By Laura Mignott
As the holidays descend upon us, brands often come to me looking for quick tips on how to kick Q4 sales into high gear. As the CEO of a New York-based experience communications agency, I am in the unique position that I get to see platforms and technologies as they hit the market.
As such, I thought I’d save everyone some time this year by doing a little diligent research into some of 2017’s coolest (and easiest) tools for advertising and conversions. These platforms don’t take a ton of up-front investment -- either in time or money -- to deploy.
Depending on your needs, below I've included free (not kidding) and very reasonably priced options. You can add these three solutions to your arsenal in five, 30 and 60 minutes. And what’s more, they all integrate seamlessly with Shopify. With the holidays here, I hope my research gives you easy action-items for you and your brand.
Klickly
Klickly.com is the first “commission-only advertising platform” I’ve seen. With no upfront fees, you only pay Klickly when they bring you actual sales. Creating a holiday advertising campaign has never been so, well, free.
This advertising tool only charges when you get sales (on a commission set by you). While it’s not meant to be the only advertising approach you take, it’s a quick way to amplify your holiday advertising strategy. Klickly integrates directly into your existing Shopify store.
Setup is about five minutes. After creating your account, Klickly auto-generates ads. Simply select which products to promote and choose your commission and launch -- the platform will push your ads to relevant sites like Yahoo, Cosmo, MensFitness, CNN and others.
Klickly's technology lets customers buy products directly within Klickly ads. This shrinks the sales funnel (and boosts conversion rates, since your customers can purchase directly from your ads). If you want risk-free advertising (meaning you only pay when you get sales), Klickly may be for you.
Zipify Pages
These drag-and-drop landing pages make checkout a cinch, increasing conversions. I recommend creating a high-converting “Holiday Sale” landing page.
The platform allows you to create templates (streamlined landing pages) that convert higher than your traditional store themes. They’re automatically mobile-optimized, capture data and integrate directly into your existing Shopify store. I wouldn’t suggest overhauling a site that’s killing it for you, but if you have a special holiday sale or other promo coming up, you can’t go wrong A/B Zipify pages, as they have a ton of data behind them.
The setup is simple. After creating your account, choose the template you want and customize it to suit your store’s branding. Then drag and drop products you want to promote on your chosen template.
Each landing page template has undergone real-world testing, meaning it’s been a top-performing landing page on a real e-commerce store. (You’ll obviously be able to change and customize the look and feel, but I love the idea it’s been put to the test with real, live consumers.)
If you want customers on your page to convert higher (or maybe want to highlight a special sale), try Zipify’s streamlined, conversion-tested landing pages. Set up takes under 30 minutes and the cost is around $50/month. If it gets you even one extra sale a month, it pays for itself (and you’ll likely get many more).
Klaviyo
This next-gen email platform allows you to easily access the power of your own data to reach the right people at the right time. Klayviyo divides up large email lists into super-targeted segments (by location, those who have opened emails but not purchased, and repeat buyers). Klaviyo can even help you offer free shipping or discounts to higher-value carts.
To get started, create a Klaviyo account. You’ll have the ability to add existing email lists and design your emails. You will need to drop in some Klaviyo tracking snippets (pieces of code) to your site for customer-behavior tracking, so this tool is for more savvy merchants. Fortunately, there’s an easy setup wizard that helps walk you through it and use these tracking codes.
Klaviyo lets you see your data in real time. If you’re like me, when you launch a new promotion or product, you’re constantly checking reporting tools to see what’s working. Being able to react in real-time is a game-changer.
After you advertise with a platform like Klickly and convert those customers with a tool like Zipify, you can keep customers coming back again and again with email automation from Klaviyo. For 1,000 contacts, I estimate set up to be around 60 minutes and $50/month.
I get to geek out over all the newest platforms (sometimes even before they come out). For those brands looking to launch last-minute ad campaigns or optimizations, these are some great tools to try.
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Laura Mignott is the CEO of DFlash.