There are a few ways to capitalize on traffic and increase your ROI, but my favorite is automated marketing.

I’m going to lay out a 5 point attack to increase your conversions and traffic on autopilot, so you can get maximum value on your marketing campaigns.

Weapons:

  • Automatic Retargeting
  • Army of Affiliate Marketers (and holiday lists)
  • Creative Email Capture
  • Abandoned Cart Sequence
  • Adwords (and Bing :D)

1. Setup a Good Retargeting System

My go-to is an app I discovered earlier this year called Snappic.

Secret Speed Boostr tip: Use the code EASYMONEY for $50 off the first month.

Here’s an actual screenshot of one of the stores I work on getting 4.7x ROI. I’ll take that allllll day!

You can get the app with 14 day free trial at snappic.io.

How it works

Snappic is basically automated retargeting for Facebook and Instagram. Visitors browse your site, then are served up an ad based on their browsing behavior.

The thing I really like about Snappic is that when you tag your Instagram posts with a product, it will use that post as an ad instead of your white bg product page image… so the viewer now sees a lifestyle image (social proof) on the ad.

instagram ad comparison with lifestyle images

Their plans are $99 for Starter, $199 for the full featured plan with the Instagram posts/ads like that.

Why I love this app (other than easy sales) is that they guarantee the app will pay for itself (app cost + ad spend). And they handle all the technical details, so you don’t need to hire an ad manager – it’s on autopilot.

*Snappic works best if you’re doing around $10k/mo or higher in sales, or if you’re gearing up with more marketing to drive traffic.

If you’re coming in lower and need some help/ideas, contact us.

Well, actually here are 2 other apps that can help with retargeting at lower (or any) levels:

  • Recart – Great solution for integrating Facebook messenger, abandoned cart, push notifications, and capturing lost sales.
  • Perfect Audience has mobile, web, and Facebook retargeting. You’re charged as you go rather than a set monthly fee. I like this for web retargeting, and Snappic for social media retargeting.

To summarize, Snappic is awesome, give it a go. Now on to tactic #2:

2. Build an Army of Affiliate Marketers

awesome brand meme

This tactic rules because of the layered boosters:

  1. Get traffic
  2. Get backlinks (+SEO rankings)
  3. Get people talking about and recommending your brand

Here’s how to ramp it up:

  1. Set up your affiliate program. I use Refersion.
  2. Hire a research VA to build 2 lists: One of candidates for your brand and the other for gift guides / shopping lists in your niche
  3. Send the pitches!

The Refersion software handles all the logistics, tracking, links, signup page, etc, so you can quickly set up a program in a day. As for the program details, I like to do 10% commission on a 30 day cookie.

Once your program is set up, start promoting it by putting a link on your website, reaching out to ambassadors, and maybe even hit up your email list.

Using a VA to generate your lists

Here’s a technique you can use to efficiently invite targeted influencers to your program:

  1. Create parameters for the type of influencers you’d like promoting your brand
  2. Decide which channels you want to target (blogs, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, directories, etc)
  3. Give those parameters to your VA (or hire one on Upwork) and have her create a spreadsheet list of the influencers
  4. Create an email template using your brand’s voice and personality to show why it would be a good collaboration
  5. Reach out to the influencers, invite them to join your program

In addition to influencers, gather a list of gift guides and holiday shopping lists in your niche. When you contact the sites with these guides, let them know why you think your brand/products would be a good fit for their audience.

Success rate varies on the brand/niche. If you sell office products, that will be harder to get affiliates than if you’re a clothing brand, but either way, if you have a good product and affiliates/influencers can see a way to make money by promoting, you have a successful collaboration right there.

If your brand has a good reputation, or uniqueness, affiliates might join and promote right away. Some people will prefer to try a product first before they promote, but if they’re linking and driving traffic/sales, investing a free product is a no-brainer.

3. Creative Email Capture

fun email popup

You probably have an email capture app set up on your store already (if not do it now it’s free audience building).

But have you tried something different in awhile? I’ve been experimenting with exit intent lately. So instead of a timed popup on entry, I have it show to every visitor that tries to leave.

They were going to leave anyway, so here’s your last chance effort to try and reel em in.

I like Klaviyo to set this up (along with automated email flows and customer sequences).

You can also throw a message in there like “Not in the shopping mood today? Follow us on Instagram @yourbrand for XYZ cool stuff”.

Without going into the depths of email marketing, the point here is to a) have an email capture set up and b) try something new with it, experiment to find better ways to build and convert.

4. Abandoned Carts

Recapturing abandoned carts is key. It’s a fact, people will add stuff to their cart and bail out before clicking the purchase button.

I like Klaviyo for this too, but if you want to use a standalone abandoned cart app, Abandonment Protector is a good choice.

In both these apps, you can set up automated email sequences that send out X minutes after the abandoned cart, and then Y minutes after the first email… and with Klaviyo you can add additional conditions, like “if they’ve ordered in the past 30 days, do THIS”, or “if they’re a 1st time customer, do THAT”.

You can check analytics like this to test and maximize your ROI:

Sequence I like to use:

  1. Send an email out immediately asking if they have any questions or need help with their order
  2. Send an email out 12 hours later, offering a discount code
  3. Collect automatic sales :)

5. Adwords and Bing

When you have the retargeting and email capture nets working well, your ROI on paid traffic increases significantly, because some of those visitors that came and left are going to now come back and buy.

Adwords is great, but hey here’s an idea: export your positive ROI Adwords campaigns and load em up in Bing. It’s less competitive and if they’re converting you might as well double up.

Facebook Ads: Ya these work but usually take a lot of experimentation to dial in. Retargeting on FB is way better than cold ads so if you’re looking to minimize effort and maximize ROI, just set up retargeting with Snappic and focus on driving traffic to your site.

The Engine’s Running Hot!

So now you have new traffic generators and new conversion capture nets.

The nets are on autopilot, you just need to focus on driving as much traffic as possible (while analyzing and experimenting of course).

Experiment, Analyze

google analytics for tracking experimentsFind out what works by testing, analyzing your Google Analytics, and using Google Sheets to track your experiments. Try a weekly frequency and with each iteration you can analyze and trim the fat, lean down your spends and focus on the tactics that worked.

Have fun and enjoy the experiments!