Successful ecommerce websites remove as many obstacles as possible between users and the products they’re looking for.

This list of features and policies was chosen based on their impact on user experience. Each removes friction from purchasing journeys to keep users engaged on your website.

29 Essential Ecommerce Website Features1. User-Friendly Navigation With Breadcrumbs2. Internal Site Search3. Product Filters4. 5. Product Videos6. Product Comparisons7. Product Reviews8. Generous Return Policy9. FAQ For Products10. Simple Checkout11. Multiple Payment Options12. SSO Integration13. Support/Help Center14. Order Tracking15. Mobile App16. Email & SMS Opt-In17. Push Notifications18. Chatbots19. Coupon Codes20. Special Offer Programs21. Wishlists22. Gift Registries23. Multilingual Support24. Loyalty Program25. Carousels26. Local Store Information27. Personal Data Policy28. An Affiliate Program29. A TikTok Shop30. Conclusion

1. User-Friendly Navigation With Breadcrumbs

The key to helping customers find the products they need quickly is to offer a user-friendly navigation system. Products should be logically categorized, with the most popular categories listed first.

Sephora knows how customers like to shop.

Some specifically seek out products by brand, while others shop by category. The navigation bar reflects this organization, along with quick links to value sets and current sales.

To help the user get back to the main page or product categories, Sephora also implements breadcrumb navigation throughout its site.

Navigation features should be tested rigorously on mobile devices to ensure that customers used to the desktop website can just as easily find what they want to purchase.

2. Internal Site Search

In addition to user-friendly navigation, site search is a feature found on most of the top ecommerce sites.

It allows customers to bypass the navigation and search for exactly what they want.

Nordstrom offers a site search with suggestions for popular brands and products matching your entry.

This site search even includes popular searches and trending searches near the customer.

3. Product Filters

For stores with a large selection of products, product filters can help customers quickly find the product needed based on features, size, availability, and other pertinent information.

Walgreens offers customers an item availability filter to sort products based on pickup, same-day delivery, shipping, or in-stock availability.

In addition, many product categories have filters related to specific types of items, separating medicines from cosmetics.

Have you considered the best way to utilize your website’s footer to help customers find your top products?

Try a list of links to the top products, services, and information that customers want to find.

T-Mobile uses its footer to direct customers to its social media profiles, English and Spanish sites, featured phones and plans, support, and company information.

The footer effectively includes links to everything the company wants customers and search crawlers to discover from any page on its website.

5. Product Videos

Adding video to your product pages can increase conversions.

Most ecommerce platforms allow retailers to add videos and images to their product pages.

Apple uses video to highlight features of its latest iPhone on its sales page. The high-quality product images and videos help sell its products online and in-store.

6. Product Comparisons

If you have a large selection of products to choose from in any category, let customers quickly compare the main features of each.

REI allows customers to do this with products like hiking bags.

When customers go to the comparison screen, they receive a detailed description of each product, ratings, reviews, and pricing.

7. Product Reviews

Product reviews and ratings are the most popular form of user-generated content on ecommerce sites.

This section of an ecommerce product page is crucial to providing social proof to shoppers that a product will fit their needs.

Amazon allows customers to add photos and videos to reviews, marking relevant reviews as verified.

Amazon has also experimented with AI-generated customer review summaries on some products.

While generative AI features are increasingly present in the ecommerce landscape, retailers should proceed cautiously, as AI content can be inaccurate.

8. Generous Return Policy

Want to increase consumer confidence in the products you sell? Offer a generous return policy and include it on your product page.

Better yet, make your return options as easy as possible.

Zappos does both by giving customers 365 days to return or exchange products and an additional way to return items with minimal hassle.

9. FAQ For Products

Another way to incorporate user-generated content into your ecommerce store is by adding a section of customers’ most frequently asked questions.

This section can help your store in some ways.

Increase the number of sales by answering your customer’s top pre-sales questions about your products.
Reduce the time your customer service has to answer product questions before and after the purchase.

Magic Spoon offers an FAQ section after customer reviews of its cereal.

When potential customers click on view more FAQs, they discover an organized section of answers for shipping, orders, and other inquiries.

10. Simple Checkout

The last thing you want to do before a customer is about to enter their credit card information is frustrate them.

Make sure that customers can easily find the shopping cart to check out. Urban Outfitters does a great job by adding a little checkout popup each time you add a new item to the shopping cart.

On the checkout page, you can see details about the items in your cart and can checkout quickly using PayPal or continue for more options.

You are also reminded of items you’ve saved for later and items that complement what you are about to purchase.

You can sign in or checkout as a guest on the following page.

11. Multiple Payment Options

Another way to make the checkout process easier is to offer customers multiple payment options instead of an account sign-up.

Online retailers like Xena Workwear let customers checkout using Shop Pay from Shopify, PayPal, and Venmo.

Customers using these payment methods on other sites will automatically be comfortable with the process.

12. SSO Integration

To help users create new accounts and sign in faster, integrate single-sign-on for your customers.

This allows customers to create an account and sign in quickly with their Google, Microsoft, Apple, LinkedIn, or another often-used account.

eBay is one of many major shopping destinations that offer this option.

Reducing friction during the signup and sign-in could improve your store’s sales volume.

13. Support/Help Center

In addition to the FAQ for your product pages and store, consider adding a help center.

This should cover any general questions people may ask about online privacy, security, payments, shipping, returns, and other shopping concerns.

Etsy offers help for many of the top support issues customers face in its help center, as well as help for sellers on the network.

This saves the Etsy support team from having to answer general questions and gives them more time to solve complex issues.

14. Order Tracking

Once your customer places an order, the top question on their mind is: When will my order arrive?

Make it simple for customers to check their current order status on your website.

AutoZone has an order tracking page that doesn’t require customers to log in.

Customers simply enter their email address and the order number they received in their order confirmation email.

The page is easily discoverable throughout the website in the footer.

Ecommerce brands on Shopify can also encourage customers to use the Shop App for easy order tracking, social posts, and review reminders.

15. Mobile App

In addition to having a mobile-friendly website that shoppers can access from any device, consider having a mobile app for your store.

Mobile apps allow you to keep your brand in customers’ minds by placing your app icon/logo on their smart devices.

You don’t have to wait for customers to open up a browser or another app for social media or email to get your latest sales messages.

You can push those promotional updates through your app to any customers with notifications as Home Depot does with its app.

16. Email & SMS Opt-In

Having a revenue-generating email list is a must-have for retailers.

If you can’t get visitors to purchase on your website, one of the next best conversions for your store would be to attain the visitor as a subscriber on your email list.

This would allow you to reach them with future sales and email promotions.

Another way ecommerce retailers can capture email addresses is by adding an opt-in form with a special promotion in the header and footer of their website.

Betabrand uses an introductory offer popup for new customer discounts via email and SMS.

A regular reminder for others is included in the website’s footer, product review highlights, and an order status page.

17. Push Notifications

If you want to bypass spam filters and social media algorithms, push notifications will be the next best way to capture your ecommerce store visitors as subscribers.

Push notification services allow visitors to subscribe to your latest updates in their browser.

When you have a promotion you want to notify subscribers of, you can send a message that will be delivered to their notification center via their browser.

Shein is one of many ecommerce brands that allows visitors to subscribe to push notifications.

Once subscribed, visitors will see the latest messages from the brand in their desktop notifications.

18. Chatbots

One of the benefits of running an ecommerce website is its ability to generate revenue 24 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the year. That also means providing support to your customers during those hours as well.

Many ecommerce stores use chatbots to assist online shoppers with basic questions and navigate them to a specific product or support page.

Lowes uses “Leo,” an automated assistant with specific prompts for visitors to choose from when looking for a specific answer, finding a specific product, or solving a basic customer service inquiry.

Note that the chatbots for ecommerce stores are not necessarily the same as AI chatbots, like ChatGPT.

It’s important to research chat features before implementing them into an ecommerce store.

Even if the chatbot offers inaccurate information, your company may have to honor the information it provides customers, as Air Canada found out in a recent case where it had to pay a refund that its chatbot initiated.

19. Coupon Codes

We know that consumers often search for coupon codes on Google when presented with a coupon or discount box on a checkout page.

In the United States, 88% of consumers use coupons when shopping, using coupon sites like slickdeals.com, groupon.com, and retailmenot.com.

If you want to keep customers on your website throughout the checkout process, give them great deals via your own coupon codes.

Victoria’s Secret has an offer codes page to compete with coupon sites and publishers with coupon sections that double as affiliate revenue generators.

20. Special Offer Programs

Does your ecommerce store have special discounts for students, military, first responders, and others?

Ensure your product pages highlight those offers – especially for high-ticket items.

Samsung does a great job of doing this for new website visitors.

21. Wishlists

Add wishlist functionality to help customers find the items they wanted during previous visits.

The Nintendo Store makes it easy for logged-in users to save an item to their wishlist – they just click or tap the heart.

This will ensure they know exactly what they want the next time someone needs a birthday present idea or wants something for themselves.

22. Gift Registries

If you search gift registries on Google, you will find dozens of well-known brand retailers.

Target, Amazon, Walmart, Crate & Barrel, and Bed, Bath, & Beyond are just a few that appear on the first page of SERPs.

Why are gift registries important to driving sales? Let’s just look at wedding registries for a moment.

CNBC reported findings from Baird’s 2022 survey that Amazon leads as the top wedding registry provider with 45% listing penetration.

Walmart offers gift registries for babies, weddings, and classrooms. You can also create a custom registry to celebrate any occasion you choose.

23. Multilingual Support

If your ecommerce store caters to customers in a specific region, you have two options to support the top languages spoken in their region:

Depend on Google Translate to help customers translate your website into their language.
Create multiple versions of your website for specific languages.

Xfinity uses English on the www subdomain and Spanish on the es subdomain.

24. Loyalty Program

Do you want to increase customer retention? Offering a loyalty program is one way to encourage people to shop from your e-commerce store again.

These are typically free or paid programs where customers get private or early access to the best deals.

Many allow customers to accrue points per purchase, leading to rewards such as a specific dollar amount off your next purchase or a free product.

Ulta is one of many brands offering a free rewards program for loyal customers.

Customers can join for free and earn points redeemable for products and services online and in-store.

25. Carousels

While marketers may disagree on the value of homepage image and video carousels, many ecommerce brands use them.

Major retailers such as Walmart, eBay, Home Depot, Samsung, Wayfair, Lowes, Costco, Sam’s Club, and Kohls have carousels with their latest promotions and sales.

Chewy is another ecommerce brand that features a carousel on the homepage. This carousel promotes discounts for auto-ship orders, healthy pet food, flea & tick medications, pet bedding, and more.

26. Local Store Information

If your ecommerce brand also has physical store locations, you can boost offline sales by adding details for the nearest store to your website’s header.

This would allow customers to shop online, reserve for in-store pickup, or browse their local store inventory before making an in-store purchase.

Brands like Hobby Lobby ask about website visitors’ location to bring them more from their nearest store.

27. Personal Data Policy

Depending on where your ecommerce store is based and the customers it serves, your site may need a policy that notifies visitors of the data collected about them on your website using cookies from the website and other analytics tools.

Michael’s ecommerce store displays a popup advising visitors about cookie usage to enhance user experience and analyze website traffic.

Visitors then have the option to accept the policy, learn more about it, and adjust cookie preferences.

28. An Affiliate Program

Offer an affiliate program to get more content creators talking about your product.

This lets your top customers monetize their content by promoting their favorite products.

Major retailers like Target offer an affiliate program and creator network to create more brand ambassadors.

29. A TikTok Shop

Having an established presence on social media is a given. However, some brands have extended their ecommerce selection to TikTok Shop.

TikTok offers Shop products in a dedicated feed, allowing brands to partner with content creators on the platform for influencer marketing content.

Brands like OtterBox have even added vertical videos and branded hashtags to their websites to promote social commerce further.

Conclusion

Building a successful ecommerce website requires focusing on what you know about your customers, their journeys, and their needs. Then, you need to make those journeys as easy as possible to follow on your website.

The following principles apply as you build ecommerce shopping experiences:

Prioritize a seamless user experience for all devices and platforms.
Make navigation intuitive, search functions intelligent, and information readily accessible across all site sections.
Product descriptions should be detailed and immersive, featuring user-generated content like reviews and customer photos. In the near future, expect technologies like augmented reality (AR) to revolutionize how customers interact with products online.
Blend your online presence with brick-and-mortar locations, allowing for convenient options like buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) or in-store returns for online purchases.
With growing concerns about data privacy, clearly outline your personal data policy and emphasize secure payment options.
Make a strong commitment to transparent customer service and simple return procedures. This fosters a sense of confidence crucial for long-term brand loyalty.

The success of any ecommerce website ultimately depends on exceeding customer expectations.

Stay current on the latest trends with new technologies, and strive to deliver an exceptional online shopping experience.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

Let’s talk about PPC bidding strategies. If you’ve ever felt like you’re throwing darts in the dark when it comes to picking the right one, you’re not alone.

When I first started in Google Ads, the only bidding strategy available was “Max CPC” bidding, meaning everything was manual.

Nowadays, there are many AI-powered bidding strategies to fit your diverse campaign needs.

These strategies aren’t exactly a “one size fits all” deal for your campaigns.

Not only are there more choices than ever to reach your goals, but the inputs you set at the campaign level are just as crucial for success.

The truth is that choosing the right bid strategy can be the difference between crushing your PPC goals or watching your budget go up in flames.

Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of AI-powered bid strategies, or Smart Bidding strategies, and figure out how to maximize performance for each of your campaigns.

How Many PPC Bid Strategies Does Google Ads Have?

Google Ads offers multiple types of bidding strategies aimed at meeting the goals of all available campaign types.

These strategies use Google AI to optimize in every single auction, typically known as “real-time bidding.”

It takes many factors into consideration at the time of auction outside of your bidding strategy, including device, location, time of day, operating system, and many more.

Google categorizes their Smart Bidding strategies into three main goals:

Conversions.
Clicks.
Viewability.

It’s important to match your Google Ads bid strategies with the campaign’s specific advertising objectives.

If you’re not sure where to start with goals, consider these points when making a bid strategy decision:

Are you looking for users to take direct action on your website?
Do you want to increase website traffic overall?
How important is brand awareness to you?
Are you looking to increase video engagement and interaction?
Are you focused on product or brand consideration when users are actively shopping around?

Conversion-Based Bid Strategies

Currently, Google Ads offers these Smart Bidding strategies aimed at increasing conversions:

Target Cost per Action (CPA).
Target Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
Maximize Conversions.
Maximize Conversion Value.
Enhanced Cost per Click (eCPC).

Click-Based Bid Strategies

If your main goal is gaining website traction, the only automated bid strategy currently available is Maximize Clicks.

Manual CPC bidding is still an option, but we’ll get to that later on in the article.

Visibility-Based Bid Strategies

Not all campaigns aim to capture the final conversion, and that’s ok!

You need to have some element of brand awareness coming in, otherwise the group of people who know about your product will continue to shrink.

If your campaign goals are focused on awareness, consider these automated PPC bidding strategies:

Target Impression Share.
CPM.
tCPM.
vCPM.

Next, we’ll examine the main AI-powered PPC bidding strategy more granularly to get a better understanding of each one, as well as when it makes sense to choose that particular bid strategy.

Read more: PPC Automation Layering: How To Get More From Google Ads

Target Cost Per Action (CPA) Bidding

Target CPA lets you set the amount you’re willing to pay for a conversion. Google Ads uses machine learning to get as many conversions as possible at or below your set CPA.

Google then takes your Target CPA to set bids based on the likelihood of conversion from that particular user.

While some conversions may cost more than your Target CPA, others may cost less than your target, but overall, the Google Ads system tries to keep your cost per conversion at the level you set.

There are multiple use cases for choosing Target CPA bidding:

Historical conversion data is available. This bid strategy requires historical conversion data, so if you have ample campaign or account conversion data, this could be a good strategy for you.
You need better budget control. It’s also good if you need to retain control over your CPA in order to manage the overall ROI of your PPC program.
Conversion tracking is accurately set up. As long as there are no underlying issues with your conversion tracking, this bid strategy could be reliable for your campaigns.

For example, say you run an online boutique clothing website and know that acquiring a new customer at $50 will still be profitable. For your campaign, you choose the Target CPA bid strategy and set the limit to $50.

As you’re running your campaigns, the data shows you’ve consistently been acquiring new customers at $40. Because of this, the Google Ads system knows it can optimize bids further to get you more customers while still staying within that $50 limit.

Now, there are some limitations to Target CPA bidding to be aware of:

Limited budgets could reduce visibility. If you’ve set a competitive Target CPA, Google may limit your ad exposure or participation in the auction and reserve your budget for more expensive or competitive auctions. Essentially, you may see impressions and clicks decline as the system “conserves” budget expenditure for the most likely-to-purchase candidates.
Misalignment of daily budget and Target CPA can reduce results. Say you have a daily budget of $50 for your campaign, but your Target CPA is set at $25. Your impressions may be vastly reduced because, in this scenario, you’d need to have a stellar conversion rate for the number of clicks you get in order to stay within that $25 CPA.

Target Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) Bidding

Target ROAS aims to achieve a specific return on ad spend. You set the desired ROAS, and Google Ads optimizes bids to maximize conversion value while hitting your target.

Similar to Target CPA, Google then takes your ROAS inputs to set bids based on the likelihood of a conversion from that particular user.

Some good use cases for using Target ROAS bidding for campaigns include:

Your goals are revenue-driven. Target ROAS is great for ecommerce businesses where goals are revenue-based.
You have high-value transactions. This PPC bidding strategy can be especially effective for high-revenue transactions or a high volume of conversions.
Proper conversion tracking is set up. Similar to Target CPA bidding, this strategy requires accurate conversion tracking. As long as tracking is accurate and validated, this can be a good choice for your campaigns.

The Target ROAS bid strategy is a great choice when you need to balance the cost of your PPC campaigns versus the revenue coming in.

Ultimately, it helps generate more revenue for every dollar spent.

For example, you have an online store that sells running shoes. Your average order value is $150, and you aim to have a 300% ROAS.

That means for every $1 you spend, you get back $3 in revenue. By setting a Target ROAS, Google optimizes campaign bids to focus on the specific conversions that will likely meet or exceed that 300% ROAS goal.

As your campaigns gain more historical sales data, you’ll notice that more of your dollars are going to those higher revenue-generating sales because of the goal setting.

With Target ROAS settings, remember that if you have an overall goal of 300% ROAS, that doesn’t mean every campaign you set should have that 300% goal.

When it comes to search campaigns, brand terms and non-brand terms are not created equal. Brand terms will likely have the highest ROAS because someone is actively searching for your brand, signaling a higher likelihood of purchase.

Non-brand terms, on the other hand, will be more competitive and costly, and likely won’t have the same ROAS as brand terms. So, be sure to set your ROAS goals at the campaign level accordingly.

Maximize Conversions Bidding

Maximize Conversions automatically sets bids to help you get the most conversions within your budget. 

This strategy aims at spending your entire campaign budget without having any ROAS or CPA limitations.

Maximize Conversions can be an ideal bid strategy if:

You have more budget flexibility. As mentioned above, this strategy is not constrained by CPA or ROAS targets. If you’re looking to drive as many conversions as possible and have the budget to do so, this strategy is right for you.
You’re looking for quick wins. If you just launched a new product and conversion expectations are high, this is an ideal strategy.
A broader audience is targeted. This strategy can be effective with a broader audience because there’s more of a likelihood for your ads to show as the system learns what a valuable customer looks like.

For example, your company just launched a new fitness app and needs to acquire users quickly.

By having a flexible budget, Maximize Conversions is chosen to drive as many downloads and signups as possible. Google will automatically adjust those bids to find the users most likely to convert.

This bid strategy is not for the faint of heart, especially for advertisers who have limited budgets or need to stay within certain performance constraints.

Maximize Conversion Value Bidding

Similar to Maximize Conversions, the Maximize Conversion Value strategy sets bids to help you get the most conversion value within your budget.

This strategy aims to optimize for conversion value while spending your entire campaign budget without having any ROAS or CPA limitations.

Maximize Conversions can be an ideal bid strategy if:

Conversion value is prioritized over volume. This bid strategy is suitable when the goal is to prioritize high-value conversions instead of the volume of conversions.
Campaigns are revenue-focused. Maximize Conversion Value is great when maximizing revenue is important.
Your products have multiple price points. This is an effective bid strategy when you have different products that vary in price. The system will learn to focus on the high-value transactions from users.

For example, you run an online wedding invitations company with higher price points. Your site also sells accessories that cost much less than the invitations.

Using the Maximize Conversion Value bidding strategy helps focus on those high-value transactions, like wedding invitations, to boost your revenue while spending your campaign budget.

As with each bidding strategy, there are some limitations to using the Maximize Conversions (and Value) strategies:

Performance is dependent on campaign budget. If the campaign budget is set too low, it will be difficult for Google Ads to effectively learn and optimize towards high-value conversions.
Less control over specific types of conversions. If you’re measuring multiple conversion types that have values associated, this strategy doesn’t allow you to target the specific conversion types. Its aim is to look at the overall conversion value.
This could lead to inefficiencies in performance metrics. While you may see an increase in revenue, you could also yield higher Cost per Acquisition, especially during more competitive markets.

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide if you have enough budget flexibility to utilize Maximize Conversions (or Value) or need to stay within certain ROAS or CPA constraints.

Read more: How To Get The Most Out Of Max Conversion Value And tROAS Bidding

Maximize Clicks Bidding

The Maximize Clicks bid strategy aims to get as many clicks as possible within your budget.

What’s nice about this strategy is that you can add “ceiling” bid limits for Google to not go over within the auction process.

Maximize Clicks is ideal for your campaigns if:

You’re looking to increase website traffic. If you’re less focused on conversion and looking to get as much traffic as possible, this strategy is for you.
You’re running Top-of-Funnel (TOF) or Middle-of-Funnel (MOF) campaigns. Similar to the above, if your campaign goal is more about awareness generation and buyer consideration, Maximize Clicks is a great place to start.
You’re setting up new campaigns with no history. Because many of the conversion-based bid strategies require historical data, setting campaigns to Maximize Clicks with a suitable maximum CPC limit can really help your campaigns take off quickly.

For example, you started a recipe blog website and just published a new guide on healthy swaps in your kitchen. Your primary goal is to drive as much traffic to that page as possible within your given budget.

Using the Maximize Clicks bid strategy will then aim to get you as many clicks to your site within that budget for the keywords you’re bidding on. Just remember to set a maximum CPC if you’re in a competitive industry!

Target Impression Share Bidding

This next PPC bidding strategy focuses mainly on the visibility of your campaigns, whereas the others focus on conversion or click-based outcomes.

Target Impression Share automatically sets bids to help ensure your ads achieve a specific impression share on the search results page. 

You can choose your goal to show your ads:

At the absolute top of the page.
On the top of the page.
Anywhere on the page of the search results.

Using the Target Impression Share strategy can help boost your campaigns if:

Brand awareness is top of mind. If the campaign’s main goal is maintaining a solid presence on Google or increasing visibility for your brand, this strategy is for you.
You’re in a highly competitive market. In markets where competition is high and visibility to your brand is crucial.
You’re running top-of-funnel keywords. Similar to brand awareness, you may be targeting keywords that aren’t conversion-focused and want your brand to be top of mind when users first start their purchase journey.

For example, you just launched a new fashion brand and want to ensure your ads are visible in a highly competitive space.

Your goal is to appear at the top of the Google search results page for keywords like “summer fashion trends” or “stylish summer outfits for women.” By choosing Target Impression Share, you can choose how often you’re willing to appear at the top of the page for the keywords you’re bidding on.

Keep in mind that by using this bid strategy, you may see higher-than-average CPCs. That’s because you’re paying extra for that coveted top space on the search results page.

Another example is setting your brand campaign on Target Impression Share to ensure your core brand terms are always covered.

Results have been mixed in my experience, as sometimes I’ll just see inflated CPCs on terms where I would’ve seen lower CPCs utilizing Maximize Conversions or Maximize Clicks.

What About Manual Bidding?

Manual CPC bidding is still around – for now.

Google has not indicated that it is removing this option, but we can never guarantee that it will always be there.

As the name says, Manual CPC bidding means you set the maximum CPCs you’re willing to pay. They can be set at the campaign, ad group, or keyword level.

The reason many have transformed their PPC bidding strategies to more AI-powered strategies from Google is that human real-time bidding simply can’t keep up with machine learning.

There are still use cases for brands who need to use Manual CPC and continue to use it to this day. Especially for brands that don’t have conversion data or are running small accounts, some just opt into this model for managing their Google Ads campaigns.

Read more: Do Manual Adjustments Still Make Sense With Automated Bidding?

Choose The Right Strategy For Your Specific Goals

So, there you have it – a breakdown of Google Ads’ AI-powered bid strategies and when to use them.

Remember, the key to PPC success is not just picking any strategy but choosing the right one for your specific goals and campaign needs.

Google’s machine learning outputs are usually the direct result of the inputs from the advertisers, so choose accordingly. And remember, they can be changed over time! Just make sure that your changes align with the overall business goals.

By understanding these strategies, you can make smarter decisions and get the most out of your PPC budget. Happy optimizing!

More resources: 

Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

Wix announced a new Figma Plugin that enables designers to import Figma designs directly into Wix Studio and dramatically speed up site creation from the design stage to a functioning website.

Figma Design Tool

Figma is a SaaS (software as a service) collaborative design tool that allows designers, teams and clients to prototype designs, in this case website designs.

Figma enables designers, developers and other stakeholders to create, share, and test digital designs for websites (and other digital experiences). Its collaborative features streamline the back and forth of design, feedback and decision-making.

The Wix Figma Plugin allows a designer or design agency to export those designs into Wix Studio where it can then be realized into an actual functional website.

Wix Figma Plugin

Gali Erez, Head of Wix Studio offered the following statement:

“We are thrilled to present the new plugin to the design community… With its innovative features and intuitive interface the plugin empowers users to craft captivating designs, and swiftly streamline the path from design to production. This efficiency enhances their design and development experience and ultimately drives conversions.”

Wix is a SaaS website builder platform that makes it easy for anyone to create attractive high performance websites for virtually any industry, from ecommerce to online services. The announcement of Figma plugin is yet another innovation that makes Wix one of the most attractive platforms for creating websites.

Figma last month updated users about the imminent rollout of the Wix plugin, which generated a lot of excitement.

Typical comments:

“Awaiting its public release, very excited.”

“So excited for this plugin to come out. I am glad it’s coming out next month it’ll change the game in web design.”

Read more about the new Wix Figma Plugin:

https://www.wix.com/studio/figmatowixstudio

Featured Image by Shutterstock/ViDI Studio

OpenAI acquired a technology from Rockset that will enable the creation of new products, real-time data analysis, and recommendation systems, possibly signaling a new phase for OpenAI that could change the face of search marketing in the near future.

What Is Rockset And Why It’s Important

Rockset describes its technology as a Hybrid Search, a type of multi-faceted approach to search (integrating vector search, text search and metadata filtering) to retrieve documents that can augment the generation process in RAG systems. RAG is a technique that combines search with generative AI that is intended to create more factually accurate and contextually relevant results. It’s a technology that plays a role in BING’s AI search and Google’s AI Overviews.

Rockset’s research paper about the Rockset Hybrid Search Architecture notes:

“All vector search is becoming hybrid search as it drives the most relevant, real-time application experiences. Hybrid search involves incorporating vector search and textsearch as well as metadata filtering, all in a single query. Hybrid search is used in search, recommendations and retrieval augmented generation (RAG) applications.

…Rockset is designed and optimized to ingest data in real time, index different data types and run retrieval and ranking algorithms.”

What makes Rockset’s hybrid search important is that it allows the indexing and use of multiple data types (vectors, text, geospatial data about objects & events), including real-time data use. That powerful flexibility allows the technology to interact with different kinds of data that can be used for in-house and consumer-facing applications related to contextually relevant product recommendations, customer segmentation and analysis for targeted marketing campaigns, personalization, personalized content aggregation, location-based recommendations (restaurants, services, etc.) and in applications that increase user engagement (Rockset lists numerous case studies of how their technology is used).

OpenAI’s announcement explained:

“AI has the opportunity to transform how people and organizations leverage their own data. That’s why we’ve acquired Rockset, a leading real-time analytics database that provides world-class data indexing and querying capabilities.

Rockset enables users, developers, and enterprises to better leverage their own data and access real-time information as they use AI products and build more intelligent applications.

…Rockset’s infrastructure empowers companies to transform their data into actionable intelligence. We’re excited to bring these benefits to our customers…”

OpenAI’s announcement also explains that they intend to integrate Rockset’s technology into their own retrieval infrastructure.

At this point we know the transformative quality of hybrid search and the possibilities but OpenAI is at this point only offering general ideas of how this will translate into APIs and products that companies and individuals can create and use.

The official announcement of the acquisition from Rockset, penned by one of the cofounders, offered these clues:

“We are thrilled to join the OpenAI team and bring our technology and expertise to building safe and beneficial AGI.

…Advanced retrieval infrastructure like Rockset will make AI apps more powerful and useful. With this acquisition, what we’ve developed over the years will help make AI accessible to all in a safe and beneficial way.

Rockset will become part of OpenAI and power the retrieval infrastructure backing OpenAI’s product suite. We’ll be helping OpenAI solve the hard database problems that AI apps face at massive scale.”

What Exactly Does The Acquisition Mean?

Duane Forrester, formerly of Bing Search and Yext (LinkedIn profile), shared his thoughts:

“Sam Altman has stated openly a couple times that they’re not chasing Google. I get the impression he’s not really keen on being seen as a search engine. More like they want to redefine the meaning of the phrase “search engine”. Reinvent the category and outpace Google that way. And Rockset could be a useful piece in that approach.

Add in Apple is about to make “ChatGPT” a mainstream thing with consumers when they launch the updated Siri this Fall, and we could very easily see query starts migrate away from traditional search engine boxes. Started with TikTok/social, now moving to ai-assistants.”

Another approach, which could impact SEO, is that OpenAI could create a product based on an API that can be used by companies to power in-house and consumer facing applications. With that approach, OpenAI provides the infrastructure (like they currently do with ChatGPT and foundation models) and let the world innovate all over the place with OpenAI at the center (as it currently does) as the infrastructure.

I asked Duane about that scenario and he agreed but also remained open to an even wider range of possibilities:

“Absolutely, a definite possibility. As I’ve been approaching this topic, I’ve had to go up a level. Or conceptually switch my thinking. Search is, at its heart, information retrieval. So if I go down the IR path, how could one reinvent  “search” with today’s systems and structures that redefine how information retrieval happens?

This is also – it should be noted- a description for the next-gen advanced site search.  They could literally take over site search across a wide range of mid-to-enterprise level companies. It’s easily as advanced as the currently most advanced site-search systems. Likely more advanced if they launch it. So ultimately, this could herald a change to consumer search (IR) and site-search-based systems.

Expanding from that, apps, as they allude to.  So I can see their direction here.”

Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures (Poshmark, Roku, Uber) speculated on Twitter about how this acquisition may transform OpenAI:

“This is speculation but I imagine Rockset will power all their enterprise search offerings to compete with Glean and / or a consumer search offering to compete with Perplexity / Google. Permissioning capabilities of Rockset make me think more the former than latter”

Others on Twitter offered their take on how this will affect the future of AI:

“I doubt OpenAI will jump into the enterprise search fray. It’s just far too challenging and something that Microsoft and Google are best positioned to go after.

This is a play to accelerate agentic behaviors and make deep experts within the enterprise. You might argue it’s the same thing an enterprise search but taking an agent first approach is much more inline with the OpenAI mission.”

A Consequential Development For OpenAI And Beyond

The acquisition of Rockset may prove to be the foundation of one of the most consequential changes to how businesses use and deploy AI, which in turn, like many other technological developments, could also have an effect on the business of digital marketing.

Read how Rockset customers power recommendation systems, real-time personalization, real-time analytics, and other applications:

Featured Case Studies

Read the official Rockset announcement:

OpenAI Acquires Rockset

Read the official OpenAI announcement:

OpenAI acquires RocksetEnhancing our retrieval infrastructure to make AI more helpful

Read the original Rockset research paper:

Rockset Hybrid Search Architecture (PDF)

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Iconic Bestiary

Google updated the structured data guidance on a beta carousels structured data that is intended for users in the European Economic Area, which is related to Google’s preparations for the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The new guidance covers how to use this structured data on summary or category pages and for paginated categories.

Carousel (Beta) Rich Results For Aggregators & Suppliers

The Carousel (Beta) rich results is intended for sites about travel, local, and for shopping queries shown to users in the EEA. Google search users can scroll horizontally across tiles that contain information specific to the context of the search. Sites that use this new structured data become eligible to be featured in the new carousel rich results.

The original announcement from February 2024 explained that display for shopping queries will at first be limited to Czechia, France, Germany and the UK.

Updated Documentation

The new documentation consists of a new three sentence paragraph that is added to the current Structured data carousels (beta) documentation.

This is the new guidance that was added to the documentation:

“Mark up all items that are on the summary or category page. For paginated categories, add an ItemList to each subsequent page and include the entities that are listed on that page. For infinite scroll, focus on marking up the entities that are initially loaded in the viewport.”

The changelog has a notation that explains the reason for the update:

“Marking up categories with many items for structured data carousels (beta)

What: Added guidance on how to mark up categories with many items to the structured data carousels (beta).

Why: We received a question through our feedback button about how to implement this markup for categories with many items, such as paginated content or infinite scroll.”

Read the updated documentation:

Structured data carousels (beta) – Guidelines

Featured Image by Shutterstock/JHVEPhoto

By Sean Tinney June 12, 2024

If you have a US customer base, it’s important to know that over three quarters of them will celebrate the 4th of July. In addition to outdoor celebrations, it’s a key date for summer sales and promotions. 

Keep reading as I break down the art of a compelling, festive 4th of July email. I’ll go over the types of emails, ideas to put into practice, where to get great templates, and impactful 4th of July email subject lines.

Types of 4th of July emails

Before we dive into ideas, tips, and resources, identify which of these types of Independence Day emails best suits your audience.

Celebrations and greetings

Wishing your subscribers a safe, joyous holiday is one way to build a stronger relationship.

Sales and promotions

After Memorial Day, the 4th of July is the top warm-weather holiday where shoppers are hunting for deals.

Contests and activities

Some people find winning or earning a prize more trustworthy than they do the word FREE. Other subscribers simply love activities relevant to their strengths and interests.

On-theme product suggestions

Holiday celebrations are a very convenient way to put the spotlight on products that don’t always get the most attention.

8 cool ideas for your 4th of July email campaigns

Stand out in crowded inboxes this Independence Day with one of these eight ideas.

1. Fireworks picture contest

Nearly half of all people celebrating Independence Day include fireworks in the festivities. Encourage customers to showcase their photography skills and artistic vision by capturing mesmerizing fireworks and tagging your business in their best social media shots.

As the skies ignite with vivid colors and explosive beauty, this contest offers a unique opportunity for your brand to engage with customers and generate buzz around your products or services. 

You can have a prize for the photo that gets the most likes.

2. Red, white, and blue product collection

If you’ve got red, white, and blue products, bundle them up at a discount. It can increase sales, reduce surplus stock, and streamline fulfillment at the same time.

Best of all, your customers will instantly recognize the value. 

3. 4th of July quiz

Create an interactive email by quizzing your audience on how well they know their American history.

Here’s a nice example from RoadScholar:

4. Support a cause this Independence Day

Highlight your brand’s commitment to a specific cause or charity aligned with patriotic values. 

Offer a percentage of your sales during the 4th of July period to support that cause. Inform customers that by choosing your product or service, they are not only celebrating but also making a positive impact on their community or the nation.

5. Keep it simple and patriotic 

Holiday greetings, including the 4th of July, help humanize your business and maintain customer engagement.

Here’s an example from TradeGecko:

6. 4th of July themed products

Just highlight red, white, and blue products.

Brit+Co does just that in their 4th of July email:

7. Online scavenger hunt

Who doesn’t love a good game? 

Play to the inner child of your audience by having some fun with your 4th of July email campaign. Provide some clues in your email and send your audience to your website to find them.

Example: Add historic pictures throughout your blog. Whoever finds all the images wins a prize. 

8. Send your email before or after July 4th

Your subscribers may not be paying close attention to their inboxes on July 4th. Consider sending your holiday email before or after the holiday when they’re more likely to open it. This can give you an edge over the competition. 

Considering a post-holiday message? You might want to try a subject line like, “We’re Still Celebrating July 4th: Buy One, Get One Free Cupcakes!”

Or, if you want to get a head start, try a subject line like, “Ready for this early July 4th deal?”

4th of July email examples and tips 

Infusing your emails with patriotic elements sends a clear message to your audience. 

Here are some ideas on how to leave a lasting impression on your subscribers as you celebrate the land of the free and the home of the brave!

4th of July email subject line tips

Here are four tips for writing eye-catching subject lines for your July 4th emails:

Use time-sensitive words, like “July 4th” or “Fourth of July”.

Create a sense of FOMO — or fear of missing out — with your subject line. This is one of the most effective psychological drivers of email opens.

Referencing specific dates in your subject lines creates a sense of urgency with your subscribers, and ultimately encourages more subscribers to open your emails.

Mention how long your promotion is running. Having a week-long sale? Be sure to mention it. This tells subscribers how long they can access the deal and entices them to act fast.

4th of July email subject line examples

This Week Only: Hot July 4th Sales! 

The 4th of July continues with 60% off!

Sales That Even Uncle Sam Would Want

50% off Patriotic Tanks & Tees for July 4th!

4th of July email template

Unlock the true spirit of the 4th of July in your email campaigns with captivating and visually striking email designs.

If you’re not a designer, use an email template. You can purchase a 4th of July email template from companies such as BEE Free or Stripo. 

I recommend trying the Independence Day email templates in AWeber.

4th of July images

You don’t need to create a whole new email template. Adding holiday-inspired images like a 4th of July email banner or GIF is perfect.

Email banners

I love this 4th of July email banner example from Kindlendar. They do a great job incorporating the summer fun of an Independence Day holiday into their email banner.

Create your own email banner in do-it-yourself graphic design tools like Canva. It’s easy to use and will look like you paid a design professional.

And if AWeber is your email provider, you can actually design in Canva within your email builder. Creating a memorable 4th of July email doesn’t get much easier.

GIFs

Check out this simple yet effective use of a GIF in UBERs email. The fireworks are a nice creative touch that draws your attention to the CTA.

Looking for your own 4th of July GIFs? Here are a few that our design team created. Feel free to use them in your emails.

Try a custom 4th of July email signature

Celebrate Independence Day in your emails by adding a touch of patriotic flair to your signature. 

Include a small American flag icon or a festive red, white, and blue banner that showcases your holiday spirit.

 Boost your brand with an eye-catching 4th of July email

Sending holiday-themed emails keeps your brand relevant. With the tips and ideas we learned today, they can achieve even more. 

Are you sending any 4th of July emails to your subscribers? Tell us about it in the comments below!

Anthropic announced new features that will significantly enhance Claude’s functionality to make it more collaborative, easier to use and speed up workflows. The new functionalities enable teams to ground Claude with the documentation needed to complete tasks, brainstorm, and be able to get things done faster with AI.

Three Major Steps Forward

The improvements that Anthropic is introducing cover three areas:

1. Projects: A place to organize chats and knowledge.

2. Sharing: Better collaboration with teams

3. Artifacts: This has already rolled out, it’s a collaborative workspace for creating and editing content, coding, and designing with Claude in real-time.

1. Projects

Anthropic’s Projects is a collaborative space where team members can share curated chats and knowledge together in order to enable better decisions and brainstorming. All Claude.AI Pro and Team subscribers will have access to Projects.

Each project has a 200K context window for documents, code and other data that can be used to improve output.

According to Anthropic:

“Projects allow you to ground Claude’s outputs in your internal knowledge—be it style guides, codebases, interview transcripts, or past work. This added context enables Claude to provide expert assistance across tasks, from writing emails like your marketing team to writing SQL queries like a data analyst. With Projects, you can get started much faster and extend your skills further for any task.”

With Projects, a team can upload documents that provide the knowledge necessary for completing tasks, such as legal documentation, course material, historical financial reports and economic indicators, virtually any documentation that Claude can use for analysis or content creation.

2. Sharing

This is a way for team members to share relevant and important chats with each other through a shared activity feed. Anthropic envisions Sharing as especially useful for creative projects, research, and product development. For example, it’s a way to share brain-storming sessions and for web designers and other stakeholders to share ideas and work together with Claude to complete projects.

3. Artifacts

Artifacts is a way to create together with Claude, with a user interface that shows the chat on one side and the output on the other.

Anthropic shares five examples of how Artifacts can be used:

“1. Software Development: Programmers can use Artifacts to collaboratively write and debug code. Claude can help generate code snippets and provide real-time explanations.

2. Graphic Design: Designers can work with Claude to create and refine SVG graphics for logos or illustrations, iterating on designs in real-time.

3. Marketing: Content creators can use Artifacts to draft and edit marketing copy. Claude can suggest improvements and generate alternative versions side-by-side.

4. Data Analysis: Data scientists can collaborate with Claude to write and optimize SQL queries, visualizing data in charts and trendlines, and refining analyses together.

5. UX/UI Design: Designers can work with Claude to prototype website layouts using HTML and CSS, previewing changes instantly in the Artifacts window.”

This is Just The Beginning

Anthropic shared that they will be rolling out additional features such as integrations with popular third-party apps, further extending Claude for AI-assisted collaboration.

Read more from Anthropic’s announcement.

Collaborate with Claude on Projects

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Photo For Everything

The search landscape is undergoing a seismic shift, and Reddit is at the epicenter. Google’s Helpful Content Update and its $60 million deal with Reddit, coupled with OpenAI’s partnership, have catapulted Reddit’s real-time content to unprecedented heights. 

Watch our insightful webinar on-demand and see us explore the newfound importance of Reddit in the digital marketing landscape. Learn how these changes make Reddit an essential platform for getting your brand and content in front of evolving search audiences.

You’ll hear:

The evolution of Reddit as a major influencer on SERPS over the years.
The impact of recent changes and partnerships on Reddit’s place in search.
A comprehensive look at Reddit, how it works, and how to approach it.
Unique engagement opportunities presented by Reddit.

With our very own Brent Csutoras, a Reddit expert with over 18 years of experience on the platform, we delved into the intricacies of Reddit’s communities, known as Subreddits, and how to use their power without compromising authenticity or violating community guidelines in the age of AI-driven search experiences. We were joined by Leah Smith and Chris Khosrovani from Reddit too, and their insights were invaluable.

Check out this on-demand webinar and learn the ways to leverage Reddit for your brand’s success.

View the slides from the presentation below, or watch the full webinar for all the details.

Google announced an update to the advertising section within Google Analytics 4 (GA4).

The enhancement aims to clarify and align user counts eligible for remarketing and ad personalization.

Under the change, advertisers can now quickly view the size of their “Advertising Segments” within GA4’s interface.

These segments represent the pool of users whose data can be leveraged for remarketing campaigns and personalized ad targeting through products like Google Ads.

Improved Synchronization For Unified Insights

Previously, there could be discrepancies between the user counts shown as eligible for advertising use cases in GA4 and the Google Ads Audience Manager.

With this update, Google says the numbers will be fully aligned, allowing marketers to confidently make data-driven advertising decisions.

We’ve enhanced the Advertising section of Google Analytics 4! Now you can quickly see the size of your Advertising Segments – these are the users eligible for remarketing and ads personalization in Google Ads.

How will this update help you? These numbers are now aligned with…

— Google Analytics (@googleanalytics) June 24, 2024

Expanding Advertising Segment Visibility

Along with the alignment fix, the update expands visibility into advertising segment sizes within the GA4 interface.

A new “Advertising segments” panel under the “Advertising” section reports the number of users GA4 collects and sends to ad products for personalization.

An “advertising segment” is a list of GA4 users synchronized with Google advertising products for remarketing and personalized ad targeting purposes.

Segment sizes can vary based on targeting requirements for different ad networks.

Why SEJ Cares

This update from Google addresses a key pain point for advertisers utilizing GA4 and Google Ads.

Full alignment between advertising audience sizes across products eliminates confusion and enables more data-driven strategies.

The added transparency into advertising segment sizes directly in GA4 is also a welcomed upgrade.

How This Can Help You

With aligned user counts, advertisers can plan and forecast remarketing campaigns with greater precision using GA4 data.

This unified view means you can make media investment decisions based on accurate reach projections.

Additionally, the new advertising segments panel provides extra context about the scope of your audiences for ad personalization.

This visibility allows for more informed strategies tailored to your specific segment sizes.

Featured Image: Lightspring/Shutterstock

Now, what about the content of the actual calls? Well, you can use that, too.

Let dive into how you can use call analysis to further inform your strategy.

How To Analyze Your Call Data

The insights you collect from customer phone interactions can have a game-changing impact on your business.

But you want to make sure the effort required to dig into those calls is worth it for your team.

This is where AI and machine learning technology can be utilized effectively to streamline your process and save time.

For example, Conversation Intelligence is an AI-powered tool by CallRail that constantly records, transcribes, and analyzes each inbound and outbound call.

With transcriptions that have near-human level accuracy, Conversation Intelligence goes a step further by spotting keywords, tagging calls automatically, and qualifying leads with powerful automation rules.

Plus, with multi-conversation insights, you can easily transform countless conversations into actionable insights at scale.

Not only does this analysis unlock deeper insights to help you catch customer trends and spot long-term shifts, but it also tells you what you should focus on in your content.

2. Website Form Submissions

Another effective way to gather essential audience insights is through website form tracking.

Online forms allow you to collect valuable data directly from users, such as their contact information, preferences, and interests.

When this data is paired with deeper analytics, you can gain a clear understanding of what drives the most qualified leads for your business.

With Form Tracking, you can find out exactly which ad or keyword made someone click “submit” on your form.

Launched last year by CallRail, this tool allows you to build custom forms or integrate existing ones, pairing the data with inbound call conversions for a holistic view of your marketing efforts.

Combining Call Tracking And Form Tracking

Leads often connect with businesses through multiple channels, so focusing on just one source isn’t really enough.

By using Call Tracking and Form Tracking together, you get a comprehensive overview of your leads’ entire customer journey.

Both of these tools essentially work by installing a single line of JavaScript code on your site, which captures and relays information about each of your leads back to CallRail.

You can easily evaluate the various campaigns that you’re running, like paid ads, social media posts, email nurture campaigns, etc. – all of which could be opportunities to incorporate tracking numbers and links to your forms.

Using both a tracking number and a form tracking link gives your leads the option to choose how they prefer to contact your business.

And as they reach out, you’ll be able to measure which campaigns and which conversion type – calls or forms – is getting the best results.

3. Customer Feedback & Surveys

If you really want a deep dive into the minds of your customers, surveys are an incredibly effective way to get feedback directly from the source.

Surveys allow you to ask your users targeted questions and receive precise answers about their preferences, pain points, and expectations.

You can then leverage this comprehensive data to guide your marketing strategy and fill any content gaps you may have.

Discover the type of content your customers prefer, the topics they are most interested in, and how they like to consume information.

Once they point out areas where they feel your content is lacking or what they would like to see more of, you can then fill the gaps in your strategy to give them what they want.

Integrating Customer Feedback Into Your Content

Understanding your audience can help you tailor your content to better meet their needs and preferences.

Here are some tips for how you can effectively integrate customer feedback into your content creation process:

Create a Feedback Loop: Ask your audience to rate the usefulness, quality, and relevance of your content to gain a clear picture of where you can improve. Then establish a system where their feedback continuously informs your content. Regularly conduct surveys and update your strategy based on the latest insights.
Prioritize High-Impact Content: Identify the topics and formats that resonate most with your audience and prioritize them in your content calendar. For example, if customers indicate a preference for video tutorials over written guides, focus more on creating video content. This ensures that you’re always aligned with what your audience finds most valuable.
Test and Iterate: After publishing content based on customer feedback, monitor its performance to see if it meets the intended goals. Use analytics to track engagement, shares, and other metrics. Be prepared to refine your content based on ongoing feedback and performance data.
Communicate Changes: Let your audience know that their feedback has been heard and implemented. This not only builds trust but also encourages more customers to participate in future surveys.

Unlock Higher Search Rankings With CallRail’s Data Solutions

Google is constantly changing its algorithms to produce higher quality search results for users, which presents numerous challenges for marketers and website owners.

Between the upcoming phase-out of third-party cookies and the recent core update, the search engine is cracking down heavily on content it deems as unhelpful.

That’s why it’s time to take a user-first approach to your content strategy.

By leveraging first- and zero-party data through methods like call tracking, form submissions, and customer surveys, you can create high-quality, relevant content that meets your audience’s needs and boosts your Google rankings.

CallRail’s suite of tools makes it easier to gather and analyze this data, helping you refine your marketing strategy and drive sustainable growth.

Ready to see the impact for yourself?

Try CallRail free for 14 days and start transforming your data into actionable strategies for higher ranking content.