Startup Ecommerce Biz Tips

Blindside87

Hi All,

I am starting a new website selling a much needed product in a competitive market. I have built the site myself and have it all nearly ready to go.

I am just wondering can anyone with any experience in ecommerce pass any tips my way (and whoever else reads this).

I have heard of companies that pay big money in adwords but their return can justify this, just like a shop pays rent. Is this the way to go? I have used adwords before and know it can cost a lot of money if not done properly but I have done my research.

Thanks,

Blindside.:D

mneylon

You need to have a marketing strategy of some kind
Ideally you'd also need to have a budget for it, as doing it without any budget is going to be a LOT harder (not impossible if you're clever though)

Blindside87

I plan to use social media a lot as well as Ebay and Amazon as marketing tools. I think the main thing driving people to my site would be adwords so I have set aside a reasonable weekly budget for that.

I have done a lot of on site SEO but have no backlinks really so this is something I may have to get a company to do.

The Apprentice

I have some experience in this..

Regular Seo/Sem depending on lots of variables get between 2-7% conversion and its consistently there or there abouts. There is most certainly lower and have seen higher.. 40% in fact but that's rare !

PPC gets between 6-20% which has lots of variables also. It could be a landing page/splash page layout or could be just a regular ppc advert you see on google. Depends on niche, depends on time of month, Demographic you target sometimes even time of day or month can make that little bit of a difference in %. The norm is perhaps 6-8% and in no way is this going to be your marketing campaign. The big fish will just swallow you up with a bigger budget and burn you daily. PPC should only be used in conjunction with a regular SeM campaign as part of an overall package with brand building and getting your name consitently out there.
The idea of ppc is sound .. spend 100 notes and get 120 back.. Unfortunately it doesnt work like that...
As you are selling a product and NOT advertising an Event i would reccomend a montly budget to test out keywords where you have a set budget/keyword target list and burn through them and check out conversion rates.
Having a SEM campaign running also you can further target the higher coverting keywords and let the other competitors fight over the ****ty keywords, this always helps as your spending your budget far more effectively.

As you are new and starting out i would seriously tell you not to hit up PPC just yet, concentrate on getting 20-30 keywords ranked in under 6 months from a regular Seo/SEM campaign as im assuming your budget is also limited. When those start hitting page 1 you can then try my suggestion of burning through the ****ty keywords as a testing ground etc !!

Put up the Link here if you wish, Boards.ie will grant you your first backlink... and we can discuss it further and try help you out. If you want to keep it personal np, just pm it through

Cheers buddy, and best of luck with the venture. !!!

Peterdalkey

OP you are getting some great advice here from The App, read it over and over again, I have..cracking stuff. I have taken a look at our main Ireland only B2B ecommerce site Adword/organic/referral click performance for an average sales month and have come up with the following stats
30% of clicks are from CPC
45% from organic search results
Balance from other site referrals ( including our own other sites)

2.47% of visitors actually buy
Average CPC cost E0.16
Top 10 adwords yield 50% of clicks
Next 10 yield 17%

Overall cost of Adwords = 2.42% of overall online sales or 8% of sales from cpc click ( assuming the same proportion of CPC clickers and organic clickers buy!)


We did try facebook ads and found them useless, very expensive and very untargetted, despite the claims from FB about tgheir ability to target specific demographics. Complete Bull****. I would note that we are B2B, it may well be different for B2C, just be very careful before you burn money on it.

We have juat over trebled our monthly online sales since launching a new version of the site in January, from albeit a rather low base line in the overall scale of our business. The figures are starting to become interesting but if you look through other posts in this forum regarding online sales growth, it is clear that this is a long long process. I did read one post which I think said that it could take 4 yeras to get above a E1 million in online sales in Ireland pa.

You need to have really good site design. The designer needs to be just that, a design head. If you can find one that is also a good website builder too, happy days. Design is a talent, web building is a learned skill. SEO/SEM is a daily job that needs attention every day!

Hope this helps a little.

Best of luck

Peter

Blindside87

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the advice, will take it on board.

I have an online store here in Ireland and have done SEO with really impressive results.

My only worry about this in the UK is that it looks like some of those sites are anchored to page 1 and I can't see myself pushing anywhere near them for quite a while.

This is why I was going to try adwords and hope to break even on this.

As stated above I have read of companies who do no SEO and spend a lot on adwords but get a decent ROI. This is not ideal but considering how competitive the UK is online I think it is worth a shot to try and see. I was thinking maybe €100 a week on adwords to start, a small budget but if I can get some conversion out of that I would hope to break even.

Obviously the established websites could destroy me on adwords and probably will but if I don't do it I just don't see how I am going to get any hits let alone sales.

I am getting my seo company to take a look at my site at the moment to get an estimate off of them.

Thanks.

mneylon

Unless the vertical is very niche €100 / week won't get you very far

Peterdalkey

Blacknight wrote: »

Unless the vertical is very niche €100 / week won't get you very far

It would also depend on CPC cost and the average sale value. At E0.15 per click you would get 666 clicks per week for your 100 quid and at 2.5% conversion rate it should yield 16 actual sales per week from this alone. if OP is making Euro 50 margin per sale, its an extra 800 quid a week!

The Apprentice

Yes i agree pete .. If he is niche specific thats perfect but as he states he,s in a very competitive space so we must make an assumption that the multiples are trying or currently doing ppc with their Seo/Sem campaigns.

So if they are your figures could be very different, as an example if indeed you did see a competitive keyword that you tried to market towards your blue widgets.
€3 Cpc = 100 clicks could cost you €300. Sales of 2.5% = 2.5 sales at €50 = approx €125 euros in sales..
Although that sales is not gross profit only net, cost price of product - minus shipping minus cost of marketing time for your self.

So in actual fact that might come in under 50% so if you made €75 on this ppc campaign you would still be down over €225 ..

The above is very real and possible €3 a click isnt a whole lot of money when its a competitive space, which is unfortunate in your case bro. If you can find something around the €1 mark you could well break even, any higher it would depend on your margins in other areas etc !

Also a €100 a week being €5200 a year in PPC, could well earn you 30-40 keywords on page 1 in the space of 12 Months which in my honest opinion would at least break even and more likely return you a far greater profit in the long term.. U must remember with ppc, when the money well runs dry, which happens a lot in business with cash flow etc the visitors stop coming which leads to no sales which leads to no money a vicious cycle.

Where your at i could'nt suggest it for any other reason than brand building. Your competitors are already driving those €1 keywords in €2 the bloody pit vipers :P

Cheers bro

Peterdalkey

As usual App, your points are well made. However, I would like to know the OPs actual CPC for his top 5 keywords, so that we can chew over the real data. At 2-3 quid a pop, Adwords is very hard to justify for anything but larger ticket/gross cash margin items.

The Apprentice

Ya true true, it really is a "how long is a piece" of string question.. which probably doesnt help u.
Needs further input and indeed the above example if you could gain a 4% conversion rate you could indeed start to make it profitable in some areas..

Blindside87

For my top keyword my CPC ranges from €1.50 - €2.20.

The margins on this product can range from €10.00 - €80+.

If I can get several sales a day I think it would give me a good base to launch a more extensive marketing campaign.

The product I am selling is quite specific so I think adwords works particularly well because of this.

All advice taken so far!

Peterdalkey

At 2 quid a click and 4% conversion rate you will spend 50 sovs to get each sale. Have you tried using approriate 2 word Adwords, I have seen this drop the CPC dramatically on occasion, you just need to be a little smarter and sharper to get one over on the big guys. Try two words and then reverse them as well! Worth a shot, just make sure you make them very pertinent to the product and do lots of jotter doodling to come up with some goodies.

Cheers

Peter

Blindside87

Hi Peter,

This may be a stupid question but how do you mean two word keywords? My main keyword is already two words. Does having them backwards or anything like that make a difference?

Cheers

Peterdalkey

Try it and see! Then try 3 words and then muck them about. It will only cost you a few minutes of your time but might save you a bomb!!

Good luck,

Peter

Kersh

The Apprentice wrote: »

Ya true true, it really is a "how long is a piece" of string question.. which probably doesnt help u.

Great thread, some super replies . . but couldnt resist . .

A piece of string is twice as long as it is from the middle to one end

Peterdalkey

Kersh wrote: »

Great thread, some super replies . . but couldnt resist . .

A piece of string is twice as long as it is from the middle to one end

In an ideal world, half a piece of string would be sufficient to get the job done.!

The Apprentice

Peterdalkey wrote: »

In an ideal world, half a piece of string would be sufficient to get the job done.!

Ye and in ireland you would borrow that string on the strength of your Personal guarantee and you would consistenly pay off the interest on the string with a hope to a longer string being there to sell on in the near future..

Peterdalkey

Time and twine wait for no man!