Focus on user experience first

Advertising not working? Feel the need to go elsewhere and try something else? Maybe try TikTok? It\’s the new hot thing. Maybe try Google Ads?

Or you could have a long hard look at your website and its user experience aka UX.

Has it been a long time since you\’ve had a redesign or have you never had one?

Is your website fast?

Do people find it easy to use?

Do your competitors offer discounts, bonuses and freebies to get customers across the line?

In a hyper competitive ecommerce landscape, if your website is a pain in the backside or simply not making the users excited and engrossed, you\’re going to lose out.

Things you can do

• Conduct a competitor analysis. Open your mind and be honest with yourself. Don’t be bitter about others. Ask yourself the hard question, would I want to buy from me? Is this easy for the customer? Is this a better deal? Am I easy to buy from? Do I add incentive to buy from?

• What’s it like on mobile? Typically over 70% of a websites traffic is mobile. Have you purchased from your store on a mobile device? Have you tested multiple iPhone and Android devices yourself? Do menus and popups block key elements on the site?

• Hire a local CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) expert can help with this if you not sure where it’s going wrong. A CRO specialist typically puts software on you website that shows, for example, heat maps of where users are interested or dropping off. They can then implement their knowledge

• Consider tried and true website themes. For example if you have a Woocommerce/Magento site that it becoming too much to manage, it might be worth considering a all in one solution such as Shopify, Bigcommerce or Wix. Theses providers have tried and true themes and backends that streamline the ecommerce experience, both for the merchant and the customer.

• Plugins – What plugins for your store/website are out there that streamline a conversion experience? Are your customers presented with Apple/Google wallet, Afterpay and Zip option? Do they have to fill in a lot of unnecessary fields in order to check out, or can they do it in 2-3 clicks?

There is a lot to consider to make an advertising budget go as far as it can. If we see a gradual drop in performance, we ought to consider what its like for our customers first.