The very best ecommerce tools for automating processes
As the ecommerce world becomes increasingly data-driven, retailers must utilise the technology and tools at their disposal to be more analytical, deliver better a customer experience and improve performance.
In this handy blog, Space 48 Head of Insight Oliver Lees outlines the top ecommerce tools and tactics to automate key processes and help your brand’s website (and associated channels) become more efficient and effective.
Monitoring and testing your site performance
It’s crucial to regularly monitor and test your ecommerce website performance, to make sure your customers are experiencing good page loading speeds, optimised user experience and accurate data and product details.
We recommend the performance testing and management tools, New Relic(see below) and Blackfire. These are both good integrations for Magento websites. We also love the browser testing solution,BrowserStack. Obviously, Google Analytics is also a crucial tool for monitoring and analysing your website performance, in terms of traffic, engagement and sources.
Product and customer data transfer
If you’re replatforming your ecommerce website or migrating to an upgraded platform, you’ll need to use data migration tools to ensure you don’t run into problems transferring data between databases.
Magento has its own Data Migration Tool, for transferring data from Magento to Magento 2. This verifies and tests your database structures and tracks the data transfer progress. For more info, read ourMagento 2 data migration blog.
Whatever the ecommerce platform, we recommend considering a PIM (product information management) tool for replatforming. Migrating your product management in advance, using a PIM, helps bolster your data transfer when completing migration, as it plugs into your new platform and pushes data through automatically.
Optimising paid search and paid social campaigns
AdWords has native automation capabilities for adjusting bids and retargeting visitors and customers. AdWords enables brands to create scripts and rules to track and optimise campaigns. Find out more in our extensive guide to AdWords success.
We also recommend the third-party PPC solution Optmyzer, whilst Marin is an effective retargeting tool for search and paid social advertising. If you use Facebook for paid campaigns, you should definitely use the Facebook Pixel. This a must for creating more granular retargeting campaigns and boosting conversions!
Check out our handy blog, How to Install and Use the Facebook Pixel.
Third-party personalisation solutions
Displaying personalised content and product recommendations on your key website pages and marketing channels is essential. Investing in effective personalisation tools should be a top priority for retailers to get started.
We recommend third-party personalisation solutions Nosto and Episerver. Storing customer information and order history, they use insights to create personalised experiences for returning customers.
Nosto is the fastest growing global personalisation solution, helping thousands of brands create big impact. Episerver – powered by Peerius technology – is an innovative omnichannel tool, targeting customers with the relevant products at the right times.
Omnichannel strategies help retailers meet heightened consumer expectations. ConsiderChannelGrabber for channel integration, inventory management and single customer view.
Email marketing automation
There are lots of dedicated email marketing automation solutions and ESPs offering email automation workflows. However, Space 48 recommends dotmailer, an easy-to-use and highly-effective ESP for creating automated cart abandonment emails and nurture workflows to target subscribers throughout the customer lifecycle, through seasonal triggers and behavior-based segmentation.
Don’t forget to automate re-engagement emails, to send tailored customer win-back emails to reactive your least-active subscribers. You can set rules and time-lags for when lapsed subscribers cease to engage with your emails.
Summary
Investing in ecommerce tools and technology will prove cost-effective in the long-term. Automation saves you time and resources, removing unnecessary manual processes, helping your business to be more data-driven. The result will be better ecommerce performance.
Space 48 is a leading UK ecommerce consultancy and website development agency, based in Manchester. Specialising in Magento websites, we create award-winning omnichannel strategies for top brands. If you need advice or want to discuss your next project, contact our ecommerce consultants and see how we can boost your performance.
