What Is Ecommerce Advertising? Benefits and Strategies (2024)

The digital ad space is crowded. In fact, 92% of advertisers use search ads in their ecommerce strategy—and they show no signs of stopping. In the US alone, digital advertising expenditures are projected to increase by 50% by 2028. There’s a clear reason for this surge: Digital ads are a powerhouse in marketing, helping businesses boost traffic, increase brand awareness, and convert leads into sales.

With so many businesses in the field, it’s now essential to create a strategic ecommerce advertising plan. Level up your campaign with expert insights from Ace Reunis, cofounder of the Australian T-shirt brand Threadheads.

What is ecommerce advertising?

Ecommerce advertising is a marketing tactic to promote your products or services in paid digital ad spaces like social media networks, websites, and search engine results. Ecommerce advertising differs from traditional advertising, which focuses on offline paid ads in places like billboards, magazines, TV, and public transit.

Ecommerce advertising allows your brand to get its products seen and purchased online. Have you ever scrolled to an Instagram Reel with an enticing product and a Shop Now link at the bottom? That’s a digital ad doing its work, and that work has a significant impact: Sales through social networks like this made up 18.5% of total online sales in 2023.

Benefits of ecommerce advertising

Mastering ecommerce marketing strategies can help you run a successful ecommerce business, but what kind of results can you actually achieve? Here are some of the benefits ecommerce marketers can see from implementing a robust digital advertising strategy:

Boost website traffic. Ecommerce marketing tactics, like prospecting and remarketing ads, can drive traffic to your site and build your customer base.
Generate a higher return on investment (ROI). Ecommerce businesses with an effective ecommerce advertising strategy see more sales at a lower ad spend, reducing customer acquisition costs.
Build brand awareness. Modern marketing tools can get your brand in front of the right people, no matter where they are. For example, video ads on social media platforms like TikTok and sponsored Google Shopping ads help shoppers recognize and remember your brand.
Convert hesitant shoppers. Tailored ads can recapture and convert target audience segments that have already visited your ecommerce website or abandoned their carts.

Finding success in ecommerce advertising isn’t reserved for MBA graduates—Ace Reunis learned most of his top digital advertising techniques online. “My entire degree that cost me $100,000 was less valuable to me and has made me less money than one 12-minute YouTube video,” he says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. He suggests implementing these online ecommerce advertising strategies to improve your digital ad performance:

Meet your audience where they are

The right marketing channels are wherever your customers already are. Conduct focus groups, research industry trends, and use social media analytics and audience analysis on your target market to find out which apps they love and what communities they spend their time in. On the brand side, consider the convenience, pricing, and time commitment of different advertising channels.

Some sites, like Etsy and eBay, limit the types of paid ads you can run. “The great thing about a Shopify store, and a direct-to-consumer brand, is it’s not like eBay; you have a lot of channels to work with,” Ace says. He doesn’t hesitate when asked about his favorite channels: “With paid ads, it’s Google and Facebook, period.” He recommends focusing most of your paid advertising efforts on these two advertising platforms, as they encompass most website and social media ads.

Segment your audience

Audience segmentation is important in all content marketing and online advertising. In paid advertising campaigns, it’s a must. Audience segmentation splits up your target demographics into specific silos to allow ads that better cater to niche interests within your communities. This requires some data-digging into your demographics and may require testing ads to see which audiences respond better to what content.

Investigate who you’re talking to before you create ads, whether that’s your existing customers or cold leads. Ace’s t-shirt brand, Threadheads, targeted people unfamiliar with the brand and saw a return of nine times its ad spend. “Try to find those audience segments that are going to resonate with your message or your product,” Ace says. “Through testing, you’ll find those segments, and you’ll start to see a good return.”

Bid on your brand name

Ace recommends that every new brand bid on their brand name with Google search ads to ensure they show up immediately when potential customers search for them. If your brand doesn’t rank highly on search engine results pages (SERPs), customers have to remember and search your exact URL—a huge barrier to entry for an online store.

“I can’t emphasize this enough,” Ace says. “If you type ‘Threadheads’ in Google, not only do you get the organic listing, because Google has indexed us over time, but you also get the paid listing above it. You’re getting all of this real estate for your own brand.”

Start a prospecting campaign

Prospecting campaigns, which focus on cold traffic, use social media advertising to build a database of new potential customers. But casting a wide net and hoping people show up won’t drive online sales. Tailor your prospecting campaign with targeted ads and relevant keywords, and nurture these leads with long-term marketing efforts like email marketing campaigns and retargeting ads.

“These are people who don’t know about your brand, who don’t know about your product,” Ace says. “You’re trying to get them to your website. You’re trying to build brand awareness.”

He also emphasizes the importance of tailoring your approach: “In a prospecting campaign on Facebook Ads, I might think, ‘OK, I’m going to go after people that like cats and also like fashion and apparel.’ They might have never seen Threadheads, but if I put cat t-shirts in front of someone who has a cat and also likes fashion and apparel and the cat t-shirts are funny, they might buy it. There is a better chance of buying it than just showing it to everyone.”

Set up a Google Shopping campaign

“Google Shopping is a really powerful way of getting traffic,” Ace explains. “It takes them to the product page, which is very close to conversion—so it’s fantastic.”

Think of Google Shopping as an extension of your ecommerce store. It hosts a high volume of organic traffic, so invest in Google Shopping ads and search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure customers see your products first. Make your product images pop, and offer promotions so your shopping ads stand out. Use target keywords for your audience segments, and, inversely, input a list of negative keywords and irrelevant topics to keep your brand from appearing in unrelated searches.

Use Google Search campaigns

When you do a Google search, you’ll see several organic results based on what Google considers the most valuable or helpful information—but it will also serve you sponsored text-based results above the organic listings. Those top results are called Google Search ads. They differ from Google Display ads: digital ads placed on a website that appear as banner ads with images.

Google Search ads rely heavily on keyword targeting to ensure your brand appears in the right searches. Ace recommends bidding on your brand name as the first order of business, but there’s so much more you can do with Google Ads. Start with these tips to improve your campaigns:

Target specific demographics. Focus on the fundamentals of digital marketing, including targeting specific demographics with relevant search queries and including a clear call to action.
Watch the data. Google Search offers plenty of digital advertising data to help you understand which ads drive sales and which customers are bouncing from your ecommerce website.
Iterate. Test and update your ads and ad formats based on conversion numbers to increase ecommerce sales.

Optimize your website

Even if your online marketing ads are perfect, they won’t convert if your website is subpar. “[Ecommerce sales] all depend on having a great product and a good website experience … with all the stuff that it needs to convert,” Ace says. He recommends a few key things to polish your website:

Take great product photos.
Ensure your product descriptions are direct and enticing.
Make it easy for customers to leave great reviews or offer testimonials.
Optimize your checkout flow for a smooth, frustration-free journey.

When everything on your website lends itself to a great customer experience, leads and converts alike get a good impression of your brand.

Ecommerce advertising FAQ

What is ecommerce advertising?

Ecommerce advertising involves purchasing ad space on websites, social media platforms, and search engines to promote your products and brand. It allows ecommerce businesses to tailor ads to target demographics based on their searches and interests.

Which platform is best for ecommerce advertising?

Google Ads (which includes search ads, display ads, and shopping ads) is one of the most popular platforms for running a successful ecommerce advertising campaign. It allows you to place display ads on websites based on keywords and your budget. Depending on where your audience spends time, you might also use other top ad platforms like Facebook and Instagram ads for a well-rounded advertising strategy.

What is the difference between ecommerce marketing and ecommerce advertising?

Ecommerce marketing defines all the practices and strategies a company uses to bring in new customers and retain old ones. Ecommerce advertising is the process of buying paid digital ads to attract customers and falls under the umbrella of ecommerce marketing. For more about the differences and overlap between the two, check out this guide on marketing versus advertising.