E-commerce Traffic sources are not a big mystery anymore with this guide!

As an online business or e-commerce, you usually care about driving traffic to your website. Traffic is considered the lifeblood of any online business. Your goal is to generate leads and sales. Hence, traffic is essential to do that. The more quality traffic you get, the better the chances for conversion. However, deciding on the most suitable traffic for you might be tricky!

Most established e-commerce players depend on direct traffic which means that people usually search for their brand or website by name, they go directly to their e-commerce site, but it’s hard to get direct traffic for someone who is just getting started, so you need to rely on other traffic types, free and paid.

Through this article, Thamara will introduce you to different types of traffic along with your e-commerce journey, and you will learn which one might be suitable for every stage.

Let’s have a closer look at these sources.

First: E-commerce Awareness stage:

In this stage, you, as a retailer, want to reach a high number of your target audience. Your goal is to let your target audience know that you exist and learn more about you.

But what exactly are the best traffic sources that can help you with this objective?

Here you need to depend on:

1- Organic search traffic: 

It is the traffic that originates from organic listings of the major search engines. According to Search Engine Journal, 70% of the links search engine users click on are organic. That is why you need to focus on your SEO. According to statistics, 75% of people will never scroll past the first page on a Google search. Reports have shown that the first organic result in Google Search has an average click-through rate of 28.5%, and after the first page, the click-through rate decreases.

However, the organic traffic is earned, not paid!

You need to pay attention to your SEO, and content marketing. Getting results from organic search takes time, and the competition is high, but they are long-lasting and well worth the effort and investment.

A great tool that will help you improve your SEO and choose the right keyword is Semrush. 

2- Social media:

Using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, youtube and LinkedIn to post content updates and put your website link can increase the traffic. Also, using paid ads on social media (Native ads) can raise awareness and make more people know your brand. For example, It was found that 81% of Instagram users discover new products and services on social media platforms. 

Social media native ads can be tailored according to your target audience, which guarantees an effective and cost-efficient way to raise your brand awareness. For instance, according to Datareportal, 26.6% of Saudi Arabian discover brands from social media, 27.6% from UAE consumers, and 28.2% from Qatar consumers. In addition, 27.6% of consumers globally find brands from social media ads.

3- Native Ads:

You can use in-feed units, which means that ads are put on a website where they take the look and feel of the site, or even on social media Newsfeeds. Also, you can use In-Ad with Native Element Units, which means that your ad is displayed on a website that matches your contextual message. They can guarantee traffic to your website if managed well. They can help increase brand visibility and reach the target customers at the right place and time. It was found that 43% of UAE consumers discover products and brands from website native ads.

However, you need to be careful of banner blindness. 

• Using PPC ads (which are a type of paid traffic in which you pay to appear on the search results top page) in this stage might be costly for you, while using pop-up ads can cause more harm than good and affect your brand image negatively.

Second: E-commerce Consideration stage:

In this stage, consumers tend to evaluate their options and try to find more information and reviews. So the best-suited traffic for you would be the traffic that won’t cost you much.

1- Social media marketing:

It was found that 57% of Saudi Arabians, 48.8% of UAE consumers, and 43.5% of global consumers research products and brands through social media. That is why you need to carefully take good care of your social media accounts and plan for your paid social media ads.

2- Native ads:

At this stage, it might be appropriate for you to depend on:

• In-feed native ads, whether on social media or other websites.
• Recommendation widgets, as many consumers might be searching or reading articles through blogs, or other websites (these sites usually have like-minded or similar audiences as yours), so finding your product recommended to them through these websites might encourage them to move to the next phase.
• In-ad with native elements, you put your ad on a website or blog that is involved with the same industry as you, for example, promoting feminine clothes on a fashion tips website.

Tip: You can use programmatic ads to better improve your native ads.

3- Organic traffic:

Paying attention to your SEO is also very important through this stage, as 55% of Saudi Arabian and 44% of UAE consumers use search engines to research the brand.

4- Affiliates:

Affiliate traffic means that consumers come to you from affiliates such as bloggers, comparison sites, coupon sites, reviewers, and influencers on social media. Using affiliates in this stage can be a wise move. Many consumers research brands and products through comparison sites, review sites, and coupon sites. In Saudi Arabia, 29%, 25%, and 24% of consumers search for the brands through the mentioned sites, respectively. While in the UAE, 34.4%,30%, and 23% of consumers also research the brands from these sites, respectively.

Also, you can gain traffic at this stage from affiliate bloggers who can post content about you. It was found that 70% of users prefer a blog post more than an ad when they want to get information about the company.

Having many backlinks from those affiliates can help boost your SEO.

• You need to avoid email marketing at this stage, as it might be annoying to your audience, so instead of helping them move to the next stage, you might lose them because of the intrusiveness. Also, PPC ads might be good for some advertisers according to their budget; however, they can overload you with costs.

Third: E-commerce Conversion stage:

At this stage, you, as an advertiser, want your consumers to take action. You are trying to reach the breakeven point.

To do this, these traffic sources might be beneficial for you and encourage your target audience to make the desired response. Mixing up a little bit of a costly traffic source with cheaper ones can lead you to your objectives!

1- Google ads: 

It is a type of paid traffic, where you advertise on Google, you can use Pay Per Click (PPC) to appear at the top of the result page, in addition to using google shopping ads, in which you appear on google product shopping lists at the top page when people search for a certain product related to you. Using Google ads through PPC and shopping ads can be great for you. Shopping ads generate 85% of the total clicks on Google Ads. Also, using PPC ads can guarantee you to appear at the top of page results in Google. However, it’s a bit costly, so you have to set a budget and manage and monitor your campaign well.

You can easily do this through the Google Ad tool.

2- Influencer traffic:

Many consumers are ready to convert because of an influencer recommendation, so having traffic from influencers can be a quality for you, where you get consumers who are prepared to convert and buy. It was found that 3 in 4 Consumers Spend up to $629 on Influencer-Inspired Purchases.

3- Social Media native ads:

Here you can make use of social media native ads with a strong call to action. This will help convert the targeted audience and entice them to take action. For example, 87% of global consumers took a specific action, like following a brand, visiting its retail store, or purchasing through social media ads.

• Pop-up ads and display ads might not be suitable at this stage. As a matter of fact, it could harm your traffic and brand. Because in this stage, you only need consumers who are ready to convert or make a purchase. However, these types of traffic might not give you the quality audience you need.

Fourth: The retention stage:

Now you have leads. There are interested consumers whom you managed to make them convert successfully, so your objective is to retain them and turn them into loyal customers. You can achieve this through retargeting campaigns by depending on these traffic sources:

1- Email marketing:

This is traffic that is generated as a result of the email newsletter and marketing campaigns. Here you can drive more quality traffic and encourage those interested in you through tailored email marketing. To improve traffic through this type, try to put offers in your emails and make them personalized to your target audiences, such as free delivery or coupons, and discounts. It was found that 53% of Saudi Arabians and 55% of UAE consumers are driven to purchase by free delivery offers. Also, using loyalty programs in these emails might be effective as well.

Check Thamara’s top e-mail sender tools in this article:

The best 10 email sender tools for affiliate marketers

2- Social media traffic:

Again, your social media traffic is still essential even at this stage. It will ensure that you are always connected to your targeted audience and make you always visible to them.

This can be through your social media organic traffic or paid traffic using in-feed native ads and sponsored posts.

• You don’t need to pay a lot at this stage, as you have already reached your targeted audience and successfully converted them. So, PPC ads might not be the best choice as they are expensive, as we mentioned before.

Keep in mind!

Your advertising strategy and the traffic used differ according to your target audience, budget, and nature of your products. So you need to make sure you depend on the right traffic and channel that is suitable for you.

In addition, you need to design a landing page dedicated to each traffic source to better monitor, analyze, and evaluate your traffic and gain a deeper understanding.

Your traffic can be segmented according to the following:

• Visitors, i.e., first-time or returning
• Channel, i.e., paid, social, search, email, etc.
• Device, i.e., mobile, desktop, tablet.

Final Thoughts:

Gaining quality traffic is essential for your business. However, you need to know that there is a fact that every eCommerce business needs to understand – Not all your visitors are your potential customers. Your website will experience a lot of irrelevant traffic that counts as zero for the benefit of your business.