The eCommerce business is accelerating and to make use of new customer shopping behaviours and meet their increasing demands, marketers must look into several things. While mobile browsing is more extensive than ever, our attention span is less than that of a goldfish. Here’s what to expect working with digital marketing and eCommerce in 2020!

Transformation acceleration is happening – although slowly

The whole eCommerce business is growing fast – but perhaps not as fast as marketers might expect or believe. In 2017, eCommerce shares were 13-14% of the entire retail sales in Europe. Year by year, worldwide eCommerce growth actually decreases – from 25,6% in 2016 to an estimated 18% by 2021. For larger eCommerce businesses, the growth is a mere average of 3-5% every year.

Brick-and-mortar stores are believed to still have as much as 82.5% share of retail sales. The total number of worldwide digital shoppers amounted to almost 2 billion in 2019-2020, and it continues to grow.
 

We have less attention span than a goldfish

The human attention span is decreasing, year by year. In 2012, internet content had our attention for 12 seconds – and by 2019, it’s even less than 9 seconds – the average attention span of a goldfish. 53% of users will exit a mobile site if the page takes more than 3 seconds to load, and 19% of viewers will defect from a page in the first 10 seconds.

Marketers and eCommerce need to make an immediate impact – because what customers see at a glance has everything to do with the next decision to leave or navigate further. Filter out any distractions by excluding unnecessary information, and tailor your message to be personal, relevant and straight to point to be able to cut through. And keep in mind that people are always urging you to move on to the next thing – make sure you offer it!

E-commerce should focus on mobile conversion

Mobile traffic has surpassed desktop traffic – but still, most customers complete their purchases through a computer rather than their mobile phone. Conversion rates in mobile are just 1,7% compared to over 4% on desktop. The challenge for eCommerce in 2020 is to take customers from browsing to buying by improving the whole shopping experience. Mobile-first payment options, easily navigated webshops, smarter conversion points on product pages and tailored recommended content are just some improvements to get the customer to complete a purchase right away.

At the same time, there’s still a gap between the number of time users spend on mobile and how much marketers spend on advertising here – giving a large opportunity to focus on increasing and customizing mobile advertising to your users.

The right traffic is the fast track to making a profit – and you can buy it

Conversion rates won’t increase just because you are driving more traffic to your webshop or website. In 2020, you have to ensure the right users are receiving your message right from the start, through relevant targeting with Google Ads, for example. By using the right keywords and ways of advertising, you can choose what users will constitute the majority of your traffic. Google Shopping, for example, is a great way of reaching new customers, top-funnel users that are quite difficult to attract – but will bring more profit in the long run. Conversion rate optimization through A/B-testing is a way of keeping your valuable traffic, and email offers are great for retention marketing.

Analyze your customer data to get an understanding of their behaviour and the customer journey to keep driving the right users to your site. With help from automated search and ad bidding services, it will be even easier for marketers to focus their money where it makes sense, not wasting it on the wrong traffic.

The longer customer's lifetime value the greater the revenue

Building long-term relationships, increasing brand trust and customer loyalty is the biggest – and most profitable challenge in digital marketing 2020. As customer acquisition costs (CAC) are constantly increasing, the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer becomes even more important for marketers. 27% of marketers consider it to be the most important ad spending optimization metric, over traffic, impressions or brand awareness.

From Kleiner & Perkins report "Internet Trends 2018"

By learning who your most valuable customers are, and how to connect with them, you will have the best conditions to increase your customer lifetime value. With data about their preferences, their behaviours and their history with your brand, you can make informed hypotheses on what marketing levers to pull to nurture your relationship. Working to create customer satisfaction will usually make them spend more money over time, and building a customer retention program is essential to increase the overall customer lifetime value.

Read more: How to grow your revenue in eCommerce by considering the customer lifetime value 

A lot of eCommerce companies use SEO strategies to bring in customers to their website, and this helps increase their chances of being highlighted when users search for a specific product. 

You can check out all our online courses here. 

2020 forecast: 26 connected devices per person

By 2020, there will be an estimated average number of 26 connected devices per person, according to A Guide to the Internet of Things. This includes not only mobile phones, voice assistants or smartwatches but also trending IoT devices such as smart home security and toys, just to mention a couple. The more connection points we have, the more business opportunities there are for marketers and eCommerce to reach new users and create long-term relationships with customers.

With intuitive products and solutions that store, process and protect data, we can use these insights to get a better understanding of our customers’ behaviours and improve business processes to create better, tailored experiences and personalized services.