eCommerce Marketing Strategy: 33 Immediately-Actionable Ideas for 2025

When we say marketing strategy for eCommerce – we think high-effort, high-cost, and complex activities.
But in reality, they are just some simple steps that require you to think and act like a salesperson – in the digital world.
Let's look at the most effective tips for eCommerce marketing.
Here we go!
1. Work on strengthening your SEO
2. Create some good content
3. List your shop on Google Shopping campaigns
4. Incentivize your shoppers to become your advocates (referrals)
5. Expand your reach through affiliate marketing
6. Give your shoppers a reason to keep coming back (loyalty programs)
7. Surprise and delight – always works wonders
8. Make your customers a part of your brand’s community
9. Flash sales – big FOMO – max conversions
10. Exclusive coupons for special occasions
12. Offer no-brainer deals with subtle upsells
13. Curate cross-sells with bundles
14. Make your eCommerce marketing strategy conversational
16. Make your wishlist drive sales
17. Use pop-ups that capture attention
18. Make it easy to discover new products
20. Craft compelling welcome emails
21. Share personalized offers and discounts
22. Announce new product launches (and pre orders)
23. Tell them what’s back-in-stock
24. Seasons and holidays – stay ahead on promotions
26. Post-purchase follow-up – recommend related products
27. Run pay-per-click eCommerce marketing campaigns
30. Reach out to shoppers via text message campaigns (SMS)
31. Include TikTok in your eCommerce marketing plan
32. Set up your shop on Instagram
33. Get personal – connect with shoppers on WhatsApp
Consistent organic traffic = key to long-term growth.
The three pillars of getting your eCommerce SEO growth strategy right are:
On-page SEO: The goal’s to show up where people’ll actually buy what you sell – here are a few eCommerce marketing tips to fix your on-page SEO: research relevant keywords, add those to the meta titles, meta description, and URL – add alt texts to images, and use long-tail keyword variations on product pages.
Off-page SEO: This basically tells Google how valuable your website is. For this, mention brands on your website, add your store to Google My Business, and link your store back from Q&A sites like Quora.
Technical SEO: This involves improving the backend of your website. Working on mobile optimization, site speed, and internal linking are some useful tactics.
Recommended read: 3 eCommerce SEO mistakes to avoid and get more conversions
When someone finds good content on your website – they trust you. This trust leads them to buy from you.
But there’s more to creating a content marketing strategy for eCommerce – here are some tips:
Your content should be visually appealing – in sync with your eCommerce branding strategy – it should have catchy titles, read human, have a clear value proposition, social proof, link to your website, and give details of the products offered
You can’t go after every channel – it is neither economical nor sustainable. Test out different marketing channels on a small scale and scale the ones that show promise
Create videos – don’t worry, we aren’t talking about the fancy ones that cost a ton. Just pick up your iPhone – shoot some BTS or testimonials of happy customers, and post them on your website and social media. This will give your brand a personality (and your eCommerce brand strategy, an added edge)
Set up your content for all stages of the funnel – this means your content should be able to attract, explain, convert, and retain shoppers – yes, this can include videos too – here’s this eCommerce strategy example in action:
You might also like: eCommerce Video Marketing Ideas That Actually Improve Sales
When Google gives you an opportunity – you must utilize it. List your store on Google Merchant Center and see those footfalls on your website.
Your listings will appear in the Google shopping tab, Google Search, Google Images, and YouTube.
People talk about where they got a certain product all the time. But what a referral marketing program does is – it adds a ‘You should get it from there too’ to the conversation.
The referral code or referral link can be given to customers as soon as they:
In terms of the rewards for this eCommerce strategy, you can consider:
Also read: eCommerce Referral Marketing Cheat Codes: Hacks from 6 Amazing Programs
While affiliates do seem like an effortless eCommerce marketing idea, there are a few steps that you should take to create a successful eCommerce strategy.
Goes without saying that you must have a clear dashboard in place for your affiliates to keep track of their sales and commissions.
Provide your affiliates with marketing materials and ideas to market your products. We would suggest that you have an affiliate starter kit in place – comprising the product catalog, USP, target audience, photos of products and videos (if any), and examples of how other affiliates have marketed your products.
Also read: The Do's And Don'ts Of Affiliate Marketing For eCommerce Brands
To encourage repeat purchases, you will have to understand the buying behavior of your customers – what they have been buying and what piques their interest.
This will help you create the most effective offerings for your loyalty program like:
Loyalty can be difficult to buy sometimes, hence careful planning of rewards is necessary – which brings us to our next point.
Why is the element of surprise so important? Because it is addictive (and helps make relationships a part of your eCommerce business’s marketing plan).
A few implementable ideas for your eCommerce strategy:
When you offer your shoppers the opportunity to be a part of something bigger and exclusive, they get promoted from your customer to a member of your brand.
While what you can do with the community will be very unique for each brand, here are a few eCommerce marketing ideas using your customers:
A lot of people actually wait for this – your discount hunters, cart abandoners, etc.
No wonder why, 50% of the sales occur in the first hour of the flash sale. However, the key to this eCommerce marketing strategy is timing and seeing who bites.
Use your historical data to A/B test the timing and duration of the flash sale – in general, most eCommerce stores run 3 to 36-hour flash sales, before and after the holiday season, and once every few months.
Keep these eCommerce marketing best practices in mind:
An extension to surprise and delight – exclusive coupons for birthdays and anniversaries make your shoppers choose you time and again.
Here’s how this eCommerce marketing tactic works: Share these coupons in emails and SMS at least 2-3 weeks prior to the occasion.
Do not forget to add the link to your store.
You might also like: How To Increase eCommerce Sales: 23 Immediately Actionable Ideas
An extra something – always delightful.
Offer a free gift above a threshold or free samples with every purchase.
The gift should be exclusive, limited-edition, or high-value – which the shoppers don’t want to miss out on.
Shoppers rarely go for the highest-paid option. But they’ll go for the best deal.
And it doesn’t always mean discounting.
To use upsells for your eCommerce marketing strategy, all you have to do is make your higher-priced variant seem more desirable (and achievable). Here’s how Samsung clubs together upgraded models on the product page:
Marshmallow and Pop-Tarts go together – and so does mozzarella.
So, much like this suggestion, most shoppers won’t know what goes together unless you tell them. How? Either you show them as cross-sells or as bundles.
How does this help your store’s marketing strategy? For starters: boost your average order values. Here are some more eCommerce marketing tips for cross-sells and bundles:
Whether you deploy a human or a bot in your live chat – you must answer questions before they become hesitations – in real-time.
Here’s how to use your live chat to create a successful eCommerce strategy:
Pro Tip: Make sure the popup doesn't pop up on its own on the checkout page. Shoppers who know what they want to buy, where to find it, and how to check out should never be interrupted.
Recommended reading: Conversational Commerce: 21 Amazing Real-World Examples (eCommerce Brands)
Customers like to see a lot of reviews. A single review with a few positive words sways, but a few dozen that say the same thing – make a concrete opinion.
The best places to display your reviews and market your eCommerce store?
What good is a wishlist feature in your marketing strategy if you never use it to drive sales?
How? Send notifications.
Also read: The 6 Most Significant eCommerce Trends (2025)
Popups are the second chance to convert your website visitors.
All it takes is just one timely, relevant, and really valuable offer – here are some kinds of popups that you can choose for your eCommerce marketing strategy:
Complex mazes are only fun in real life, not in eCommerce stores. This is exactly why a good navigation system is the most criminally underrated eCommerce marketing tactic. Here’s how you use it:
For example, instead of a 3 layer nested navigation menu, show only the categories that get traffic first.
Or, plug in a site search engine that remembers shoppers and recommends popular products (that you push) as suggestions.
Also read: eCommerce site search: 18 improvements that prevent drop-offs (+ actual examples)
Email lists can help you with micro-conversions – here’s how it works:
You create an offer → Exchange it for visitors’ email IDs → Nurture these leads with routine newsletters → Build a relationship with them through content → Convert them.
Here’s how you can build your email list to craft your marketing plan:
Recommended reading: 28 No-BS Ways To Get More Email Subscribers in eCommerce
After you have added someone to your email list, the next most intuitive step is to welcome them.
Make sure to send the welcome email immediately after they subscribe – establish the connection fast.
Pro tip: Make your emails more visual than text-heavy.
Let your subscribers know about the offers you are launching. Ask your shoppers to visit your website and take a look.
Clearly mention the coupons, freebies, offer period, and other enticing deals in your email, and add pictures and a CTA button.
You must read: How to Scale Your eCommerce Business: 13 Proven Strategies (+ A Case Study)
New additions to your catalog – announce it to all.
Get your subscribers excited about your new products or upcoming pre-orders.
Write to your subscribers – talk about new products, prices, and other details.
Offer free samples (if possible), and give early exclusive access only to your subscribers or an exclusive discount.
You might also like: 20 Experts Share Proven eCommerce Growth Strategies (2024)
Something running out of stock indicates high demand for that product.
And when it's back – there's always a fear of missing it again.
Emails talking about what’s back in stock drive audiences to the website to get the product that might run out again.
Capitalize on this FOMO and send back-in-stock emails every once in a while.
Check how Aritzia has added this to their eCommerce marketing strategy.
Also read: 29 Best Back-In-Stock Email Examples (+Templates)
Holidays scream shopping. This is the time when shoppers start hunting for the best deals.
Instead of waiting, here’s how to plan your eCommerce promotion strategy for the holidays:
Shoot an email that reminds them of the holidays or event, including your discount offer or any service that you’re offering, show your products, and ask them to start shopping right away.
The challenge of cart abandonment is not new to us – nor are the efforts to recover them.
What can you do differently to have a slightly better chance of recovering them?
Offer something extra.
Throw in a free sample or bundle it with a related product and offer it at a discount.
Basically, boost the perceived value of the cart with this eCommerce marketing tactic – shoot an email to the ones who abandoned the cart.
Recommended read: 15 Product Bundling Examples That Convert (& 9 Proven Ideas)
Once you have got your subscribers to buy from you – do not forget to take feedback from them. Make them feel heard and valued.
This also opens the opportunity to recommend related products for their next purchase.
This way, you stay in their minds and in their lives 🙂
Pro tip: This marketing tactic helps you ask for UGC, which you can include in various other elements of your eCommerce marketing strategy.
As opposed to ads that charge for every impression, pay-per-click only charges when someone clicks on your ad.
You can use several platforms to serve your ads, and the two largest and most well-known are Google and Facebook.
If you are well versed in running PPC campaigns, you can go ahead and set them up, else you can hire a freelancer to help you with them.
You might also like to check out: How to Increase Email Marketing ROI (Updated 2024)
The rule of 7 says that if you look at an ad 7 times, you take action.
This is what we capitalize on through eCommerce remarketing strategies.
Let’s say that someone engages with your website. This eCommerce strategy will ensure that your ads follow him around until he comes back and makes a purchase.
Pro Tip: You can retarget on emails and on-site as well, once a shopper re-engages from your remarketing ads.
Influencers are aspirational for their followers. And when they recommend something – their followers listen.
What we recommend doing is: either a paid collaboration or a barter partnership.
The simplest way to do this – search for your category – fashion, electronics, beauty, apparel etc. – shortlist influencers that have a follower count above 1k (the greater the number of followers, the greater the budget) – or pick product reviewers with a follower count above 100K
Note: To estimate how many eyeballs you might reach with your influencer marketing campaign, check the engagement metric of your target influencer: (Average views on their last 5 posts or videos/ 5) *100
Read further: Influencer Marketing 101: Step-by-Step Strategy For eCommerce Store Owners
Our advice: Begin with a one-off eCommerce campaign strategy. If you’re sending an email about a promotion, differentiate the message on SMS. Once you start gaining traction, integrate it with other channels.
Some of the eCommerce marketing campaigns that you can consider for SMS as a channel are:
Entertainment spaces are becoming shopping inspirations – and TikTok is emerging fast.
Use memes, short videos, trending audio, and UGC to drive sales for your eCommerce store.
Here are a few TikTok hacks to foolproof your eCommerce growth strategy:
You might also like to read:
i. 36 Powerful Instagram Strategies to Drive eCommerce Sales (+Tips & Trends)
ii. Selling on FB Marketplace - 15 Key Considerations for Higher Conversions
Instagram is increasingly becoming business-friendly.
There are a plethora of features that will help you not just increase brand awareness but also drive sales.
Utilize reels, live streams, posts, stories, and story highlights to build a brand online. Get yourself a blue tick to look authentic.
To drive sales, list your products on the platform. Include links to product pages and redirect them to your website.
Recommended reading: 10 eCommerce brands winning at Social Commerce (+ Lessons we can learn from them)
After Instagram, WhatsApp is where people are at and WhatsApp campaigns are where the revenue is.
For example, you can nurture a shopper post-purchase by segmenting your target audience based on their purchase history.
Or recover abandoned carts:
Also read: 10 WhatsApp Marketing Ideas For eCommerce Stores & Some Great Examples
98% of visitors who visit an eCommerce site—drop off without buying anything.
Reason: User experience issues that cause friction for visitors.
And Convertcart solves for exactly that.
We help eCommerce brands optimize their websites to boost their conversions.
We've helped 500+ eCommerce stores (in the US) improve user experience—and 2X their conversion rate.
How do we do this?
Our conversion experts can audit your site—identify UX issues, and suggest changes to turn more of your visitors into customers.