Why is marketing automation so crucial for small retailers? What are the common examples of marketing automation? This article is trying to answer those questions. It also provides a comparison between three popular marketing automation platforms for ecommerce business.
Marketing automation sounds complicated and expensive. It was true in the early days of eCommerce when only Amazon and large online retailers could afford an investment in marketing automation platforms.
However, the situation changed drastically over the past ten years. Marketing automation is not a luxury anymore. It becomes essential for small and mediums merchants to survive and be able to compete with large brands.
The cloud ecommerce platforms of the new generation provide marketing standard automation features and abilities to connect with external systems. The modern cloud marketing automation platforms are easy to implement and use.
For instance, merchants can automate work to remind customers about abandoned shopping carts, ask for product review after purchase, or send an offer to purchase additional service or complementary products.
Marketing automation provides benefits to retailers and high returns on their investment [1, 2].
- 80% of marketing automation users see increased leads, and 77% see increased conversions.
- 90% higher customer retention rates can result from omnichannel marketing automation.
- Omnichannel marketing automation can produce 250% higher purchase and engagement rates than single-channel marketing automation.
Core benefits of marketing automation
Below are core benefits that merchant can get by implementing marketing automation:
- Increase your sales and attract more customers to their online store.
- To do more with limited resources. It helps increase average order value, recover lost revenue, improve customer experience, and much more.
- Streamline and simplify your lead generation processes, helping convert your cold leads into potential buyers (warm leads) before finally turning them into paying customers using multiple channels.
- It helps nurture and retain existing customers to increase their lifetime value.
5 “Must-have” features of a marketing automation systems
- Automated list building – Building a subscribers database is one of the best things you can do to help drive sales for your e-commerce business. By capturing a list of interested store visitors, you’re effectively creating yourself a little goldmine that many other online store owners would (and do) pay for quality leads.
- Automation and marketing flow – Marketing automation flows to cross-sell and upsell products, promote flash sales, and using multiple channels.
- Abandoned cart recovery – automation set up several automation flows that are triggered and sent automatically.
- Automated review requests – schedule review requests to be sent out when you choose, for example, a couple of weeks after the order has been placed or dispatched.
- Advanced Reporting – Reporting that can be fully integrated with your sales and marketing data.
| Mail Chimp | SendinBlue | Klaviyo |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Price | Price |
| Mailchimp Standard Plan with 10,000 contacts | Klaviyo Plan with 10,000 contacts | |
| $99 per month | $66+ per month | $150 per month |
| Monthly email sends | Monthly email sends | Monthly email sends |
| Up to 120,000 | Either up to 120,000 at $66/mo or up to 350,000 for $173/mo | Unlimited |
| Marketing Channels & Features | Marketing Channels & Features | Marketing Channels & Features |
| • Email marketing | • Email marketing | • Email marketing |
| • Dynamic content | • Text | • SMS text messages |
| • Social media posts and ads via Facebook & Instagram | • Chat | • Social media posts and ads via Facebook & Instagram |
| • Google remarketing ads | • Facebook ads | • Phone push notifications |
| • Signup and pop-up forms | • Up to 5 landing pages included | |
| • Postcards | • Customizable GDPR-friendly signup forms | |
| • Domains (sold separately) | ||
| • Free websites builder and unlimited landing pages | ||
| Transactional Emails | Transactional Emails | Transactional Emails |
| • Yes; starts at $20/mo for 25,000 emails | • Yes (deducted from total marketing email sends per month) | • Yes |
| • Includes 500 free demo emails for verified domains | • Requires use of automated workflow or API | |
| • Requires use of API or SMTP | • Requires internal review by Klaviyo support team | |
| • Must have Mailchimp’s Standard or Premium plan | ||
| CRM | CRM | CRM |
| • CRM | • Store contact information | • CRM |
| • Audience segmentation tools | • Segment lists and automation setup based on segments | • Audience segmentation tools |
| • Automations based on segments, tags, and properties | • Create and assign tasks | • Automations based on segments, tags, and properties |
| • At-a-glance dashboard | • Set up automated messages to trigger based on segments | • Website behavior tracking |
| • Website behavior tracking | • Predictive analytics | |
| • Behavioral insights | • Predictive demographics | |
| • Predictive analytics | • Purchase likelihood & Customer Lifetime Value | |
| • Predictive demographics | ||
| • Purchase likelihood & Customer Lifetime Value (requires connected store) | • Future spend & churn probability | |
| Automations | Automations | Automations |
| • Pre-built automations | • Pre-built automations | |
| • Welcome and birthday messages | • Pre-built automations | • Welcome and birthday messages |
| • Event or behavior-based automations | • Welcome and birthday messages | • Event or behavior-based automations |
| • Abandoned cart | • Event or behavior-based automations | • Abandoned cart |
| • Product retargeting & product recommendations | • SMS automations | • Product retargeting & product recommendations |
| Reporting | Reporting | Reporting |
| • Reporting dashboard | • Email campaign performance tracking and reporting | • Reporting dashboard |
| • Audience growth & engagement | • A/B tests | • Audience growth & total subscribers |
| • Revenue reports | • Send time optimization | • Segment reports |
| • Marketing campaign performance tracking | • Email heatmap | • Revenue reports |
| • Email benchmarking comparison reports | • Real-time statistics | • Marketing campaign performance tracking |
| • A/B tests | • Email benchmarking comparison reports | |
| • Send time optimization | • A/B tests | |
| • Smart recommendations | • Send time optimization (Smart Send Time) | |
| • Website reports | • ROI tracking and revenue reports | |
| • ROI tracking and detailed revenue reports (for customers with a connected store) | ||
| BigCommerce Integration | BigCommerce Integration | BigCommerce Integration |
| Yes | Yes | Yes |
3 Starter campaigns examples that are a must for every online store
Newsletter sign up thank you email
Thank you email with the Offer sent to the person who signs up for the newsletter.
Follow up after purchase for review email
An email that is sent a few days after the purchase asking for a review.
Cart abandonment follow up email
For users that are registered and leave items in their shopping cart.
References
- “All the Latest Marketing Automation Statistics for eCommerce ….” 14 Aug. 2019, https://blog.contactpigeon.com/marketing-automation-statistics/.
- Automation – Statistics and Trends ….”, https://www.invespcro.com/blog/marketing-automation/.
- Marketing smarts for big ideas, https://mailchimp.com/
- Prepare for takeoff, https://www.sendinblue.com/
- Where ecommerce businesses grow, https://www.klaviyo.com/
