Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ECOMMERCE
MARKETING
Author Profile
Sam Mallikarjunan
Sam is the author of the book “How to Sell Better Than
Amazon” (yes - it’s ironically available on Amazon) and
the Head of Ecommerce Marketing @ HubSpot. Feel free
to connect with him if you have comments or questions
on this report specifically or ecommerce marketing in
general!
Expert Analysis By
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
CONTENTS
1. Inbound Marketing Adoption
2. Blogging
3. Company Focus & Priorities
4. Customer Segmentation
5. Customer Education
6. Marketing Spend
7. Visits and Customer Sources
8. Personalization
9. Shopping Cart Insights
10. Cart Nurturing
11. Survey Methodology
5 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Introduction
Welcome to HubSpot’s first annual State of
Ecommerce Marketing Report.
www.Hubspot.com
6 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
This year, HubSpot is also releasing the results of our first State of
Ecommerce Marketing report, drilling down more specifically into the multi-
trillion dollar world of ecommerce marketers. We expanded the survey far
beyond HubSpot’s ecommerce customers (with only 5% of respondents
reporting that they use HubSpot’s ecommerce marketing software), and the
results are very interesting.
Some interesting conclusions from the data are less encouraging than
others. Ecommerce marketers as a whole are still lagging behind B2B
marketers in adopting inbound practices like social media or blogging.
Ecommerce marketers as a whole are still not measuring basic metrics
like shopping cart abandonment rates, much less actively engaging those
customers to bring them back with personalized experiences.
What is encouraging is the data from marketers who are measuring and
marketing in a customer-centric way. Marketers who focus on creating
customer-centric experiences are more likely to see a Return On Investment
(ROI) from their inbound marketing activities, and marketers who choose
to use content over coupons also see a higher ROI. There are some other
interesting pieces of data, such as the fact that a customer abandoning a
shopping cart once may not be a bad thing like we always assume - and
may in fact lead to higher spending when marketed to appropriately.
www.Hubspot.com
7 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Since 2006, inbound marketing has been the most effective marketing
method for doing business online. Instead of the old outbound marketing
methods of buying ads, buying email lists, and paying for leads, inbound
marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward
your company and product, where they naturally want to be. By aligning
the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract
inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time.
www.Hubspot.com
8 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
www.Hubspot.com
9 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 55% of ecommerce businesses invest in inbound marketing, and 22% of respondents
don’t know if they do inbound marketing at all.
60%
55%
50%
40%
30%
22%
20%
10%
0%
Implements
Inbound
Marke:ng
Does
Not
Implement
Inbound
Marke:ng
Expert Analysis: 23% of respondents not knowing if they do inbound marketing or not
is not too surprising, given how relatively new the methodology is (much less the term to
describe it). It’s encouraging to see 55% of respondents self-identifying as using inbound
marketing methodologies.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
10 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
70%
60%
60%
54%
50%
40%
30%
24%
21%
20%
10%
0%
B2B
B2C
Implements
Inbound
Marke=ng
Does
Not
Implement
Inbound
Marke=ng
Expert Analysis: B2B companies continue to adopt inbound marketing at a slightly high-
er rate than B2C companies. This has stayed constant over the last several years. It may
be due in part to the economic contractions that affected B2B companies more heavily
than B2C companies in the past few years when inbound marketing was first being de-
veloped as a cohesive methodology. As competition in B2C ecommerce increases dra-
matically, adoption of inbound marketing methodologies is growing as well.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
11 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Only 19% of companies with more than $50MM in annual revenue are using in-
bound marketing.
45%
39%
40%
35%
30%
30%
25%
25%
22%
19%
18%
20%
17%
15%
14%
11%
10%
5%
5%
0%
0
-‐
$100,000
$100,001
-‐
$1,000,001
-‐
$10,000,001
-‐
Over
$50,000,000
$1,000,000
$10,000,000
$50,000,000
Expert Analysis: Large businesses have lagged in adopting inbound marketing, usually
because control of the decision-making process is more decentralized and they’re less
likely to make big changes quickly.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
12 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Only 32% of companies with more than 50 employees are doing inbound market-
ing.
45%
40%
40%
35%
30%
25%
22%
20%
15%
15%
11%
10%
6%
6%
5%
0%
1
-‐
5
6
-‐
25
26
-‐
50
51
-‐
200
201
-‐
500
More
than
500
Implements
Inbound
Marke<ng
Expert Analysis: With more cooks in the kitchen, the decision to adopt a disruptive
marketing methodology like inbound takes more time and has more opportunities to get
killed by the stakeholders. As with most “new” things, smaller and more agile companies
are more likely to adopt them.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
13 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Blogging
Adoption by marketers.
33%
67%
Expert Analysis: Blogging is gaining rapid adoption in ecommerce, with fewer firms able
to grow sales while ignoring it entirely.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
14 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 47% of marketers at ecommerce companies blog at least once a week, with 14%
of marketers blogging at least once every day.
40%
35% 33%
30%
25%
20%
20%
14%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Once
a
day
Once
a
week
Once
a
month
Blogging
Frequency
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
15 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 64% of B2B inbound commerce companies blog at least once a week, while 71%
of B2C inbound commerce companies blog at least once a week.
80%
71%
70%
64%
66%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
B2B
B2C
Both
Invests
in
Blogging
Expert Analysis: B2C ecommerce companies are adopting blogging at a slightly faster
rate, possibly because B2B ecommerce firms can rely more heavily on sales reps and
account managers to educate prospects and nurture them through the initial buying cy-
cle.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
16 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Companies that describe themselves as “customer focused” are 24% more likely to
blog at least once a week than companies that describe themselves as “sales focused”.
80% 75%
70%
60%
60%
50%
40%
40%
30% 25%
20%
10%
0%
Sales
focused
Customer
focused
Invests
in
Blogging
Does
Not
Invest
in
Blogging
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
17 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 72% of people who saw ROI from inbound marketing blog at least once a week,
and people who blog are 155% more likely to see ROI from inbound marketing.
28%
72%
Expert Analysis: With blogging being such a fundamental part of inbound marketing,
those who focus exclusively on other aspects of inbound marketing (such as On-Page
SEO) without investing in blogging are less likely to see an ROI. In addition, blogging at
least once a week dramatically increases the value that survey respondents report from
inbound marketing as a whole.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
18 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Companies that are focused on increasing customer life time value are 216% more
likely to invest in blogging. 78% of ecommerce companies are focused on increasing
customer LTV and are investing in blogging.
90%
78%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
22%
20%
10%
0%
Invests
in
Blogging
Does
Not
Invest
in
Blogging
Expert Analysis: Ecommerce companies that are focused on growing customer life time
value in addition to new customer acquisition are investing more heavily in blogging than
companies focused primarily on new customer acquisition. These companies tend to use
blog content in marketing automation to re-engage contacts and up-sell/cross-sell/re-sell
items with educational content before using discount or coupon incentives.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
19 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 69% of companies whose major source of customers was from organic & direct
traffic blog at least once a week.
80%
69%
70%
60%
50%
40%
31%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Invests
in
Blogging
Does
Not
Invest
in
Blogging
Expert Analysis: In addition to more traffic from organic search, ecommerce firms that
invest heavily (meaning at least one original blog article per week) tend to see more sales
from organic and direct traffic. Blogging is becoming a more indispensable part of an
organic search engine optimization strategy.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
20 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
8%
20%
25%
40%
Expert Analysis: It’s good to see more companies consciously focusing on customer
centricity, although the vague definitions of “customer centricity” and the number of peo-
ple who claim to be customer centric but don’t engage in “customer-centric” activities
(such as using content and marketing automation to increase customer lifetime value or
educate prospective customers) means that people may self-identify as “customer fo-
cused” emotionally without practically being so.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
21 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Customer centric ecommerce companies are 107% more likely to see an ROI from
inbound marketing than sales focused companies.
50%
44%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
21%
21%
20%
15%
9%
10%
5%
0%
Sales
focused
Customer
focused
Product
focused
Marke;ng
focused
Company
Focus
Expert Analysis: A fascinating statistic that dramatically validates the “Customer Cen-
tricity” narrative. Companies that are sales focused, which an earlier statistic affirmed
meant primarily focused on the initial transaction, are significantly less likely to see an
ROI from inbound marketing. It’s still telling, however, that a significant portion of respon-
dents in each category don’t know or aren’t able to tell if they’re getting an ROI from their
marketing. This indicates a lack of access to closed-loop marketing analytics. It’s very
telling that neither sales- nor marketing-focused companies had a majority of respon-
dents say that they saw an ROI from inbound, whereas customer- and product-focused
companies did. Product focused companies are also, in a way, highly customer focused
because of their focus on the end user’s requirements and feedback.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
22 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Very small businesses (less than 50 employees) are 145% more likely to self-iden-
tify as customer centric than large companies (more than 200 employees), which tend to
be more product focused (with 40% of large companies self-identifying as product cen-
tric).
45%
42%
40%
40%
35%
35%
29%
30%
27%
25%
25%
23%
23%
19%
20%
15%
11%
10%
8%
5%
5%
0%
Customer
focused
Product
focused
Sales
focused
Marke=ng
focused
Small
(1
-‐
50)
Medium
(51
-‐
200)
Large
(More
than
200)
Expert Analysis: This data aligns fairly well with what we know about the growth cycles
of ecommerce companies. Small companies frequently have a smaller number of overall
customers and are able to devote more individual attention to customers. Also, smaller
companies are less likely to be able to compete with large firms in acquisition costs and
more likely to invest in customer delightion and retention.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
23 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Companies that focus on SEO and PPC without also investing in blogging are
201% more likely to label proving the ROI from marketing activities as a significant chal-
lenge.
30%
26%
25%
24%
22%
20%
10%
5%
0%
Proving
the
ROI
of
our
marke<ng
Securing
enough
budget
Understanding
my
contacts
ac<vi<es
database
Expert Analysis: On-page SEO without a blogging or content creation component is be-
coming less and less effective each year as search engines weigh fresh, unique, valuable
content more and more. It follows, then, that On-page SEO strategies without a blogging
component are driving less revenue and making it more difficult to demonstrate an ROI.
Similarly, companies that focus on PPC, which has seen an explosion in competition in
the last few years are seeing their cost-of-customer-acquisition (COCA) rise and their ROI
fall. On the contrary, relatively lower competition for audiences through blogging leads to
a lower COCA and higher ROI.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
24 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Companies that self-identify as “sales Focused” and are primarily focused on new
customer acquisition over selling to existing customers are 30% less likely to rate “cus-
tomer happiness” as “very important”.
100%
95%
90%
80%
69%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
26%
20%
10%
4%
0%
Very
important
Somewhat
important
Sales
focused
Customer
focused
Expert Analysis: Companies that aren’t focused on – or aren’t able to – engage in up-
sell/cross-sell/re-sell marketing activities and focus primarily on new customer acquisi-
tion aren’t as concerned with customer happiness, since the happiness of existing cus-
tomers is primarily a factor of LTV. However, these firms may be putting themselves at
risk for negative social proof through negative product reviews or reviews in social media
that might eventually end up impeding new customer acquisition anyways.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
25 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 45% of larger ecommerce businesses calculate the life time value of their custom-
ers.
50%
45%
45%
40%
37%
35%
30%
25%
20%
17%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Small
(1
-‐
50)
Medium
(51
-‐
200)
Large
(More
than
200)
Calculate
LTV
Expert Analysis: This might be due to the fact that, although smaller businesses tend to
self-identify as customer centric more than larger businesses, they lack the resources to
effectively track, calculate, and leverage the LTV of their customers as a marketing met-
ric. The larger a company is, the more likely it is that they can dedicate analytics resourc-
es to calculating customer life time value.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
26 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 96% of businesses that saw ROI from inbound marketing rate raising the lifetime
value of existing customers as a somewhat or very important marketing activity.
4%
26%
69%
Expert Analysis: Inbound marketing can have huge implications for new customer ac-
quisition, but one of the key advantages in building an experience that customizes itself
to the buyer instead of forcing the buyer to adjust to the experience is that customers
remain more loyal and spend more over time – growing LTV.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
27 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Customer Segmentation
Stat: On average, 72% of ecommerce businesses implement some form of customer
segmentation.
Expert Analysis: It’s encouraging to see only 24% of marketers not segmenting their
contacts in some way. On the flip side, it’s discouraging that 24% of marketers still aren’t
segmenting their database in any way. The most popular method of segmentation is
based on product purchase history, which is the easiest since that data is processed in
most shopping cart software. Segmenting based on buyer personas and social media
interactions is more sophisticated and usually requires some kind of specialized contact
management software, so it’s understandably lower.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
28 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Companies that are focused on tracking and increasing customer lifetime value are
790% more likely to segment their customers.
35%
31%
30%
28%
25%
25%
23%
20%
15%
15%
11%
10%
10%
9%
8%
9%
5%
0%
Product
Purchase
Based
on
Buyer
Website
Page
Views
Social
Media
We
don’t
segment
our
History
Personas
InteracCons
customers
Expert Analysis: Companies that are focused on increasing the value of existing cus-
tomers rather than primarily focusing on new customer acquisition get more value from
segmenting their databases to engage in personalized marketing. Buyer persona seg-
mentation actually exceeds segmenting on website page views (which is a more widely
adopted form of behavioral segmentation).
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
29 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Remarketing Channels
Stat: 25% of marketers use email for remarketing to existing customers, making it the
most popular channel followed closely by social media.
13%
25%
11%
12%
24%
Expert Analysis: One surprising finding is that email adoption is so low, even though it
still tops the list. This method has been around for quite a while, so seeing social media
follow so closely is very interesting. It’s encouraging to see so many ecommerce market-
ers using a sophisticated enough integration with their social media channels to follow
and pro-actively engage existing customers in social media.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
30 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Customer Education
Adoption and distribution of pre-transactional con-
versions.
Stat: 58% of ecommerce marketers use educational content for pre-transactional con-
versions.
17% 12%
9%
58%
Expert Analysis: It’s definitely encouraging to see ecommerce marketers relying less on
coupons. It’s also encouraging that only 17% of the respondents report having no con-
version options outside of completing a purchase. Historically, the contacts databases of
most ecommerce companies were filled primarily with existing customers, with very few
contacts converted earlier in the consumer buying cycle and nurtured to make purchas-
es.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
31 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Companies that self-identify as customer focused rather than sales focused are
491% more likely to use educational content than coupons.
80%
70%
70%
63%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
18%
12%
10%
0%
Sales
focused
Customer
focused
Coupons
Educa=onal
Content
*Educational Content includes Guides, Feature Sheets and Aspirational Content
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
32 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Large companies are 25% more likely to use educational content to convert con-
tacts prior to a sale than small companies.
90%
80%
80%
76%
70%
64%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
13%
10%
11%
10%
0%
Small
(1
-‐
50)
Medium
(51
-‐
200)
Large
(More
than
200)
Coupons
EducaEonal
Content
*Educational Content includes Guides, Feature Sheets and Aspirational Content
Expert Analysis: Coupons are a very low barrier-to-entry for pre-transactional content.
It’s built in to most ecommerce shopping cart platforms natively, so it’s not surprising
that smaller companies are more likely to rely on those than educational content – which
takes time to write and often requires design resources that small businesses don’t have
easy access to.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
33 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Businesses that offer educational content on their website are 527% more likely to
see ROI from inbound marketing (IM) than businesses who offer coupons.
80% 76%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
12%
10%
0%
See
ROI
from
Inbound
Marke<ng
Expert Analysis: Although some marketers try to use them this way, coupons aren’t
actually inbound marketing. Therefore, it follows that marketers that don’t have any ed-
ucational pre-transactional content on their site will see a higher ROI. In fact, marketers
who use coupons and no educational content are 150% less likely to see an ROI from
inbound marketing. Coupons can be very beneficial when used during the proper phases
of the buying cycle, but when you rely on coupons to fill the top of your funnel, you’ll only
attract price-sensitive customers. Using coupons instead of content to re-engage exist-
ing customers can actually turn those customers who weren’t price sensitive and make
them that way.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
34 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
8%
10%
42%
20%
3%
Expert Analysis: This is somewhat surprising! Social media posts tend to be more ef-
fective when used in a communicative manner rather than educational due to the limited
amount of time that consumers are exposed to them. Email’s popularity makes sense,
since that’s still the primary way that people digest new information. Ebooks and we-
binars and podcasts are all harder to produce, so their lack of popularity is also under-
standable.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
35 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Marketing Spend
Stat: Only 36% of companies that spend less than $25k/year on marketing see an ROI
from inbound marketing. Companies that spend at least $25k/year on marketing are
178% more likely to say that they saw an ROI from inbound marketing.
100%
90%
2%
2%
20%
80%
8%
70%
68%
60%
50%
40%
8%
7%
39%
30%
10%
20%
36%
10%
0%
Less
than
$25,000
$25,001
-‐
$250,000
$250,001
-‐
$1,000,000
$1,000,001
-‐
$5,000,000
Over
$5,000,000
Sees ROI from Inbound MarkeEng Does Not See ROI from Inbound MarkeEng
Expert Analysis: It’s difficult to imagine a company spending less than $25k/year on
marketing having the resources to implement inbound marketing. Content creation alone
will probably cost at least that much in order to be effective, if only in terms of the salary
required to hire a dedicated marketer. Spending less than $25k, the owner (this group
skews heavily in favor of being very small businesses) likely has to do all the marketing
themselves in addition to running the business, a significant – though not obviously com-
pletely insurmountable – challenge. What’s encouraging is that a relatively small invest-
ment in marketing (from the perspective of slightly larger small businesses and mid-sized
businesses) has a very high likelihood of seeing an ROI from inbound marketing.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
36 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Companies that spend less than $25k/year on marketing are 23% more likely to
rely on coupons than educational content. Larger companies ($5M+/year on marketing)
are 50% more likely to rely on coupons.
100%
90%
80%
48%
6%
27%
70%
11%
60%
8%
50%
40%
30%
59%
9%
24%
20%
7%
10%
2%
0%
Less
than
$25,000
$25,001
-‐
$250,000
$250,001
-‐
$1,000,000
$1,000,001
-‐
$5,000,000
Over
$5,000,000
Expert Analysis: It’s interesting that the extremely small businesses and the larger busi-
nesses share this characteristic. For the small businesses, it’s likely that they don’t have
time or resources to create educational content. For the larger businesses, it’s more likely
just internal resistance to investing in more educational content when they’re already
seeing an ROI. At any rate, the rapid-growth-focused mid-sized companies are much
more likely to invest in educational content.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
37 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Expert Analysis: Ecommerce sites have long relied on organic search as the primary
driver of traffic. PPC’s declining importance is likely a reflection of marketers getting
more sophisticated around attributing customer acquisition costs and the climbing costs
of clicks. It’s extremely surprising to see social media having such a large share of the
traffic. Perhaps it shouldn’t be, with the fantastic success of sites like Pinterest.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
38 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Direct and organic search traffic are the primary drivers of ecommerce customers
with 40% of total customers attributed to those two sources.
20% Referrals
20% PPC
Expert Analysis: Referrals and email both have slightly disproportionate levels of cus-
tomers attributed to them based on the amount of traffic they drive, which is interesting
to see. Also noteworth is the fact that traffic from social media is the most disparate from
the amount of just visitors it drives.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
39 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Personalization
Stat: 65% of businesses are investing in marketing personalization.
40%
37%
36%
35%
30%
30%
27%
25%
20%
15%
11%
10%
10%
8%
7%
5%
0%
Important
Somewhat
Important
Somewhat
Unimportant
Not
Important
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
40 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 74% of businesses who got a majority of their customers from email, rated person-
alized emails as at least somewhat important.
60%
50% 48%
40%
30% 26%
20%
10%
8%
5%
0%
Important
Somewhat
Important
Somewhat
Unimportant
Not
Important
Personalized
Email
Ra0ng
Expert Analysis: It follows that marketers who get lots of value from email would invest
in getting more – and email personalization is the next level of contextual marketing.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
41 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 82% of businesses who got a majority of their customers from direct & organic,
rated personalized product recommendations as at least somewhat important.
50%
45%
45%
40%
37%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
11%
10%
7%
5%
0%
Important
Somewhat
Important
Somewhat
Unimportant
Not
Important
Personalized
Website
Ra1ng
Expert Analysis: This is a little interesting because organic and direct traffic are less
directly controllable channels. That is, you can’t pro-actively email or post to those chan-
nels to attract traffic. So, the emphasis on personalization and conversion optimization
and helping those customers discover more products makes sense.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
42 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
10% 0 – 10%
7% 11 – 20%
21
–
30%
7%
31
–
40%
4%
60%
41
–
50%
3%
3%
51
–
60%
2%
2%
61
–
70%
Don’t know
Expert Analysis: This is an astounding statistic. Shopping cart nurturing is usually the
lowest hanging fruit for ecommerce marketers to rapidly drive more revenue. If you’re not
at least tracking this metric, you need to.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
43 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Of marketers that can track cart abandonment, only 42% of companies are nurtur-
ing abandoned carts. B2C companies are 128% more likely to implement cart nurturing
than B2B Companies.
90%
84%
80%
70%
63%
60%
50%
40% 37%
30%
20% 16%
10%
0%
B2B
B2C
Implements
Cart
Nurturing
Does
Not
Implement
Cart
Nurturing
Expert Analysis: It’s still the minority of ecommerce marketers that are engaging in cart
abandonment activities. It makes sense that B2C has a higher level of abandoned cart
nurturing. In B2B, you usually have a human involved in some capacity with the sales
process. In B2C, you have only one “sales rep” - your shopping cart + marketing au-
tomation – and it has to engage with sometimes hundreds of thousands of contacts a
month. Therefore, implementations like cart abandonment tend to have much greater
leverage in B2C companies.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
44 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Of marketers that track cart abandonment, 66% successfully recover less than
20% of abandoned carts.
12%
41
–
50%
51
–
60%
61
–
70%
23%
Greater
than
70%
Expert Analysis: A quarter of marketers are recovering 21-50% of carts. With the aver-
age cart abandonment rate at 13% (once you exclude those that don’t track it), that’s a
significant revenue lift.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
45 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Cart Nurturing
Stat: 59% of ecommerce marketers primarily use email for abandoned cart nurturing.
Expert Analysis: Email was the expected clear winner. Surprising, however, are the num-
ber of companies that follow up with a direct phone call (mostly B2B ecommerce com-
panies) and the number of companies using social media in cart recovery. Again, that
requires a fairly sophisticated software alignment between the cart, a contacts manage-
ment database, and their social media channels.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
46 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 75% of companies did not know if abandoned cart nurturing demonstrated ROI for
them.
100%
90%
4%
80%
70%
60%
3%
50%
40%
14%
30%
20%
10%
1%
0%
B2B
B2C
Cart Nurturing Demonstrated ROI Cart Nurturing Did Not Demonstrate ROI
Stat: Customer-focused companies are 12% more likely to demonstrate ROI from cart
nurturing than sales-focused companies
16% 15%
14%
12%
10%
10%
9%
8%
8%
6%
6%
5%
5%
4%
2%
2%
0%
Sales
focused
Customer
focused
Product
focused
Marke<ng
focused
Cart Nurturing Demonstrated ROI Cart Nurturing Did Not Demonstrate ROI
www.Hubspot.com
47 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 46% of businesses that tracked abandoners’ spending stated that customers spent
more than the original cart value after being nurtured.
9%
14%
46%
31%
More than original amount spent Less than original amount spent Don't spend at all Other
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
48 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
10%
7%
7%
14%
18%
13%
31%
Ebooks Webinars Customer Reviews Coupon Codes Newsle?er Direct Mail Other
Expert Analysis: Coupons tend to be the most gratifying solution, so it’s not surprising
they’re the most popular. What’s surprising is that 14% of marketers are doing aban-
doned cart nurturing with direct mail. It’s not a channel typically associated with the near-
real-time requirements of abandonment nurturing.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
49 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Using educational content is 32% more likely to recover cart abandoners that
spend more than the original amount than using coupon codes.
45%
40% 38%
35%
29%
30%
25%
20%
16%
15%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Educa1onal
Content
Coupon
Codes
More than original amount spent Less than original amount spent
Expert Analysis: It makes sense: Coupon codes recover price-sensitive customers and
inherently reduce the amount they’re spending without encouraging them to add addi-
tional products to offset the unit discounts. Educational content addresses non-price
issues and better positions the marketer for up-sell/cross-sell activities when they return
to the cart. Also, consumers are becoming savvier around cart abandonment – with mag-
azines and shopping tips websites even telling consumers to abandon carts to receive
coupons, thereby increasing the number of costly deal-seeking customers you acquire
with coupons.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
50 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 72% of marketers that do abandoned cart nurturing send the first message within
the first day.
4%
2%
8%
21%
14%
51%
Within 1 hour of the abandonment 1 – 24 hours 25 – 48 hours 49 – 72 hours 3 -‐ 7 days A>er 1 week
Expert Analysis: Data from ecommerce and B2B direct sales, as well as common sense
back up that consumers will be easier to connect with and more likely to be receptive
to converting the quicker you engage with them. Within 1 hour you run the risk of losing
consumers who just hadn’t finished browsing or checking out yet, which is especially
dangerous if your first message contains a coupon instead of educational content.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
51 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Businesses that send the first nurturing message within 1 hour of the abandonment
are 326% more likely to see ROI from abandoned cart nurturing.
100%
90%
80%
52%
5%
70%
14%
10%
60%
50%
40%
30%
81%
6%
20%
8%
4%
10%
0%
1
–
24
hours
25
–
48
hours
49
–
72
hours
3
-‐
7
days
Cart Nurturing Demonstrated ROI Cart Nurturing Did Not Demonstrate ROI
Stat: 60% of customers that were sent the first nurturing message within an hour of re-
covering their cart spent more money than the original cart value.
100%
90%
80%
56%
11%
70%
4%
4%
60%
50% 4%
40%
30%
70%
10%
20%
3%
3%
10%
0%
0%
1
–
24
hours
25
–
48
hours
49
–
72
hours
3
-‐
7
days
A8er
1
week
More than original amount spent Less than original amount spent
Expert Analysis: There’s definitely a diminishing value here that backs up conventional
wisdom in this case: The earlier you send the first email, the more likely you are to re-
cover the abandoner and the more likely they are to spend more than they had originally
planned. 0% of marketers who reported waiting a week to send the first nurturing mes-
sage reported that the carts they recovered spent more.
Greg Wise
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
52 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: Customers who receive nurturing emails with product descriptions included are
52% more likely to spend more money than the original cart value when they return.
60%
52%
50%
40% 37%
30%
20%
17%
13%
8%
10%
6%
5%
5%
0%
Descrip3on
of
the
Addi3onal
product
Product
how-‐to
videos
Product
Guides
/
product
(Text
and/or
recommenda3ons
Ebooks
Text
&
Pictures)
More
than
original
Less
than
original
Expert Analysis: It’s a pity that not enough people are collecting “use case” information
in pre-transactional conversions (that is, collecting information about why or for what the
customer wanted to use a given product) for us to use that data, because being able to
remind people why they wanted something is a powerful ability. At the very least, how-
ever, this data backs up that you should reference what the customer wanted when they
came to you. What’s interesting is that recommending additional products was the one
category likely to cause the customer to spend less money. Educating and persuading
seems to be effective; confusing cross-selling seems to be detrimental.
Ted Ammon
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
53 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: 49% of marketers who send abandoned cart nurturing emails include a description
of the products in the cart.
60%
52%
50%
40% 37%
30%
20%
17%
13%
8%
10%
6%
5%
5%
0%
Descrip3on
of
the
Addi3onal
product
Product
how-‐to
videos
Product
Guides
/
product
(Text
and/or
recommenda3ons
Ebooks
Text
&
Pictures)
More
than
original
Less
than
original
Expert Analysis: Personalizing the message with data about the actual product the
customer was interested in is the most popular method. However, still 17% of marketers
aren’t including any product messaging – even though customers nurtured with such
content are more likely to spend more when they return.
Morgan Jacobson
Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert
www.Hubspot.com
54 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Stat: On average, 57% of abandoners revisit the website with 1-5 days. However, busi-
nesses that send their cart abandonment messages within 24 hours of abandonment are
14% more likely to get those customers back to their website within 5 days.
Revisit
Timing
3%
3%
4%
1
–
5
Days
3%
4%
6
–
10
days
6%
10
–
15
Days
15
–
20
Days
20
–
25
Days
57%
25
–
30
Days
21%
More
than
30
Days
Never
revisit
www.Hubspot.com
55 THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING
Survey Methodology
HubSpot fielded our 2014 State of Ecommerce Marketing Survey between
January 07 and February 02, 2014. The query took the form of an online
survey, to which there were 1,099 qualified complete and partial responses
from marketing and business professionals in 45 countries on six continents,
including North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, Australia, South/Central
America, and Africa.
The incentive for participating in the survey was entry into a contest to win
either a free iPad or $500.
www.Hubspot.com