Growth hacking may sound like a buzzword term from a life hacks listicle, but it’s a robust marketing strategy that can offer significant returns for your ecommerce business.
First coined in 2010 by Dropbox entrepreneur Sean Ellis, the term “growth hacking” originally described a technique popular with tech startups and software as a service (SaaS) companies who needed a way to grow without expending the resources of an enterprise organization.
However, growth hacking has now gained popularity as a versatile marketing strategy across the ecommerce industry—for startups and enterprise companies alike.
Here’s how growth hacking can benefit ecommerce brand owners who want to optimize their customer journey.
What is growth hacking?
In the ecommerce world, growth hacking is digital marketing that focuses on increasing conversion rates and sales while using the fewest resources possible. To achieve this, growth hackers rely on fast-paced experimentation—usually through A/B testing—to try out different copy, website layouts, and images, gathering data to determine which elements lead to more sales. Then, they can implement the winning combination and reap the growth benefits—all without spending resources on marketing efforts that may or may not drive more online sales.
Why is growth hacking important?
The primary benefit of growth hacking for ecommerce businesses is its speed. By giving your business quick, early insights into what’s working (and what’s not) in your sales funnel, growth hacking tactics can help you avoid investing a lot of resources into ineffective marketing strategies. Instead, they can identify successes early on, allowing you to focus resources into marketing strategies with higher chances of paying off.
22 growth hacking strategies
- Navigation order
- Chat features
- Product descriptions
- Images, infographics, and video content
- User-generated content
- Cross-selling
- Upsales
- Shopping guides
- Timed sales
- Free shipping progress
- Sticky buttons
- Back-in-stock notifications
- Exit pop-ups
- Abandoned cart notifications
- “Buy again” emails
- Website speed
- Interactive quizzes
- Email subject lines
- Contests and giveaways
- Blog posts
- Referral programs
- Customer segmentation
The core of growth hacking is A/B testing different elements of the buyer’s journey—from their first impression to checkout. There are hundreds of different ecommerce growth hacks you can test. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Navigation order
Most online stores have a top navigation menu where users can click through different categories of products or services. A popular growth hack is to experiment with rearranging these menu items—for instance, moving the most-clicked tab to the beginning—to see which combination leads to the highest click-throughs, items in cart, and ecommerce sales.
Chat features
Offering a live chat on your online store’s homepage can help answer shoppers’ questions and provide quick customer service. You can test a chat feature on your site—via a chatbot or a live chat with a real customer service team member—to see if your shoppers are more likely to make purchases after using it.
Product descriptions
The copy on your product description page is a crucial part of the customer journey. Try out different approaches to the text—like rearranging the information, prioritizing the unique selling proposition, or rewording for search engine optimization (SEO)—to collect data on what shoppers respond to. You can also experiment with showing stock levels to create a sense of urgency.
Images, infographics, and video content
Thoughtful graphic design can break up long chunks of text, communicate your brand identity, and offer customers additional ways to understand your products. Try out different visual techniques on your landing pages, product pages, and social media feeds to see what captures the interest of potential customers.
User-generated content
Social proof in marketing refers to evidence a product or service is popular with customers. Examples of social proof, such as product reviews, testimonials, and social media posts can help increase the trust prospective customers have in your product. Experiment with displaying user-generated content from loyal customers prominently on your landing page or product pages—you may include the option for visuals or video to drive the message home.
Cross-selling
If your ecommerce company sells a variety of items that complement one another, you can add a display on each product’s page to cross-sell your items—in other words, recommend related products to entice customers to buy a combination rather than a single item. You can also try bundling the items on a separate product page to see if your customers prefer buying a predetermined set.
Upsales
If you sell a product at multiple price points—for instance, a simpler version for the budget-conscious and an upscale version at a higher price—you can test a display for your shoppers that compares each tier at a glance. Watch the data for both conversion rate and upselling. You want the display to coax hesitant shoppers into making a purchase and interested shoppers into purchasing at a higher price point.
Shopping guides
For ecommerce sites that sell a wide range of products, consider testing out shopping guides and other online services to see if they help web visitors navigate your offerings. You can theme your buyers guides around holidays, customer profiles, or price points, offering new and returning customers ideas and options for shopping your catalog.
Timed sales
Consider offering your customers a promotion that has a sense of urgency, like a limited-time offer with a very specific end date. You can experiment with countdown timers on your product pages or email headlines that state how much time users have left before the offer expires.
Free shipping progress
If your company offers free shipping after a certain minimum, you can test out different ways of displaying that minimum to your customers, enticing them to buy more to qualify for the shipping discount. Try out notifications at different stages of the buyer’s journey—for instance, at checkout, on the product page, or at the top of your website.
Sticky buttons
Sticky buttons are buttons on your site that remain in the user’s view even as they scroll. A sticky CTA button can help customers convert without needing to scroll all the way back to your navigation menu. You can try one out to see if it increases customer experience and overall conversions on your site.
Back-in-stock notifications
If a customer navigates to a product page and the item is out of stock, they may leave the page and never return. To avoid this, you can test out restock notifications for shoppers, allowing them to check a box or input their email to be notified when the item is available again.
Exit pop-ups
Exit-intent pop-ups are pop-ups that appear when a user’s cursor starts to navigate away from your online store. They often contain special discounts, free digital content (like an ebook or white paper), or an invitation to sign up for your newsletter. When testing exit-intent pop-ups, collect data on clickthrough rate to see how often users stayed on your website or eventually made a purchase after seeing the pop-up.
Abandoned cart notifications
Many shoppers put products in their online cart and never make it all the way through checkout. You can try to convert these shoppers by sending them a notification about their abandoned cart—whether that’s a simple email reminder or a personalized coupon.
“Buy again” emails
If you sell products that customers may want to purchase regularly, you can experiment with “buy again” email marketing to your existing customers—reminding them your product is still available and that it may be time for them to make another purchase. “Buy again” emails can help retain customers who may otherwise not purchase again.
Website speed
A fast-loading website can be the difference between a purchase and an exit. Optimizing your site speed can be a tricky balance between things like hosting, images, and redirects. Test out different combinations until you find the one that gives users an ideal experience.
Interactive quizzes
Many ecommerce sites use quizzes early on in the buyer’s journey, asking customers a handful of lifestyle questions to offer personalized product recommendations. Quizzes have a number of benefits: they can engage customers and keep them on your webpage longer, offer site visitors a tailored and friendly experience, and gather data that you can use to better understand your potential buyers.
Email subject lines
Try out a wide variety of email subject lines to see which ones entice customers to open them and which ones get moved to the junk folder; options include personalization (like using a customer’s name or interests), urgency, discounts, or sneak peeks.
In addition to A/B testing subject lines with different segments of your email list, you can also experiment with the same email by resending it with a new subject line to anyone who didn’t open it the first time. This can help increase customer retention by boosting your overall email open rate.
Contests and giveaways
Hosting a contest or giveaway is a way of leveraging social media to increase awareness of your ecommerce brand, boost customer acquisition, and increase your social media followers in the process. You can test contests and giveaways for your products to see if users respond well and generate buzz. The goal is for users to stick around after the event, stay on your email list, and eventually make a purchase.
Blog posts
You can experiment with blog posts as a way to offer readers useful information. A blog post can live on your ecommerce shop within a collection of helpful resources, or it can exist as a guest post on other relevant sites, linking back to your shop and giving you more organic traffic.
Referral programs
A referral program can help increase word-of-mouth recognition of your products, leveraging your existing customers’ networks to help you grow. Experiment with referral marketing to see if you can find more qualified leads. You can offer discounts to customers for each qualified referral or post giveaways on social media channels based on how many friends users tag.
Customer segmentation
Segmenting your customer base is the practice of categorizing groups of customers (and potential customers) in your marketing channels so that you can offer more tailored emails, offers, and homepage layouts to your shoppers. There are a number of different ways to try out customer segmentation. For instance, you can group customers according to geography, demographics (like age or occupation), or customer behavior (how they use your site).
Growth hacking ecommerce FAQ
What are the benefits of growth hacking?
Growth hacking gives you quick insights into what’s working in your customer journey, allowing you to focus your resources on marketing strategies that are likely to yield positive results.
Will every growth hacking strategy work for my business?
The growth hacking mindset is all about rapid experimentation to see what works for your ecommerce business; not every strategy will work for everyone. Use A/B testing to find out which strategies are right for your situation.