Marketing Automation is Evolving eCommerce - This is How

What would be a marketing department without marketing automation? One thing for sure is that it would not be as efficient. 

Automation has brought efficiency, increased productivity and cost savings to almost every industry in the world. 

In marketing, automation has made it easier to deliver personalized messages, streamline campaigns, and boost customer engagement. It also has made it easier for marketing and sales teams to collaborate on lead generation and create efficient workflows. 

And in a world where software is not lacking from content creation to lead generation, marketing automation has reached new heights. 

This guide will define the role of marketing automation for eCommerce businesses and explore insights, strategies, and ways to optimize your chosen marketing automation platform to the best advantage.

Where to Implement Marketing Automation Software

It’s time to unpick marketing automation … Think of a software platform that takes the sting (and hours) out of time-consuming tasks such as emails, newsletters, social posts and following up leads. Marketing automation software does all this and more. 

Marketing automation plays a key role in the growth strategy for eCommerce businesses by driving efficiency, improving customer engagement, and increasing conversions. Here's how it fits in:

1. Personalized Customer Journeys: A well crafted marketing automation strategy allows eCommerce businesses to create personalized experiences at scale. Whether it is product recommendations, promotional emails, abandoned cart strategies. Marketing automation can be applied to the entire customer journey to increase conversion and brand loyalty. 

2. Lead Nurturing: Most CRMs have advanced automation tools to help brands guide customers down the sales funnel. Lead scoring is an incredible tool for sales teams to make sense of their database and focus on highly engaged leads. With automated lead nurturing campaigns, businesses move leads from awareness to decision-making. 

3. Streamlined Operations: Marketing automation tools help eCommerce businesses operate at scale. It plays a crucial role in setting up a business for scalability and embracing a growth mindset. 

4. Data-Driven Insights: Marketing automation software can be integrated across the business tech stalk. The data gathered can give eCommerce businesses invaluable insight into customer behavior and campaign’s performance. These insights help businesses refine their strategies and improve overall ROI.

5. Scalability: Automation means scalability. For eCommerce businesses, marketing automation means the business can handle more customers and more complex campaigns effectively without the need of more resources.   

Marketing automation in Content Creation

Rather than being overwhelmed by the volume of content required per segment, automation can handle the hard graft. You create the outstanding copy and let automation deliver it in a timely and targeted manner.

Streamlining content planning and Scheduling Made Easy

Imagine taking away the headache of planning your content. Marketing automation can map your content based on your campaign calendar, KPIs and more. This means that your content can be scheduled in advance and expertly aligned to your digital and other marketing strategies.

Some content management systems, Core dna included, help you automate content creation and omnichannel distribution, meaning you can integrate all elements of a campaign in one system without wasting time by hopping between different content platforms.

Top Tip: Running a promotion for an event in the summer holidays? Automation can group and schedule all your content assets in one place and ensure that your blog posts, emails, social media posts, etc, are aligned in timing and messaging.  

Delivering Personalized Content at Scale

Fiddly and time-consuming segmentation and content tailoring are outdated. Automation tools will sort your customers by their data history and based on behavior, demographics, purchase history and any other customizations you set and then deliver appropriate content at the appropriate time.

Once manual processes are set up, emails can be sent automatically based on customer behavior. For example, when new people subscribe to a site, they will automatically receive a welcome series of emails. 

Platforms like Core dna can also serve dynamic website content that adapts to the visitor, showing tailored promotions to customers based on their previous interactions with your site.

Top Tip: The sky is the limit when it comes to automation. Rather than stop at emails, think about uses for your landing pages, push notifications, chatbots and more.

Set Yourself Up for Automation Success

• Make a Start: Don’t take on too much. Instead, try implementing no more than two automated workflows. Marketing automation best practices suggest starting with a lead nurturing series and abandoned carts.

• Tweak for Best Results: To achieve the most from your automation, you must analyze performance regularly and update any automation where needed.

• The Right Tools Make All the Difference: Core dna offers a range of features for marketers who need to manage content creation and marketing automation for eCommerce seamlessly.

Automation is so much more than time-saving (although what’s not to love about that?). Automation enables you to focus on strategies to drive engagement, scale, and efficiency.

How to Use AI in Marketing Automation

It’s no surprise that AI has taken automation to the next level. While automation helps streamline workflows, AI takes it one step further by adapting and predicting outcomes and actions as a campaign progresses.

AI-Powered Content Generation

Creating exceptional content on top of all the other jobs you need to do can be demanding, especially if your content requirements are on a large scale. That’s where Core dna and its AI-driven automation in content creation features come into play.  

Core dna’s content management system (CMS)  has integrated ChatGPT to its content components to help you create content faster from tailored product descriptions to landing pages. 

We are also working to create even further personalization by letting AI analyses customer behavior and preferences and then uses this information to create content that best targets the customer, all in a blink of an eye.

Top Tip: AI works best in creative areas where repetition is the name of the game. So, while you play with a brand’s TOV or create a killer campaign slogan, AI could be A/B testing email copy and determining which is most effective.

Use AI for Smarter Campaigns

AI is there to be used, one way to make the most of it is to predict customers’ purchasing timelines and choices. AI will examine customers’ historical data and behavior patterns, predicting what and when they’ll purchase and then target the customer with a special offer or recommendation for the product at just the right time.

An example would be when an AI-powered marketing platform identified when a customer bought their last pair of strappy sandals. Knowing this, you know not to target them the following summer after just one season’s wear, but maybe the one after that.

Top Tip: Use a combination of AI tools to create truly specific content. An example would be customers being directed to a particular homepage that highlights relevant products and offers.

Personalization Driven by AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can analyze vast amounts of customer data and deliver tailored experiences in a world that loves personalization. Think beyond A/B testing and more about Sample A/ Sample B/ Sample C all being valid and distributed to the customer profiles that will respond positively to each. 

This level of predictive analytics and personalization means businesses can increase the conversion by delivering different experiences for the same product dispensing on customers’ personal preferences. Tailored personalization leads to increased engagement and higher conversion rates.

AI and Chatbots

Chatbots have come a long way. Today we are talking more about virtual assistants which implies customer service and support interactions. AI-driven virtual assistants provide customers with real-time assistance, advanced recommendations and answers and can even guide users through the purchase process.

Generative AI Integration

Generative AI is revolutionizing how marketing content is produced. It can help brand automate the creation in real-time of the content that is being shared with site visitors.  

For example and an eCommerce business that uses Generative AI to dynamically generate tailored product descriptions for each customer segment. How does it work practically? A fitness brand can use AI to create a different product copy that speaks to a novice gym-goer versus a seasoned athlete and a generic one for any website visitor.  

Depending on the profile of the person visiting the site, the product copy displayed will change and resonate with the customer making them feel that the content is personalized to their specific needs.

This level of Generative AI-driven content generation enables businesses to efficiently scale personalized marketing efforts without sacrificing quality. This will result in higher engagement, improved customer experiences, and ultimately, increased conversion rates.

Take These Three Steps for Success

• Put AI tools in the mix: Don’t be afraid to add AI to your digital mix. Platforms such as Core dna integrate AI, offering solutions like marketing automation in content creation. 

• Make it Relevant: Through AI segmentation, you can be sure that your automated content creation wonders are personalized and relevant.

• Analyze and Refine: AI loves being fed new data. The more information you can provide, the more regularly it will be tweaked, ensuring your campaigns are fully optimized.

Using AI is using your smarts. AI can ensure that your eCommerce business keeps up with the latest trends, pivoting and adapting campaigns and customer engagement based on real-time data.

Increase eCommerce Conversion with Marketing Automation

When simplifying workflows, engaging with valued customers and driving revenue, you want to choose the right marketing automation platform. The market is packed with offerings, so seeing the woods for the trees is crucial to finding the right one for your business needs and plans; let us look at the features and tools.

Popular Platforms in the Marketing Automation for eCommerce 

1. Klaviyo: eCommerce email and SMS marketing are Klaviyo’s secret sauce. Advanced automation features and segmentation drive engagement.

2. HubSpot: HubSpot’s all-in-one platform has the tools necessary for email marketing, lead nurturing, and analytics on a large scale. HubSpot is popular for organizations with expansion and growth plans.

3. ActiveCampaign: Customer experience is king with this platform. ActiveCampaign doesn’t hang around; it offers CRM integrations and personalized marketing workflows, which enormously benefit campaigns.
   
   

What Features Should You Look Out For?

Consider these questions when deciding on the right automation platform for your business…

• Can It Integrate? You need to hear a ‘yes’ when you ask this question. Platforms like Core dna integrate with existing tools so that a business can place automation into their current workflows without risk of upheaval or disruption.

• Can It Support Multiple Channels? With your customers coming at you from various angles, you need to use tools that can unify your email, social media, and website to create a seamless experience.

• Can it Handle Content Personalization? You want to make each customer feel like they’re getting your focused attention. That’s where personalization comes in. Platforms like Core dna offer dynamic content personalization for a first-class customer experience.

• Is it Plug and Play? Even if you’re a whizz, you want an intuitive platform that can easily handle marketing and eCommerce tasks, freeing up your time and creative juices.

What to Learn from These 3 eCommerce Automation Examples

Below are five case studies that show how marketing automation tools deliver impressive results.

1. Personalized Email Campaigns - Draper James

We all love Reese Witherspoon but the internet did not seem to like its domain reputation which affected the email open rate for her brand Draper James.

The marketing team decided they could hack this with some automation. They decided to segment their database more granularly and do a tiered campaign.  

For the launch of a new product, they decided to  send hyper-personalized emails only to customers who were active with the brand in the last 3 months. Then, once they reached their target, they expanded to 6 months - and did not go further. 

This automated segmentation strategy resulted in an annual increase of 15.4% in revenue even if the total number of email sent was lower than previous campaigns. 

Learning: Your most active subscribers should be in your sights. Personalized emails target the right customers and avoid overloading and exhausting dormant customers.

2. Real-time pricing - Jaggards

Jaggards is a well-known name in Australia for buying and selling gold, silver, and platinum bullion. But before they worked with Core dna, they had a big challenge – their online prices didn’t update automatically with the ever-changing price of gold on the market. 

This made it tough to maintain accurate margins and stay on top of pricing without constantly doing manual updates.

That’s where Core dna came in. We set up a system that allowed their website to pull the current gold price directly from the market and update their online prices automatically. This way, Jaggards could be sure their prices were always in sync with the market and that their margins were protected without lifting a finger.

The result? What used to be a complex, manual task became effortless, and Jaggards’ website now offers a much smoother and more accurate shopping experience for their customers.

Learning: Automating processes like pricing updates doesn’t just save time – it transforms how a business operates. By removing the manual workload, you free up resources to focus on growing the business, while also providing a more efficient and reliable experience for your customers

3. Content automation: A day on the green (ADOTG) 

ADOTG, the name synonym of summer and music in Australia. While for many this means a relaxing day spent with family and friends, the team behind the name is working hard to make sure everything online and offline is on point. 

ADOTG relies on Core dna for the online part. Core dna’s flexible content management system allows the ADOTG team to create automated workflows and integrate content across all channels for uniform experiences and efficiency. 

It also facilitates tedious tasks such as posting content/ event details at odd hours of the night. Here is how: 

Most loved Core dna feature by ADOTG:
Without a doubt - Content scheduling! We are not talking about basic stuff like scheduling a page to go live. This feature allows ADOTG to schedule a component within an already live page to go live at a certain time/date. 

For example a concert page can be getting people excited about what is to come but it doesn’t have any details about the ticket sales or event location. With Core dna, ADOTG can create components within the page with all the info and schedule them to go live whenever the release date is. 

This means that within the same page, a week later at midnight all the info will go live and no one has to get out of bed to push the live button, 

Core dna Automation for eCommerce and Content Creation

Core dna’s automation tools are all about making business workflows smoother and more efficient. This particularly important when it comes to marketing and operations. 

When we build our automation engine, giving marketers the ability to build custom workflows and hooks without writing code was top of the list. This type of automation allow eCommerce businesses to respond to real-time events. This means less manual work and more consistent results.

So, What Are Automation Hooks?

Think of automation hooks like little helpers that trigger specific actions when certain conditions are met. For example, when a customer makes a purchase, a hook can automatically start an email campaign or if a customer leaves without completing a purchase you an tigger your cart abandonment campaigns via SMS, email or any other channel you use. 

Another use case for hooks is when a product update is made in the backend. It can automatically reflect across all sales channels. The hooks engine ensure the right actions happen at the right time without anyone lifting a finger.

Streamlining Operations with Core dna

What makes Core dna’s automation hooks so powerful is their flexibility. eCommerce Businesses can automate everything from content publishing to customer interactions. Need to send personalized emails? Update inventory? Adjust pricing? Automation hooks handle it all without requiring constant attention.

Take launching a new product on your eCommerce site, for example. An automation hook can instantly update all your marketing channels, whether that’s social media posts or email promotions. This ensures everything is synced up and ready to go without delays, keeping your brand’s presence consistent.

Seamless Integration and Customization

Another huge benefit of Core dna’s automation hooks is how easily they integrate with your existing tools. Whether it’s your CRM, email marketing platform, or third-party apps, Core dna seamlessly connects everything, automating complex tasks without the headache.

And with tons of customization options, you can set these hooks to fit your specific business needs. Whether you’re looking to boost customer engagement, improve lead nurturing, or simplify order management, Core dna’s automation hooks give you the flexibility to support a variety of workflows, making your business run like a well-oiled machine.

At the end of the day, with Core dna, automation is about more than just saving time—it’s about creating a smarter, more agile business that’s built to grow and scale.

Marketing automation software is not a luxury. In today’s world it is at the bottom of the Maslow hierarchy of business needs. 

As AI introduced even more power to automation, every online business and marketing team should take advantage of the tools out there to create robust and powerful automated ecosystems. 

Start by evaluating all the areas automation can help you yield better results from  customer experience and sales to customer support and marketing performance. 

Ultimately, marketing automation software is a game-changer. It offers scalability, efficiency, and the ability to adapt to a fast-paced, ever-evolving digital landscape. Implementing these tools will empower your team to achieve more with less and drive business growth.