Customer Acquisition For E-commerce: 10 Essential Strategies

According to Statista, the global e-commerce revenue is projected to reach US$4,117 billion in 2024. That means a whole lot of opportunity for e-commerce startups, but also means greater competition. Customer acquisition has always been one of the problems that require constant attention not just in the e-commerce world but also in every business. “How do I get more customers to buy my products or services?” Some of the customer acquisition strategies and hacks still work today, but due to the new technology and trends, we have to figure out different and more creative ways to acquire customers. In this post, we will discuss 9 strategies that most e-commerce businesses use to acquire most customers.

Why Is Customer Acquisition Important?

Many people have the wrong perception that “if you build it, they will come” or “if I have a good product, I will have customers.” In some cases, yes, but in most cases, this is not true. Customer acquisition is a process that requires specific actions and strategies, and it’s not just important—it’s the lifeblood of your business.

According to Alex Hormozi, there are only two ways to grow your business, selling to more people or selling more to your customers. Even if you get to keep all your existing customers, your business won’t grow unless you do one of these. There is a limit to how much you can sell to a customer, that’s why oftentimes you have to rely on getting more customers to purchase your products.

Understanding Your Target Audience

Before we delve into customer acquisition strategies, it’s important we address the foundation of acquisition, which is understanding who your target audience is.

When you try to acquire more customers, you have to be very clear about who your customers are, their demographics such as age, sex, occupation, and the problems they are facing in order to develop effective strategies that are specific to them.

Creating buyer personas is a process that every business needs to go through at the early stage of the business or when a new product is developed. A buyer persona may not represent the true customers of your business, but it gives you a guide to who might be your potential clients.

Having buyer personas is just a start, you have to back it up with cold, hard data. Analyzing your customer behavior and preferences is where it can make a difference to your business. Start digging into your website analytics and social media insights, and try to understand how your customers think and act.

For instance, if you run ads, figure out which ad performs the best, use analytics to find out which specific element resonates with your customers, do they shop mostly on phones or desktops, and you can use tools like Hotjar to find out what they are doing on your website.

Apart from that, you can implement a post-purchase survey to receive feedback directly from your customers, which helps you create better marketing strategies to find more people who are interested in your product. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just a few quick questions about why they chose your product and how they found us. These insights help you remove all the assumptions and biases of why you think your marketing strategies work and sometimes can help you uncover a whole new target audience you hadn’t even considered before.

10 Powerful Strategies for E-commerce Customer Acquisition

If you believe you have a great product but are struggling to get more customers, you probably haven’t implemented some of the strategies we are about to discuss. Now let’s dive into the essential strategies most e-commerce stores use to acquire more customers.

This has probably happened to you: when you are shopping for something online and you find two brands, both seem to be great and have the same price point and you can’t decide which one is better. You dive into more research and search for reviews online, and when you go to their websites, one brand only has professional product photos while the other one has testimonials of real customers using them in their everyday lives, and that convinces you to purchase the product from that brand.

That is the power of user-generated content (UGC).

Here’s how to make it work for you:

Encourage customer reviews and ratings: Make it dead simple for customers to leave reviews. Send follow-up emails, and ask them if they would love to leave a review after purchase. Your superfans will be happy to do that, however, providing some incentives for your customers to leave a review will certainly help.
Showcase user photos and videos: Create a branded hashtag and encourage customers to share photos of themselves using your products. Then feature these photos on your product pages and social media. If you are lucky, you can even start a trend and build a community full of loyal customers.

Don’t just use UGC on your website. Consider incorporating it into your ads, email marketing, and even packaging. The more you can show real people loving your products, the more new customers you’ll attract. However, make sure you go through all the required legal processes before using the photos from your customers.

2. Prioritize for Mobile Shopping

Statistics show that over 75% of retail site visits are conducted on smartphones, and around two-thirds of online purchases are done on mobile in 2024. People n o longer shop on their desktops, and it’s quicker and more convenient to shop online on phones.

That’s why it’s important to not build a “mobile-friendly” website but prioritize mobile shopping.

Ensure responsive design: This goes beyond just making your site “work” on mobile. Every element should be optimized for touch screens and smaller displays.
Streamline mobile checkout process: Make sure that the purchasing process on mobile is as frictionless as possible and cut down unnecessary processes.
Implement mobile-specific features: Think about features that make mobile shopping easier such as “one-tap purchasing” and “mobile wallet integration.”.

Remember, mobile optimization isn’t a one-and-done deal. It’s an ongoing process. Never stop testing and implementing new technology to improve customer mobile experience. Because in 2024, if you’re not winning on mobile, you’re not winning, period.

3. Influencer Marketing

When I first heard about influence marketing, I was skeptical. How do I know I have the right influencer for my product? How do I make sure honest and earnest recommendations are made instead of like an ad?

Don’t be scared of trying influencer marketing, the strategy works and you may be surprised by how many customers it can bring to your business. Here is what you should do:

Identify relevant micro-influencers: Forget about chasing celebrities with millions of followers, they are more expensive, and it doesn’t guarantee better conversion rates. Micro-influencers (those with 10,000 to 100,000 followers) have higher engagement rates, and their audiences are more likely to convert.
Create authentic partnerships: Give them creative freedom to showcase your products in a way that feels natural to their audience. You don’t want them to follow your script and make them act outside of their character, it will seem like an ad rather than a genuine recommendation.
Track and measure influencer campaign ROI: Create unique discount codes for each influencer and use UTM parameters (text you add at the end of a URL that helps with tracking) to track traffic from their posts. This allowed you to see exactly how much revenue each influencer is driving.

Influencer marketing is about building relationships. Treat your influencers well, and they can become long-term brand ambassadors who bring in a steady stream of new customers, and they might have a chance to super your superfan.

4. Implement a Referral Program

The advantage of a referral program is not only that it attracts new customers, but it can also increase the LTV of your existing customers. Both your referrer and the new customer will receive rewards such as discounts, free products, or other benefits.

Design attractive incentives: Double-sided incentives in my opinion are the best. It can be a discount coupon on the next purchase for both the referrer and the new customer. Additionally, the new customer might refer to another friend, and the cycle goes on.
Make sharing easy: Create a simple, one-click sharing system that works across email and social media. The easier you make it, the more people will do it.
Track and optimize referral performance: Similar to influencer marketing, you should provide unique referral codes to track which customers are bringing in the most new business. You can provide better rewards for your top referrers to keep them motivated.

Don’t just set and forget your referral program. You want to regularly refresh your referral program and test different unlimited-time bonus incentives to keep engagement high.

5. Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing automation is an effective customer acquisition (and retention) tool. It allows you to turn all those who are interested in your products into actual customers efficiently with minimal effort.

Segment your email list: Segment your potential customers into different categories, and send targeted messages that resonate with each group.
Create personalized email sequences: Set up automated sequences for different scenarios – welcome series for new subscribers, re-engagement series for inactive customers, and post-purchase series to encourage reviews and repeat purchases.
Implement abandoned cart reminders: A significant amount of people forget about the items left in their carts. By sending an email reminder you can increase your sales by 10.5%.

Remember, email marketing is not just about bombarding your potential customers with emails to ask them to buy your products, it’s also about providing value. Aim to provide plenty of value before you ask for something in return.

6. Utilize Retargeting and Remarketing

Most people who visit your site aren’t going to buy on their first visit. Research done by SimplicityDX showed that 7 touches are needed to turn potential customers into buyers. That’s why you need a retargeting strategy. It’s like giving your potential customers a gentle nudge to buy your products.

Set up pixel tracking: Install pixels from Facebook, Google, and other ad platforms on your site. This allows you to track user behavior and create custom audiences for retargeting.
Create dynamic product ads: Set up ads that show visitors the exact products they have viewed on our site.
Optimize ad frequency and timing: However, don’t show ads too frequently or they will be regarded as spam and annoy your potential customers. Be sensible and think about how you would react when if you were shown the same ad too many times in a day.

When you retarget those potential customers, use a sense of urgency by highlighting limited stock or time-limited offers to drive them to buy. But don’t try to trick or lie to your potential customers, when the offer is supposed to end at the time you say it will do what you tell them.

7. Leverage Content Marketing for SEO

Content marketing isn’t just about blogging (although that’s important too). It’s about creating valuable, relevant content that attracts and engages your target audience.

Develop a content strategy focused on buyer intent: Create content that addresses the problems your customers are facing, such as how-to articles, buying guides, and comparison guides to help them choose the right product.
Optimize for voice search and featured snippets: With the rise of voice assistants, you should optimize your content for voice search queries, such as using conversational language to create your content.

Using this strategy helps build trust and establish your brand as an authority in your niche. When done right, it can turn casual browsers into loyal customers.

Social media isn’t just for brand awareness anymore. It’s become a powerful sales channel in its own right.

Instagram and Facebook: If you didn’t know this, you can tag your products in your social media posts, so users can click through and purchase directly from the app.
Pinterest: Create pins for products and organize them into themed boards.
TikTok Shop: Create fun and engaging content on TikTok and showcase your products. It’s a good way to reach a younger demographic and drive sales.

Regardless of which social media platform you use, don’t just post and forget. Engage with your followers, respond to comments, and create a community around your brand. Social commerce is as much about relationships as it is about transactions.

9. Implement Chatbots

In the world of e-commerce, customer service can make or break your business. But providing 24/7 customer support can be challenging, especially for startups. However, it can be done with a chatbot.

Automate frequently asked questions: Identify the most common questions and queries your customers have and program your chatbot to answer these questions.
Personalized product recommendations: Program your chatbot to recommend and help your customers choose the right product for them.

While chatbots are great, there is a limit to what they can do, and people prefer to chat with a real person. Therefore, make sure that they can always reach a human agent if they need to.

10. Optimize Your Website

Last but certainly not least, let’s talk about website optimization. You can drive all the traffic in the world to your site, but if it’s not optimized for conversion, you’re leaving money on the table.

Improve site speed and performance: Optimize your images, and use a content delivery network to speed up our site. Every second counts when it comes to page load time.
Implement A/B testing: Test different versions of our product pages, checkout process, and even homepage. Make small changes, like changing the color of a buy button, and when you place the reviews, see the difference it makes.
Use exit-intent popups: Implement popups that appear when a user is about to leave your website and offer a special discount or free shipping.

Always testing, measuring, and improving, optimization is an ongoing process because what works today may not work tomorrow.

Conclusion

And there you have it. These are the most common strategies used by e-commerce businesses for customer acquisition. Test these strategies and measure your results, what works the best for your business might be a unique combination of these tactics.