In brick-and-mortar retail, merchandising is all about product displays and signage. While there are design elements involved in an online merchandising campaign, there is a completely different way to strategize, plan, and execute for your ecommerce site.
Let’s dive into how to create high-converting ecommerce merchandising campaigns.
What is a Merchandising Campaign?
A merchandising campaign is simply a strategic way to display products on your ecommerce site and relay information to shoppers. The goals are to engage customers, boost conversions, and improve the overall shopper experience. Merchandising campaigns support time-sensitive marketing and sales campaigns, and evergreen initiatives.
A Black Friday sale merchandising campaign might include the following merchandising features:
- Boost rules display relevant products at the top of category and search pages.
- Banners communicate offers and info to shoppers.
- Badges draw attention to specified products.
- Geo-merchandising adjusts site messaging based on the shopper’s location.
- Landing pages feature specific products.
All these features are just a few ways to encourage shoppers to complete a purchase.
Where Do I Use Merchandising Campaigns?
Merchandising campaigns are implemented throughout your entire site or just in certain spots.
- Global campaigns are site-wide. You can set rules so that sale items, new arrivals, or best sellers are front and center in every category. Global merchandising campaigns support overall business goals and speak to the largest audience.
- Landing page campaigns feature specific products. For example, a Mother’s Day merchandising campaign could display products from several categories on one page. The same products appear in emails, social media, on-site inline banners, and more.
When are Merchandising Campaigns Used?
Global merchandising campaigns are a great way to set evergreen rules. Landing page campaigns are typically used for one-off promotions.
A flash sale campaign could include a landing page, boost rules, and banners that drive interest. With set-and-forget scheduling, they launch and deactivate automatically.
Merchandising Campaign Best Practices
1. Make it Personal
With personalized merchandising, AI learners shoppers behaviors to deliver relevant search results. Dynamic boost rules automatically show them items they’re most likely to buy, improving product discovery and relevancy.
2. Customize Merchandising to Your Audience
Keep your audience in mind as you plan merchandising campaigns. Frequent return visitors? Update merchandising regularly to keep your store fresh. For sites with high rates of one-off visitors, highlight best sellers.
3. Test and Track Performance
Use reporting to track each merchandising campaign’s performance. A/B test and optimize to find out what works and what doesn’t. The most successful campaigns are data-driven.
4. Remove Out-of-Stock Products from View
Set up rules that get out-of-stock items off the shoppers screen to improve the shopper experience. Boost rules automatically remove out-of-stock products from search results and category pages so you don’t need to do it manually.
Reach Your Goals With Merchandising Campaigns
Merchandising campaigns are all about getting the right product in front of the right shopper at the right time. An advanced ecommerce merchandisng solution gives you the tools needed to take control of your site and optimize for higher conversion rates. They also automate process, which means better merchandising in less time and with less resources.
