Is a low budget a good excuse for ineffective marketing?

According to statistics, in the United States e. retail businesses today spend 20 percent or more of their revenue on marketing. This number is growing, as the e-mails themselves are also expanding. channels of commerce.

However, the budget necessary for the marketing of your project should be defined after evaluating different criteria and methods. “First of all, we must be realistic, assess the market potential and opportunities, the competitive environment, then consider our business opportunities and set realistic sales goals. Also, we have to evaluate force majeure“what if” factors and also provide a part of the marketing budget for that,” advises R. Grišė, speaking at the “E-commerce marketing update’24” conference of the Lithuanian Marketing Association.

After evaluating these factors, we can follow formulas that help break down the budget for different channels. R. Grišė reminds many marketing specialists of the formula “70-20-10”. It is also suitable for a modest budget. According to this formula, most of the budget is allocated to the historically most effective measures, 20 percent. used for new channels with a growing audience (eg Threads), and 10 percent left to testing, responding to competitor actions or simply market changes.

“Of course, in order for the marketing budget of the e-commerce project to be as optimized as possible and directed in a targeted manner, we must also perform an analysis at the level of the product and product categories. For this, we can use the old marketing theory “Growth share market”, or simply evaluate the main performance indicators”, R. Grišė tells about the basics of marketing.

According to the expert, these methods help to clear not only the necessary budget, but also the channels. The results of the aforementioned analyzes must support the detailed media plans drawn up for the year and the half-month. Then, by tracking the data of each month, we will be able to optimize the plans in a timely manner, if necessary, adapting them according to the best performing channels. This is especially important if we are pursuing our goals with a multi-channel strategy.

We will not achieve high performance by simply monitoring analytical data. In order to get the most out of the budget, we need to focus our attention on the audience and the user experience.

“Statistics show that 63 percent e-store visitors will become buyers if their browsing experience on the website is positive. This telling data shows that investing in the user experience on the website is simply a must. After all, satisfied customers tend to return to e-mail. store, and they are more likely to recommend it to others. Another argument is the fact that keeping customers is more economical than attracting new ones. Customers who make repeat purchases generate a larger shopping cart and a lower conversion price,” R. Grišė motivates the attention to user experience.

In order to achieve the best possible user experience on a website, we need to critically evaluate every element of it. Analytical tools can help you measure how much conversion optimization (CRO) opportunities a website is using. For example, are our call-to-action buttons in the most appropriate places, is the content clear, easy to understand and sufficient, is the attention not distracted by design decisions, pop-up advertisements. Finally, do the pages load fast enough?

Businesses often have to optimize the checkout process as well. It must be not only fast, not requiring unnecessary data, but also convenient. If email the store does not yet have the ability to pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay tools – we lose the opportunity to generate more sales.

The digital marketing expert also distinguishes other components of the budget efficiency equation. These are connections with consumers, brand reputation, post-purchase experience. “Let’s encourage the audience to get involved, share experiences, create value primarily not through the product, but through care, help, and education. We will partially achieve this if we take care of the post-purchase experience, for example, we inform the user about the status of the shipment in a timely manner and through the right channels, we provide a pleasant first purchase experience by offering a discount that will encourage repeat purchases. Of course, it is also important to check how we are doing, so post-purchase customer surveys should become the norm”, advises R. Grišė.

Careful monitoring of social networks, analysis of comments, reviews, brand mentions (both on social networks and other channels) also help to understand how the audience evaluates us. According to the expert, after reviewing the entire marketing strategy, we should be able to answer the questions – what kind of experience makes the user return, and what is the experience at each point of the user’s journey. Careful analysis does not cost extra, but helps ensure that the budget “earns” where it is most effective.

Although marketing specialists often have to work with a smaller budget than they would like, there are solutions that are worth the additional investment. They help not only to base actions on accurate data, but also to improve the user experience itself. Therefore, such investments pay off through optimized resources, including the workload of the marketing specialist team, and maintained business competitiveness.

R. Grišė singles out several such tools and processes: newsletter automation (e.g. Klaviyo), personalization (ActiveCampaign), price comparison tools (Browse AI) and analytics tools (HotJar, Google Analytics, ” Google Search Console”). They speed up the solution of marketing tasks and help to better meet the individual needs of the audience. Some of these tools have free versions and you only need to pay when you reach a certain amount of users or data.

However, the expert recommends paying special attention to analytical tools: “In the past, content was named as one of the most expensive elements of marketing. However, trends are changing and the importance of research and data is growing. With Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts in order, we will be able to ensure accurate data collection and easy analysis. Also, no loss of revenue due to data collection disruptions, as AI-powered campaigns learn from data.”