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Looking for advice on my running e-commerce company

by Nathan Nielson
12 replies
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Hi there,

I've been in digital marketing for a few years now. Spend most of my days on google adwords and google analytics.

I run a company called Hamuq™

And I've hit a point where I can't spend anymore money on google adwords. If i increase my bids for more clicks, my CPA goes up too high and I don't make any money.

I have low margins compared to the big brands, but I want to keep it that way. I just need creative ways to get my name out in front of people who are interested in buying a mattress.

Looking for creative ways. Cheers, N
#advice #company #ecommerce #running
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  • Profile picture of the author Karl Karrlander
    First of all, have you figured out who your ideal customer is?

    You said that it's for people wanting to buy mattresses, do you sell expensive ones or cheaper versions?

    Have you tried other traffic generation methods such as social media marketing, SEO, content marketing? Facebook ads?

    Try this if you haven't already:

    1. Find your ideal customer: Is it a woman or man? Rich or poor? Do you sell cheap or expensive mattresses?
    2. Once you've done this, create more laser-targeted ads on Facebook.
    3. Set up a reviews and blog section on your store, get going with content marketing (Google it and you'll find dozens of articles on how to do it effectively).
    4. Set up social media accounts and get started with social media marketing (like above, search for it on Google).
    5. Use the search function here on WF, ton of great info over the years.

    Hope this helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author Nathan Nielson
      Thanks Karl,

      Already way past all this! Looking for innovative and cost effective ways/channells outside of that to market my mattress

      Cheers, N
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve L
      Originally Posted by Karl Karrlander View Post

      First of all, have you figured out who your ideal customer is?
      ...

      1. Find your ideal customer: Is it a woman or man? Rich or poor? Do you sell cheap or expensive mattresses?
      Yea I agree, I think the audience he's targeting is too broad. I really think he could stand to narrow it down to help differentiate himself. Appeal to a more narrow audience and raise profit margins.
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  • Profile picture of the author Frank Donovan
    I'm sure you know your market, but as an outsider I see a luxury brand trying to carve out a niche on price. With a purchase most people consider making maybe once every few years, I wouldn't think that's a huge advantage. In fact, in many markets, an emphasis on price would appear incongruous with an upmarket brand.

    I know you weren't asking for comments on brand positioning - but a little extra margin could open up more marketing avenues.
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    • Profile picture of the author Nathan Nielson
      Thank you. Interesting observations and much appreciated.

      May I ask you what pushes you to see us as an upmarket brand?
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        Originally Posted by Nathan Nielson View Post

        Thank you. Interesting observations and much appreciated.

        May I ask you what pushes you to see us as an upmarket brand?
        Maybe it was the headline on your home page: "Your Luxury Mattress".

        Or maybe your Google description: "Luxury Mattress for Less - Meticulously Handcrafted..."

        Low prices on higher end goods without a good "because" tends to elicit skepticism.

        You've probably considered this, but are you geo-targeting your Adwords ads? I'm in SW Florida, USA, so showing me your ad would probably be a waste of money.

        As for your original question...

        Do any of your mattresses target specific sleep problems/challenges? Like people with bad backs, poor circulation, etc.?

        Promoting specific models on blogs, social media pages, etc. via content marketing may help. Something like "7 Features Your Next Mattress Needs If You Have a Bad Back", where the content is informational, and your author bio links to a specific model with an invitation to see the 7 features illustrated.

        Another option would be going the B2B route and looking for multi-unit sales to boutique hotels, short-term residence executive housing units, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve L
    Originally Posted by Nathan Nielson View Post

    Hi there,

    I've been in digital marketing for a few years now. Spend most of my days on google adwords and google analytics.

    I run a company called Hamuq™

    And I've hit a point where I can't spend anymore money on google adwords. If i increase my bids for more clicks, my CPA goes up too high and I don't make any money.

    I have low margins compared to the big brands, but I want to keep it that way. I just need creative ways to get my name out in front of people who are interested in buying a mattress.

    Looking for creative ways. Cheers, N
    Without a larger profit margin, and a larger advertising budget I'm afraid there's not much else to do. This is why competing on price is so dangerous. Ideally you want to differentiate by being more efficient or more fun, not cheaper.
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  • Profile picture of the author Claire Koch
    I liked John McCabes suggestions but if you are using adwords without a lead capture on your page your customers are just disappearing and you can't get them back. You need to follow up with people who will hand you an email address. This is best case scenario for adwords. If you aren't past that that is your ticket.

    On another note SEO for offline/online is NOT that hard. You can get sales w/o adwords.
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    • Profile picture of the author Nathan Nielson
      SEO for th is segment is not that hard you say?

      I chose to not do an email capture because I felt it was/gimmicky and would turn away more customers VS create them. However I do have a VERY heavy remarketing program going.

      Yes geo-targetting.

      I would like to target my target age group on google, but it seems when I create that audience I lose out on so much potential traffic
      Eg: if the age group 30-45 was actually 20% of internet users. When I segment by that age group, my audience is actually 4% of the size for when I don't segment by age group. Which I'm assuming is because google only has about 10% of people's age for targeting purposes. Unless I've missed something?
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    • Profile picture of the author Nathan Nielson
      Hi Claire,

      Currently I spend a lot on retargeting: I use the google display network, Facebook and instagram.

      Can you explain to me why capturing email addresses will benefit me over this?

      I feel Remarking/retargeting is the same thing.

      Cheers
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    You might want to explore some of the financing options that you could make available to your customers (there are numerous companies that provide these services to eCommerce websites as a payment option for customers). A customer may not think they can afford a $1,000 mattress but many of those people have no problem when they can get a new luxury mattress for $40/month.

    That opens a whole new door to ways you can advertise and the people you can advertise to.
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  • Profile picture of the author mgabriel
    Most of the traffic to my store, is organic. Become active in forums that are related to you niche.

    Becoming active on Houzz. Comment on the articles written about Mattresses. There are hundres of articles related to Mattresses. Answer any mattresses questions in the forum.

    https://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/query/mattresses
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