Do you know what e-commerce sites that have made it big have in common?Customer acquisition ! For a DNVB* or e-commerce platform, this is the step not to be missed. Whether you're trying to win your first customers or attract new ones, the following may well be the best advice you'll read this week...
*DigitalNative Vertical Brand : a brand whose creation was directed by a digital strategy and which offers its products mainly via the web.
First of all, there isn't just one good e-commerce customer acquisition strategy - there are many! For online sales, as a DNVB or reseller: customer acquisition is crucial. Are you going to leave it to chance? Of course not! A good approach is to break down each stage of the customer journey (as in the AARRR model) to optimize it. In this very practical article, we present the customer acquisition techniques that are working right now.
SEO, social networks, adwords or Instagram ads... We go into detail about each e-commerce acquisition channel, with a focus on those successfully used by Le Deal Ultime. But we don't stop there: we also give you THE clever trick to convert these visitors into activated customers. Either by placing an order with you, or by leaving their details so that you can contact them later.
Le Deal Ultime is the sister site of Guide Ultime. On Instagram and TikTok, it has quickly become the reference media for all Paname's good food deals. Founded by Victor Habchy and Nora Barault, this new-style guide is full of inexpensive surprises. Le Deal Ultime is the subscription that brings you all these great deals on an unlimited basis. From as little as €6/month, this DNVB gives you access to real promotions and deals in over 80 restaurants in Paris.
Read the Use Case: how Le Deal Ultime turns customers into active visitors with Hey Pongo
In a simplified version, the AARRR model breaks down each stage of the customer journey as follows:
-Acquisition: to let future customers know that you exist;
-Activation: to move them into action, by buying from you or registering ;
-Retention: to build loyalty, make sure they don't forget you;
-Referral: to get people talking about you (sponsorship, but not only);
-Revenues: finally, to maximize the revenues generated by each customer.
Without going into detail (there are big books on this marketing matrix!), AARRR is really suitable for all sites that sell online: DNVB, e-commerce platforms, SaaS...
By taking each of the 5 steps separately, you can really optimize them individually. By looking at the right stats, you'll know when you're losing people. At the end of the day, if all 5 steps are bulletproof, you should be doing very well in terms of sales, with relatively little initial investment!
Here, we focus on the two most difficult stages of the AARRR model,customer acquisition andactivation (and how Le Deal Ultime maximized them).
"Hello, world!" Acquisition is all about letting the world know that you exist - and that your products are so cool. And while we're on the subject of DNVB and e-commerce platforms, it's a good thing the 3 best channels for customer acquisition are on the web.
Do you know how to create good content? Social networks can give you a huge audience. You'll need a lot of perseverance and a bit of luck (and an influencer contact can help too). But this customer acquisition channel is mainly free.
It's also highly targeted: you can create highly segmented content that will primarily interest your targets / prospects / future customers (call them what you will!). Once the number of followers takes off, you can redirect them to your site with bio links, promos, contests, or activate them directly on Instagram (we'll see how).
It's the safest immediate acquisition channel, and the most guaranteed, if you've got the budget. Much less random than SEO or social networks: online ads will be billed on a per-click or per-impression basis. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram or TikTok ads... You'll know exactly how many people have noticed you or arrived on your site. So you're in exact control of the bottom line - and you can make it explode by maximizing the conversion rate on your site. Not for everyone, it's the safest way to launch a new DNVB or e-commerce site.
SEO is a potentially enormous acquisition channel. It consists of attracting free, "organic" visits to your site from search pages on Google (or Bing, Qwant, Duckduckgo...).
Ranking your site, as a DNVB, is quite an art (which you can master yourself, at little cost). Of course, the effort required depends on the maturity of each keyword. If you're up against competition from the big merchants, it's very hard to make a name for yourself. That's why we often complement SEO with other channels (online advertising and social networks) to generate our first sales.
Thanks to social networks, the Ultimate Deal benefits from a huge audience - perfectly targeted. The Ultimate Guide's Instagram account is a huge hit, with content for those crazy about good restaurants. It boasts 600,000 followers, a staggering figure for content based exclusively in Paris. His concept has been translated into the book "Le Guide Ultime", the Parisian foodie's bible, and into a subscription service on the dedicated website: Le Deal Ultime.
In a nutshell: starting with social networks, the Ultimate Deal has a steady stream of visitors to its website. Its organic traffic is boosted by a well-identified sister brand, "the ultimate guide", which generates thousands of searches every month. So much for visitor acquisition.
Brand awareness isn't everything. Many visitors to the Ultimate Deal website were just passing through. The challenge is to convert them into customers, or at the very least to collect their consenting data (email or telephone) so as to maintain their interest and convert them.
Customer activation can be as simple as making a purchase on your site. Signing up for a newsletter, creating an account or filling in a contact form all count as activation. What's important is that the unknown user has taken action, and left a trace in your customer database.
It may seem like nothing, but it's essential! Activation is where you lose the most people in your sales tunnel.
It's one thing to generate traffic (you can even buy it). Conversely, you can't buy conversions: it's up to you to make them happen.
Even if your product is the best, you face the biggest challenge of all: converting visitors into activated customers.
It's all about the quality of the website, its value proposition, its ability to engage visitors... UX, product pages, design, but also modules to gamify your site.
To do this, you can multiply the points of interaction, not just on the sales page. You can propose a data collection form, to sign up for the newsletter, or to leave your email address in exchange for a 10% discount...
Another hack is the online competition, which allows you to collect customer data AND generate sales through rewards in the form of discount vouchers. This gamified approach is a hit: it produces a large volume of activatable customer data, which you can then use as hyper-profitable marketing levers.
Basically, Le Deal Ultime has a huge flow of visitors to its website, but the conversion could do better. It deployed the Hey Pongo Booster on the site's home page: it's a contest in the form of a hyper-attractive gift wheel. Spinning the wheel gives you a chance to win a free lifetime subscription to Deal Ultime(you can try your luck here, by clicking on the gift icon in the bottom right-hand corner).
The results were sensational: 10% of visitors spun the wheel every day, resulting in 60 new registrants every day. Among the rewards: promo codes that generate €200 in sales every day!
The "Booster" competition was also deployed on social networks: offered via an Instagram story, it generated 8,000 entries in 24 hours, and €2,400 in sales.
Want to do the same? Discover the Booster in a video demo with Romain! Click on the button and choose the schedule that suits you best:
There are many techniques for finding e-commerce customers. Once you have visitors on your site, don't forget the most important thing: maximize activation with different entry points. Pongo's Booster is one of the easiest to set up, with hyper-conclusive results for DNVBs (900.care, Plantes pour Tous, le Deal Ultime...).
Want to know how to set up a gift wheel competition on your website? Request your demo here and take customer activation to the next level!
