords Performance Grader.

Improvado

Improvado could belong to the group of so-called manual overdriven marketing analytics tools due to the functional specifications of this software to create the reports and manage the integrated data.

In other words, this solution is an excellent helper for digital marketers who work with different omnichannels. This service improves analytical activities because information accumulated by various platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, emailing, CRM, etc. is available in one place.

Improvado is also an SEO improver due to its functional design and other required marketing tools. Demonstrating keywords on a singular line simplifies the searching time and optimizes the content modifications.

In addition, this tool completely integrates your company information to eliminate inequalities.

Working with this service offers complete satisfaction and is a great money-saving alternative too. You do not need to spend extra for DevOps engineers to amend settings on your control panel. The solution allows you to perform all actions on your own.

Optimizely

This marketing analytics tool provides mostly A/B testing services applied to your web resources and products. The analytical results assess the commercial attractiveness of your brand and online store. Numerous tests compile a set of versions capable of boosting traffic opportunities, and you may choose the best one.

The testing can present its findings in visual or textual interpretations to optimize decision-making. If you decide to change your website design for profit-stimulated commercial activities based on Optimizely-suggested alternatives, changes would concern only UX design modifications and not belong to the code.

This solution is a must-have marketing attribute if you want to evaluate your website performance and customer activities on your online commercial channels, putting the minimum effort and receiving the critical informative deliverables.

Moz Pro

Moz Pro provides marketers with data that improves their efforts to optimize searching indicators and, as a result, increases your product or store positions in the automatic search systems. Like SEMrush, Moz Pro can demonstrate searching system data related to your media and your competitors’ activities. This information includes keyword ranking analysis of links and trends selected for a particular period. 

Moz Pro is the best tool for marketing analytics performed by SEO experts and digital marketers who intend to maximize their progress strategies in searching system fields. This software has a convenient control panel easily managed by both analytical experts and beginners to receive the requested outputs.

Fivetran

This solution is designed for marketers and data analytics. This is a tool to collect and analyze marketing data. It integrates all databases, APIs, and other tools to the singular concentrator in order to track the entire picture of information flows. It has a suitable and straightforward interface so users do not need to apply specific technical experience or knowledge to navigate its control panel.

Regarding pricing, the costs for Fivetran services are moderate and depend on security, extensibility, support, connectors and users, and other analysis parameters. In addition, this platform offers a free 14-day trial version to try out all the benefits and opportunities for your business.

Overall, a detailed assessment of marketing activities, financial operations, customers, and sales is a rational investment for future development. In addition, Fivetran allows a database replication option that centralizes on-premise and cloud databases quickly and easily.

Adestra

Adestra is a marketing tool to automate emailing services that help marketers initiate targeted emailing events using platform-offered patterns. This marketing analytics software is developed to clarify the effectiveness of the promotion campaigns. This service also sends automatic notifications.

Users can enjoy a variety of well-compiled samples optimized to satisfy Internet and mobile customer expectations. This online marketing manager allows you to collect premium class data that enhances client engagement.

Insightly 

Insightly is a marketing analytics tool specialized in CRM solutions and profound marketing automatization. This tool renders exclusive services oriented toward creating newsletters and promotional emails. It provides feedback options using landing pages and built-in forms.

Insightly also assists marketers in analyzing and visualizing their clients’ ideas through an advanced analytical approach. Supporting online and mobile devices simultaneously, this analytics software does not have problems integrating with any environment and operating systems.

The technically inclined platform arranges customer journeys consisting of next-best-action steps towards your business products. Also, you can segment your clients and products based on detailed information outputs to optimize current and future sales. The other marketing advantage of this software is intelligent campaigns, which include effective preparatory planning to develop successful events and interactive dashboards and reports to assess the received achievements.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is an online marketing platform for media channel analytics and data collection for content marketing. Such actions help the marketing specialist generate new ideas, create their materials, find consumption influencing content, and track effectiveness indicators of the post information.

This marketing analytics software comprises four tools: content search, its evaluation, detection of influencing channels and individuals, and content tracking. Content searching as a part of SEO analytics cover all possible ways to find the required data: keywords, topics, FAQs, etc. These actions are permitted due to a range of filters available in BuzzSumo. Content analytics through this software is a scan of numerous materials and posts to generate unique content. This process consists of content identity search, analysis of the competitors’ content, and content comparison per period of time. 

Ninjacat 

Of Japanese origin, Ninjacat is a versatile marketing analytics platform and an excellent solution to compile reports, monitor business promotion activities, and track different calls. Developed as a tool for digital marketing agencies, Ninjacat occupies the leading position in the ratings of marketing analytics tools due to its integration simplicity and size.

Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Bing Ads, DSP, CRM, CallRail, Facebook Ads, Google Search Console, etc., is not an exhaustive list of platforms effectively synchronizing their insights with Ninjacat. 

This software is fantastic at preparing reports on content ads and PPC analysis, expanding its supervision for social media, SEO tools, searching systems, etc. It also provides you with informative panels and White Label reports sharing reliable, precise, and real-time information with your clients via any available gadgets. One of the operational objectives for such a productive data analyzing machine is to scale up your business activities and cover new segments.

The Ninjacat monitoring includes budget and event tracking to optimize the company price and marketing policies. Indeed, this tool analyzes tasks in detail.

Alooma

This marketing analytics tool is well worthy of being mentioned in the top 20 best analytical e-commerce tools. Among its benefits are: 

• Comprehensive integration. It can integrate dozens of data sources to analyze sales, marketing services, transactional databases, SDKs, and so on,
• End-to-end security. This motion platform ensures its clients that their data is safely integrating into BigQuery,
• Pipeline transparency. Different graphics and dashboards allow you to monitor events and products in real time, catching any error or traffic changes,
• Mapping made easy. The offered opportunities provide users with complete and customizable control.

This platform is exceptionally productive; therefore, you do not need to think about APIs, SQL, code engines, and other details to sum up the full picture of the business state. Indeed, Alooma will do it by itself, presenting you with only a qualitative result.

Adverity

Adverity is a tool that analyzes data and generates reports based on artificial intelligence, automatically collecting and unifying marketing data using integration modules.

Thanks to these modules, users get reports, dashboards, and visibility deliverables to find tendencies and trends after launching promotional campaigns or product lines.

With Adverity, you can collect information from partner channels, web-tracking tools, offline files, audience measurement systems, and other sources.

This marketing analytics tool monitors SEO activities via content evaluation and recommendations to update some attractive approaches. Adverity is the ultimate solution for business forecast specialists because its advanced version helps to build different models, scenarios, and data prediction points that could improve eCommerce business development.

There is no fixed fee, which attracts users. You pay only for a number of sources required to integrate.

Supermetrics 

Supermetrics allows you to automate report generations and transmit results to your desired location. This cloud ETL platform collects and analyzes your marketing data using API interfaces and sends them into the data bank. Also, it qualifies as a visibility, reporting, and business analytics tool.

Integration with Google Analytics and Google Ads is not a big deal for Supermetrics due to its functional abilities. It also works efficiently with Google Data Studio.

As with many marketing analytics tools, this platform offers various visual data interpreters and dashboards to assess the marketing effectiveness for a particular product, event, or audience activities.

Datorama

Datorama enables companies to consolidate marketing data from different channels, which companies and regions could sort. The comprehensive reports and dashboards will become a helpful adviser to make decisions.

Integrating this platform into Marketing Cloud improves several performance positions:

• United space. Now, evaluation of the purchase funnels is more productive because you do not need to click numerous channels and media to gather detailed information. Also, the company realizes the financial benefits resulting from a substitution of a separate marketing department by a well-developed tool, 
• Real-time synchronization. Datorama differs from competitors because of a unique feature: it picks up data from all synchronized API interfaces every twenty minutes. So, time to receive a brief report shortens, and marketers don’t have to  wait till the end of the business day,
• Increased data. The unified data links with CRM, Google Analytics 360, and other paid mediums, including premium searching systems, social media, major purchases, etc., allow Datorama to optimize potential clients’ engagement and purchase funnel growth,
• Available visibility means. Interactive graphic interpretations of analytical results help the data readers catch main points for products, sales, or audience optimization. These dashboards could provide exact request outputs and filter only the essential data.

How Can You Capture All Your Marketing Data In One Place?

A global search could present you with many results which recommend different marketing analytics tools. However, finding a productive platform requires little effort. The main decision-making argument is an opportunity to capture all marketing data in one place and process different channels. Such comprehensive analysis covers vast amounts of information and catches customer behavior changes visiting all presented business funnels.

This multi-functional platform is AdScale, a competitive but high-performance software solution that offers your business a singular marketing cloud.

Integrating to AdScale digital marketing analytics tool opens advantageous opportunities like:

• Control data flow in one place,
• Manage data-driven channels, including social media and web analytics, to optimize the marketing attributes,
• Track any changes and modifications for three legs of marketing analytics (customer, conversations, and events),
• Form detailed reports without duplications or omissions which could spoil the analytical process,
• Provide visual effects via dashboards and graphics to understand information more accurately,
• Synchronize your activities and reduce workload processing different data sources without needing to click various platforms or data storages,
• Scale your eCommerce business up and optimize acquisitions. 

To satisfy the above features in full, every eCommerce merchant could try out a free trial. After completing that period, AdScale offers a number of pricing options, depending on the number of channels and business scaling goals.

The success of retail businesses has always depended on their connection with their customers and how they interpret customer behavior. Each step of the customer journey must engage the target audience and incite favorable actions. 

For long-term success, brands must provide options to convert one-time purchasers into loyal customers who can eventually become unofficial brand ambassadors. 

Customer engagement is key to success. One of the best ways to boost engagement is leveraging technology and taking advantage of the many channels and platforms readily available to connect with your audience. This is the foundation of omnichannel marketing. 

Omnichannel ecommerce takes this to the next level by providing many different platforms from which customers can purchase your products.

Read on for a deep dive into how your online store can use omnichannel marketing and omnichannel ecommerce to improve your customer journey. 

Understanding the Customer Journey 

If you’re a business owner, you likely already know by now that the way you engage with your customers is vital to your success. Creating a positive, productive customer journey requires businesses to interact with customers at several touchpoints for a memorably smooth experience. 

The customer journey covers the overall experience you provide for your customers from the very first time they become aware of your brand. Every step in the journey must be optimized to develop a strong brand-customer relationship. 

Like any journey, you need a map to understand the most critical touchpoints, what kind of engagement is needed, and what other strategies you can use to perform better. When you create your brand’s customer journey, you must visualize your marketing strategies in action, consider the customer’s motivations and reactions, and finally create a detailed map that details every moment of the overall customer experience. 

Remember that customer journeys are not linear. Your customers will jump from one step to another at their whim. They may abandon their initial journey and come back a few months later through another touchpoint. They may linger in one or two touchpoints before making a purchase. 

You must create a customer journey map that is flexible enough to accommodate these variances. The main goal is to engage with your clients in a way that will propel them to continue their journey and convert their interest into a sale.

Understanding your prospects and customers is a basic requirement when creating your customer journey map. You need to know where to find your leads, learn about their motivations, which medium they use to engage with your brand, their potential actions, and where they get their information. 

What is Omnichannel Customer Engagement? 

When consumers want to buy something, they have so many different options. They can go to a brick-and-mortar store, an ecommerce website like Shopify, a company’s direct-to-customer (D2C) website, or even a social media platform like Instagram or Facebook to engage with the brand they’re interested in. 

These are all channels where customers engage with businesses whenever they are—at home, at work, on their commute, even on vacation. 

There are many ways to enhance customer engagement. Some of these include:

• Offering incentives for customers to visit your store or website. This includes discounts, free shipping, and samples.
• Creating relevant, targeted marketing campaigns for customers. You can use their purchase or browsing history to create unique ads or send out special offers.
• Responding quickly to customer complaints and inquiries. Being proactive about taking action ensures that you care about your customers and you want to keep their trust.
• Creating an omnichannel experience for customers. This means providing access to your brand via multiple channels such as social media, your brand website, online retailers, and other platforms. Omnichannel customer engagement focuses on a seamless journey no matter what platform your customer prefers. 

Ecommerce and Omnichannel Customer Engagement 

When a business develops a customer journey that engages and delights their target market, they create a positive experience that will keep customers coming back for more. Fortunately, the internet has made it easy for ecommerce businesses to explore many different platforms where customer engagement and experience could be enhanced. 

Today, businesses can connect with customers in so many ways. There’s the traditional face-to-face channel where customers go to physical stores to interact with a brand. Customers can get a personalized experience in a brick-and-mortar shop, but accessibility and ease of access are limited.

Ecommerce businesses can leverage various direct or indirect channels, such as social media, emails, newsletters, catalogs, and calls. 

Omnichannel engagement ensures that all customer interactions are unified to enhance their experience. Emails, websites, retail stores, point-of-sale platforms, and even social media apps are aligned to give the customer ease and accessibility wherever they are.

What is the Difference Between Ecommerce and Omnichannel?

Ecommerce is the buying and selling of products and services through an online channel. This could be done through a website, mobile app, or social media platform. 

Omnichannel is the use of multiple channels to interact with customers. This could include in-store purchases, online purchases, and phone orders. It links all channels that are part of the customer journey. This way, the customers have a cohesive brand experience no matter what channel or point-of-sale platform they use to engage with your brand.

So omnichannel ecommerce allows businesses to engage their customers at several touchpoints in various channels (online and offline) to make the experience more cohesive and compelling. 

What is an Omnichannel Strategy?

An omnichannel strategy is a sales approach that provides an integrated shopping experience. The goal of an omnichannel strategy is to create multiple touchpoints through which customers can interact with your brand, such as social media, retail stores, or mobile devices.

Your strategy must be based on customer behavior, how they engage with your brand, where the initial engagement happens, and where they purchase the product. You should focus on meeting your customer’s needs and expectations in any way possible. 

There are four important factors you need to focus on for an omnichannel strategy. Consider the following questions:

1. What are my available sales channels?

Carefully choose which channels you need to develop. Ecommerce businesses can leverage ecommerce marketplaces, social media platforms, business websites, B2B sites, and mobile apps. 

Focus on channels that suit your business approach and product, and use others for engagement or advertising.

2. What marketing and advertising options do I have? 

Create a marketing plan and advertising strategy that will drive traffic to your ecommerce site and boost your revenue. You could use paid ads on social media, email marketing, or even traditional marketing approaches. 

As long as they reach your target audience, you will create a valuable touchpoint for your customers. 

3. What are my operational needs? 

Consider your omnichannel strategy’s back-office requirements. You need to manage your inventory, streamline order fulfillment, logistics, and delivery. Do you have the technological capacity to manage all of the complex processes and the staff to handle your online channels? 

4. How can I ensure shipping and delivery fulfillment? 

You can partner with third-party logistics companies to handle shipments and deliveries, especially if you have limited staffing and reach. 

Boost Your Business With an Omnichannel Engagement Strategy

Make sure your omnichannel engagement strategy supports your business goals. If you’re trying to increase sales, work on driving more customers to your site. If you want to build customer loyalty, focus on engaging them to purchase again and again.

Above all, your omnichannel engagement strategy must be customer-centric. Too often, companies try to push their agenda instead of providing what their customers ask for. 

You must act based on what your customer wants, not what you want them to do.

Your strategy should be flexible and accessible. If it’s difficult for customers to navigate or use one of your chosen platforms, they will quickly give up and opt for one of your competitors instead. Prioritize simplicity and ease of use even for beginners.

Omnichannel ecommerce must also be integrated. The level of integration you can achieve depends on the structure of your omnichannel architecture. Your data systems may be in different formats, but they need to work together to ensure a smooth customer experience. 

The Best of Omnichannel Ecommerce and Marketing

Amazon is one of the best examples of omnichannel ecommerce and marketing. Amazon has created a seamless customer journey by engaging customers on all possible channels. It is now one of the most successful businesses in the world.

What Amazon did as an omnichannel marketing giant was to understand what their customers wanted and how they could engage with them wherever they were. Some of these channels include:

Email Marketing

Amazon sends out regular emails to its customers, notifying them about new products, deals, and promotions. They also use email marketing to create loyalty programs for their customers.

Social Media 

Amazon has cultivated large followings on all its social media channels. They engage with customers, promote new products, and develop brand awareness.

Blog Posts 

Amazon’s blog offers incredibly useful information about their products and services as well as tips for using them. It also provides an opportunity for engagement between Amazon employees and customers.

Product Pages

Amazon’s product pages are very interactive, allowing customers to read reviews, see related products, and find out more about the product before purchasing.

Customer Service

Amazon’s customer service is one of the best in the world of ecommerce. They offer support through phone, live chat, and email.

Why is Omnichannel Ecommerce Important?

Businesses and retailers have responded to evolving customer behavior and preferences during the pandemic. One of the most widespread effects of lockdowns and travel restrictions has been the boom in ecommerce and digital technology. 

The great shift to ecommerce has made businesses explore options beyond traditional marketing strategies. Omnichannel ecommerce has emerged, and now companies are attempting to engage with customers and sell products across various platforms. 

Omnichannel ecommerce has also made businesses explore logistics and delivery services with a global impact that saw a 25% increase in ecommerce deliveries in 2020.

Omnichannel ecommerce is the future of retail, and its impact will change how brands and consumers interact long into the future.

What are the Benefits of Omnichannel Ecommerce?

Omnichannel ecommerce provides an incredibly convenient customer experience. It allows consumers to switch between channels without experiencing any disruption in service or losing their place in their customer journey. 

Omnichannel benefits businesses in several ways:

Improved Customer Experience

Unsurprisingly, the first and most important omnichannel benefit is a top-notch, seamless customer experience. Your customers have several touchpoints in their journey, and integrating communication and sales methods empowers them even more.

When you prioritize customer experience, you are sure to boost your sales and expand your roster of loyal customers. 

Integrated Customer Database 

Omnichannel ecommerce allows businesses to integrate data gathered from various channels to understand the needs of their target market. 

With so many data points, you will be able to create content that appeals to a wide range of customers. You will have the information you need to improve your products and provide services to enhance customer experience. 

Increased Site Traffic and Sales

Omnichannel ecommerce involves engaging with customers and selling your products across multiple platforms. This significantly increases brand accessibility, allowing users to go from your social media account to your blog to your product page without losing their place in the journey. 

This means that if they are already at a critical touchpoint, omnichannel ecommerce allows customers to move forward and progress from a potential lead to becoming a viable—even loyal—customer.

One study revealed that omnichannel customers spend more than traditional consumers who use only one channel to interact with a brand. Omnichannel customers did more research on different channels, including social media, business websites, and even on-site digital tools. 

Customer Loyalty

Omnichannel ecommerce also boosts brand loyalty. When you engage with your customers and provide what they need every step of the way, they will be assured that your brand understands and prioritizes their needs. They will pay this forward by contributing to your brand in big and small ways.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. When you interact positively with an ecommerce store, you remember the experience, right? And when you find yourself in a place to purchase another product or service in their niche, you may not even consider any other option. 

If your next online purchase goes as smoothly as the first, you may excitedly recommend the brand to your family and friends. You may even share the positive experience with your social media followers. You have become a loyal customer and a brand ambassador of sorts—precisely what the business needs for more revenue and long-term success.

What Are the Challenges With Omnichannel Ecommerce?

Omnichannel ecommerce is undoubtedly the future of retail, but acceptance of the strategy is still limited to certain industries. 

There are several challenges that many businesses have to overcome to embrace omnichannel ecommerce strategies:

New Expectations from Consumers 

Omnichannel ecommerce platforms must be customer-centric, and they expect accessibility no matter the time and place. For some ecommerce businesses, the struggle centers on delivery and logistics, with demand for same-day deliveries on the rise. 

Customers expect deliveries to be completed within a small window, but some online retailers may not meet these needs due to limited operations.

Business websites, retail platforms, and mobile apps make it incredibly easy for consumers to access products wherever they are, at any time of day. The demand for accessibility in all platforms has made businesses speed up their digital expansion plans. However, this could be a challenge for some smaller companies.

Omnichannel consumers now have a long list of options for their purchases. This gives them the power to decide how much they spend and where, forcing businesses to expand their inventory to include alternatives to suit their audience. This may involve finding new suppliers and sourcing new products constantly. Time and space constraints might limit some ecommerce businesses’ responses. 

Managing inventory across all channels can be difficult, especially when demand for products varies greatly from one channel to the next. There is also the issue of price inconsistency, as fees generated on one platform may not apply to another.

Deliveries, Distributions, and Returns 

Providing omnichannel retailing on a global scale is no easy task. It requires tight coordination and synchronization between channels and an understanding of how to use technology to your advantage.

Logistics is expensive for all ecommerce businesses, and the greatest challenge for retailers has been product returns. In 2020, an average of 40% of online deliveries were returned, compared to 8% of on-site purchases. 

Delivery companies follow set schedules, but returns are not part of the process just yet, thus disrupting distribution flow. Some businesses are now exploring reverse logistics to meet this challenge, which means additional expenses for any business.  

Increased Costs

Demands for an online presence, creating new supply chains, and expanding inventory mean rising costs to any online retailer. Omnichannel ecommerce may require additional staff, a bigger warehouse, and more advanced software and hardware, all of which require money. 

Ecommerce businesses must decide what assets they must invest in so their omnichannel strategy will improve their business revenue. 

Digital Limitations 

Many online businesses are also limited by the available technology. Omnichannel ecommerce requires a unified platform that can analyze customer information, behavior, and motivation to create a strategy that would improve the brand’s customer journey. 

But with ecommerce websites, social media marketplaces, and mobile apps using different modes of gathering customer data, it can be difficult for any business to unify these metrics and make them a comprehensible part of its customer engagement strategy. 

How Can Businesses Overcome these Challenges?

Small to medium enterprises may want to shift to omnichannel ecommerce and marketing but find themselves limited by the significant increase in costs. One way to overcome this is to create an omnichannel customer engagement strategy that focuses on the channels that work best for your brand. 

This means your business should focus on the platforms that your target audience uses. Address their pain points, provide what they need, and soon, you’ll be rolling in revenue.

Here are some ways you can mitigate expenses and overcome the challenges of your omnichannel strategy:

Look for the Best Omnichannel Platforms 

The best omnichannel ecommerce platforms for businesses enable marketing, customer engagement, and shopping experiences via mobile devices.

Market research can help you with this. What platforms are your target audience using to shop? Remember, your strategy must center on your customer journey—meet them where they already are and provide value they can find nowhere else.

Look For Partners

Even if your business is thriving, it doesn’t mean you must continue to do everything alone. Omnichannel ecommerce works best if you have partners and third-party providers that can help you streamline your operations. 

Look for service providers that will help you meet your customers’ demands. Logistics and delivery services are good partners, and they have a network of partners all over the globe that could help you reach an international market. 

Use Automation and AI

Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are booming, and the world of ecommerce has been leveraging these developments to their benefit. 

Automating your ecommerce business operations will ease the burden on your staff and provide a top-notch experience for your customers, as well. You can leverage automation software for email marketing, customer support, CRM, inventory management, logistics, and more.

For many ecommerce sellers and business owners, using AI on their websites has helped them analyze customer behavior, engage with visitors via live chat, provide personalized shopping experiences, and many more.

Omnichannel Ecommerce: The Future of Retail?

The future is bright for online retailers. With modern consumers all-in on ecommerce, social media, and digital marketing, it is easier than ever to make an impact in your niche, even without a brick-and-mortar store.

Billions of people in the digital world are potential leads. Their online presence is studied, the sites they visit are documented, and their purchases are recorded in point-of-sale platforms. Omnichannel ecommerce is making it easy for the consumer, but could businesses satisfy their customers’ growing demand for accessibility?

Traditional marketing approaches will not disappear, but omnichannel and multichannel marketing and ecommerce will lead to expansion for all industries. If you want your business to thrive, you should explore omnichannel ecommerce and make your customer journey better than ever.

Choosing a business point-of-sale platform (POS) is essential for any online e-commerce shop or brick-and-mortar business. The POS System is the platform where all your business transactions are conducted. It also helps you track your company’s progress, from showcasing your products to closing a sale. 

Most businesses now use digital POS systems, like Shopify or Square. Each POS platform offers something different to every user, and it all depends on what you need as an e-commerce seller, a small business owner, or an entrepreneur searching for the next big business deal.

But how would you know which one is for you? How would you know which one to choose in the Shopify vs. Square debate? 

We will explore the pros and cons of Square and Shopify to help you decide. We’ll also cover whether you can use both Square and Shopify.

Ready?

The Basic Features of a Good POS System

Since POS platforms make payment transactions easy, they share some basic features, such as billing, invoicing, CRM, inventory management, etc. They also offer other add-ons and features. And here is where POS platforms differ—depending on the brand, you’ll find features such as cloud storage, remote access, multilocation management, etc.

But here are the things a basic POS system should do for you.

Sales Reporting 

A basic POS platform should give you a daily sales report listing price, product, profit percentage, and even the employee who completed the sale. This report provides a picture of how your business is performing. 

Customer Management 

Managing your customers is vital for any business. Your POS should allow you to create a database that helps you record customer information. You can record their purchases and contact information to create better marketing campaigns that target your most valued clients.  

Inventory Management

Your POS should keep track of your product, inventory, and stock. You would know when to order a new batch of products and what product needs to be resupplied. Managing your inventory is vital if you want to meet the demands of your clients.

Any POS should have these features, and Square and Shopify offer more than these. But how would you know which one works for you? 

Let’s compare Shopify and Square. 

Why You Should Choose Shopify

Shopify is user-friendly and makes it easier for anyone to set up on their computer or mobile. Its intuitive grid allows users to see the apps and products they use the most, while merchants could manage their business easily, and sellers could offer products far from their physical store. 

• Works with the Shopify e-commerce platform
• Shopify is ideal for e-commerce sellers, larger retailers, and online merchants   
• 24/7 customer service
• Flat service rates

Shopify also offers two kinds of POS plans—Shopify POS Lite and Shopify POS Pro. The two versions allow small business owners to create an appealing online store and reach Shopify’s thousands of e-commerce sellers and users. 

Here’s a closer look at their features.

Shopify POS Lite

Shopify Lite accepts all major credit and debit cards. It works together with other hardware devices, including mobile devices and printers. 

In addition, you can expect the following: 

Sales Reporting 

Shopify Lite helps you create receipts, discounts, and even refunds. It also helps you create cash flow, sales, product, and financial reports. 

Customer Management

Shopify Lite has several customer management features that new e-commerce sellers and longtime merchants appreciate. The POS will help you build an email and social media campaign to attract new customers. It also helps you build a customer profile list to create a customer loyalty program to create brand ambassadors. 

Inventory Management

Shopify Lite’s inventory management features allow users to add unlimited products to their inventory and manage it from several channels and locations. 

Shopify Pro 

The Pro version provides users with more features than Shopify Lite. 

Here’s what more you can expect:

Sales Reporting 

Pro allows users to create purchase orders, forecast product demand, sale item suggestions, low stock reports, and inventory analysis. 

Employee Management

Pro gives you manager approvals, unlimited POS staff, and assign staff roles and permissions. You can add several staffers to your system and give commissions and acknowledgments to high-achieving personnel. This allows you to assign staff roles for better management. 

Inventory Management

Pro generates stock reports, inventory analysis, and an inventory count. You can also create purchase orders and custom-printed receipts. 

Customer Management

The Pro allows your customers to redeem automatic discounts from your store. It also gives your customers the choice to buy online, have the product shipped in, or pick up their order on-site. 

Shopify Payments

Both Shopify Pro and Lite give you access to Shopify Payments. Shopify Payments simplifies online payments and gives you access to all payment methods.

Shopify users could use Shopify Payments to integrate their digital wallet, e-money apps, and payment partners into their store. The platform gives users and their clients ease of access in their e-commerce store. There is no transaction fee either. 

Even if you don’t use Shopify, you can still access Shopify Payments for all your transactions. 

Why Shopify? 

Shopify has a scalable platform for medium to large e-commerce businesses. If you rely solely on commerce for your revenue, then Shopify is for you. 

Why Choose Square?

Square is a POS system for mobile phones and gadgets. It’s compatible with Apple and is ideal for small business owners. 

Square is unique in its ability to accept swiped payments at lower charges. It also allows Shopify e-commerce sellers and merchants to use the Shopify POS while using Square. 

So, can you use Square with Shopify? Yes! But should you? We’ll cover that in just a minute.

Meanwhile, here are the benefits of using Square:

• Ideal for new sellers, smaller e-commerce retailers 
• No extra cost per transaction 
• Lower charges per card swipe
• No monthly fees

Square has several features that make it a good choice for e-commerce sellers from small to medium enterprises. Here’s how it stacks up on the three basic services of a POS. 

Sales Reporting

Square’s dashboard displays your inventory and sales reports and compares your business performance. Square provides you with the analytics you need to monitor any business. 

Customer Management

Square has a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that stores all your customer data. Using this data to understand the behavior of your market, you can improve customer experience and create a loyal customer base.

Inventory Management

Square’s Inventory Management tools and its dashboard offer users an excellent way to manage their inventory. They can track each product and connect it with a customer, making it a valuable tool for understanding their target market and how they could expand it. 

Square also has the following features in its POS structure.  

Third-party Integrations 

Another of Square’s benefits is its smooth integration with other applications such as the Shopify POS, Intuit management tool, Weebly e-commerce web design site, and inventory management platform Shopventory.

Employee Management 

Square allows managers and business owners to assign roles to their staff in the POS. The system helps with payroll tracking, attendance, and even performance trackers. 

Platform Customization

Square allows its users to customize their online store. Business owners could arrange products and services in a way that would attract their target market. 

Payment Processing

Square’s POS makes it easy for customers to use credit and debit cards with a simple swipe on the phone. The company does charge a transaction fee for every swipe, but it is an acceptable rate for many small to medium businesses. 

This final feature gives Square an advantage over other POS. Users can complete Square payments with a simple swipe. 

What makes Square Payments different?

Square Payments make it easy for users to shop online and make cashless transactions in person. They could use credit, debit, and even gift cards to pay, without the heavy charges of traditional credit cards.  

A card reader app for Android devices and the iPad allows e-commerce sellers to receive and send payments. 

Why Square? 

Square’s free plan and flexible payment process make it the best choice for small business retailers, food shop owners, restaurants, and other brick and mortar stores.

Shopify vs. Square: Can You Use Square with Shopify?

Though both POS platforms offer similar features, Square has limitations on the features it offers users. 

This is why you cannot use Square with Shopify. You can, however, use Shopify with Square.

Confused? Allow us to clarify.

Since Square allows third-party integration, you can access Shopify on Square. However, you cannot access Square if you have Shopify installed. 

If you already use Shopify and want access to Square, we have a solution. 

Shopify-Square Integration is Your Solution

E-commerce integration coordinates business websites and systems to integrate sales, information, and other essential data used in two platforms. In our case, Shopify and Square.

Here are the different ways to integrate these two POS platforms. 

Shopify-Square Integration on Zapier

If you are a business owner using Shopify, but you need to access both, there is now an option for Shopify users to access Square using Zapier. Zapier is a platform that allows users to access another platform and integrate the data required in both systems. 

The process is quite simple, and users need only sign up for Zapier and authenticate their Shopify and Square accounts. When done, you need to select a trigger app and the resulting action on the other. The Shopify-Square integration allows you to consolidate your information and synchronize your apps.

Square-Shopify Integration on SKUIQ

SKUIQ is another online tool that allows Shopify to integrate with other POS and e-commerce platforms. You could synchronize your data from Shopify and Square, and SKUIQ allows you to connect your POS to your e-commerce platform, which could be your physical store or an online website. 

But the good thing about integration is that whatever POS you choose for your business, you will have the capacity to integrate Shopify and Square. However, still consider the possibilities that each POS offers; it may be the key to your business success.

Shopify vs. Square: Which One is Better?

Still mulling over the Shopify vs. Square debate? 

The answer depends entirely on what you need and who you are. Both Shopify and Square have their advantages and offer basic POS tools.

You need to choose the one that fits your business needs, including your budget and business plan. 

You need to ask what you need as an e-commerce site or an entrepreneur. Think about what needs to change in your processes, whether it’s in the management or service. Review which online management and financial tools could help you. 

Review your business plan and your revenue goal for the year. Consider which POS would serve you better so you could reach your sales targets. 

If you have a small business, you need to check your average order value. A higher number would demand a POS covering tracking, orders, and delivery. 

You should also consider if you have multiple locations or just one physical store. Multiple sites may demand more remote management, and you need to think about which one suits you. 

For Small Businesses

If you have a small business and are constrained by your budget, some experts suggest you choose the one that suits your budget limitations. 

Perhaps Square could appeal to small business owners since their platform is free and its third-party integrations and swipe payment system are appealing. It gives even e-commerce sellers and online merchants access to Shopify’s POS, making it more flexible for budget-conscious business owners. 

Shopify offers two POS to help a small business—Shopify Lite and Shopify Pro. Medium to large enterprises with greater online tracking and management needs prefer Shopify. But check their fees and choose the one that is suitable for you. 

For Medium to Large Enterprises

If your business is medium to large, you might want to choose a POS that does not charge you for using multiple devices. Also, if you plan to create a complex business website that takes advantage of app integrations, then Shopify is for you.

Shopify Pro would help e-commerce sellers, online merchants, and even small businesses with SEO optimization and their website. Shopify Pro will also give you the advantage of integrating with other e-commerce platforms. 

So, which one is it? Shopify or Square? 

Don’t forget to drop by later and let us know which worked best for you!

Like most e-commerce stores, your advertising today probably relies on third-party data from Google & Facebook tracking pixels to create targeted ads for your products. The problem is that with the new Facebook pixel update that significantly limits your ability to track users, it is time to look beyond third-party data.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to start collecting first-party data to build your own custom audiences and find alternative ways to target customers.

What Are First-party Data Audiences?

First-party data audiences are audiences you create based on data that you collect from your own store. Essentially, these are audiences that are built without help from the Facebook pixel or any third-party cookies. Using your store’s data, including behavioral data, purchase data, and more, you can build audiences based on users who:

• buy a certain type of product
• make regular purchases
• are based in a particular location
• have certain interests
• interact with your site in a specific way

You can then target these audiences with greater accuracy by using a range of marketing techniques.

How To Use First-party Data Audiences

Once you have collected first-party data, you can use it in several ways to create more personalized experiences for your users. For example, you could create an audience based on those users who are interested in a specific type of product in your store, then target them with ads on Facebook or Google.
You could send highly personalized e-mail and SMS campaigns featuring specific products and discounts that they have a high possibility of being interested in. Or you could create personalized content based on their specific interests to use in your marketing campaigns.

Benefits Of Using First-party Data Audiences

Using first-party data audiences has several advantages for your e-commerce business:

• It’s free—You can collect first-party data for free and use it to deliver personalized experiences over and over again without having to pay for it.
• Create customized messaging—You will know exactly what your customers want, meaning you can target them with the right message at the right time according to their stage in the customer journey.
• Highly accurate—First-party data is detailed, precise, and up-to-date, so you can use it to target your customers and predict purchasing behavior with confidence.
• It’s yours—You are never dependent on third-party data so you don’t have to rely on any other sources.

How To Generate Audiences From Your Data

Hopefully, you can see the power of first-party data for your e-commerce business. But how should you actually generate audiences based on your own data? Manually generating audiences is tedious and involves analyzing and segmenting each audience. It’s not a dynamic process, and the audience is only correct at the specific time of the analysis rather than being updated when new data is collected after generating the audience.
AdScale is here to help. We do all the hard work for you by dynamically generating audiences based on your own set of rules. You can then use the audiences in your own advertising campaigns using AdScale to create personalized, highly targeted campaigns that generate more conversions and sales.