How to win new customers in e-commerce

New customers are one of the important drivers of long-term success for every company. Therefore, one of the main tasks of every online shop is to acquire new customers in its own market or to promote new customer acquisition by developing potential target groups. New customer acquisition embeds itself in the online marketing strategy alongside customer care and customer retention and is the foundation of all other measures.

As soon as a prospect is generated, this should ideally convert into a new customer and become a regular customer through appropriate measures. But what does the digital acquisition of new customers look like? How do you address them correctly and which measures really make sense?

What is New Customer Acquisition?

Customer acquisition deals with all measures aimed at acquiring new customers. This begins with the first contact and ends when the potential lead converts into a customer. Companies have different options for this. Digitalisation in particular expanded the methods of new customer acquisition immensely.

New customer generation in the digital world

While in the past one had to rely on purely analogue marketing in the form of print, trade fair appearances or promotional campaigns, online marketing has changed customer acquisition and made it easier in many areas. One example is direct mail: direct mail, which is associated with high costs, has been digitally replaced by cost-efficient email marketing. Both are still relevant for businesses and are evident in a good marketing mix per industry, but specifically in this article we want to look at the effective opportunities of acquiring new customers and building a customer base via online marketing.

The goal of acquiring new customers is always to ensure the profitability and sales strength of a company. To put it in a nutshell: without new customers, no business. However, it is important to remember that every new customer generation leads to customer retention measures. Only in combination can an online shop ensure success and prevail against competitors in the market.

Digital new customer acquisition in numbers

Online marketing is one of the most attractive solutions and approaches to acquire new customers. Online shops and brands have already recognised this. Around 53% of respondents to a study use search engine optimisation to become visible to new customers. Likewise, the majority of respondents rely on search engine advertising, advertising measures in social media and listings in price search engines. Only in sixth place, with around 22%, comes the acquisition of new customers via print media.

Options for Acquiring New Customers

When acquiring new customers, a basic distinction is made between warm acquisition and cold acquisition. In warm acquisition, prospective customers have already had initial contact with the brand. This can be the case, for example, if they have downloaded an e-book or signed up for a newsletter. In cold calling, the potential lead does not yet know anything about the company – it is unknown. Therefore, there have been no points of contact so far.
In general, warm acquisition turns out to be easier because the potential new customer has already expressed an initial interest. With a cold lead, the need must first be awakened and trust built. This usually proves to be more time-consuming and costly. In addition, there are different measures that online shops can use to attract new customers. We will take a closer look at these in the following.

Winning New Customers With Email Marketing

Strategically planned e-mail marketing has the advantage of sending target group-oriented content to really interested leads. In addition to the high acceptance of this form of advertising, the possibility of generating customers with the use of a small advertising budget is convincing and can be implemented quickly with the appropriate tool. With newsletter marketing, it is important to ensure conformity with the regulations of the German Data Protection Act (GDPR). We have dealt with this topic in detail in the blog post Successful Newsletter Marketing in compliance with the GDPR.

In order for potential customers to become aware of a newsletter even before they leave an online shop, situationally appropriate and personalised newsletter pop-ups from uptain have proven their worth. This makes it possible to turn previously cold leads, who are generally interested, into warm leads and to convert them into customers with the connected email marketing. The smart tool is of course also optimised for mobile devices and has a GDPR-compliant double opt-in procedure.

Gaining New Customers with SEO and SEA

One’s own web presence is the linchpin of every online shop. Customers must be able to find companies, products and services via search engines. With search engine optimisation, online shop operators increase their visibility in the organic search. The aim of SEO measures is to get among the first top rankings, as these generate the most traffic. Search engine optimisation is one of the more long-term and especially sustainable methods of acquiring new customers.

Paid search engine advertising (SEA) is also considered a good option for acquiring new customers. The ads are placed above the organic search results and are played out according to the highest relevance to the target group. Costs are only incurred when a click occurs. SEA is a promising tool especially when the competition with regard to SEO is high or a quick solution for generating new customers has to be found. At the same time, however, it is often associated with high costs.

Winning New Customers Through the User Experience

Once a prospective customer has found his way to the website, it is important to convince him with an optimised customer journey. In addition to the design of the page itself, high-quality content, intuitive navigation and an uncomplicated check-out are important. The individual touchpoints must ensure a pleasant user experience and offer the visitor everything they expect. Trust-building elements also play a major role with new customers, as they have not yet had any experience with the online shop.

An efficient way to win new customers through user experience are customer-oriented exit intent pop-ups. If the visitor is about to make a shopping cart abandonment, personalised exit intent pop-ups appear that address the visitor’s problems. The software recognises the reasons for shopping cart abandonment: if the visitor has problems completing the purchase, a service offer appears. If, on the other hand, he needs a financial incentive, a discount code is displayed. In this way, shopping cart abandonments can be reduced by up to 30%.

Winning New Customers With Social Media

Actively addressing new customers is also an important element in online marketing. Target groups and potential buyers can of course also be reached digitally via social media. Here, brands and online shops interact and can target new customers with the right content. In addition to maintaining the pages themselves, paid advertising is also an option here. The most convincing feature is the versatile targeting, which allows a precise definition of the target group. This prevents wastage and increases the chance of acquiring new customers.

When acquiring new customers in social media, make sure you choose the right platform and address your customers accordingly. While younger people spend more time on Tiktok, you are more likely to reach middle-aged adults on Instagram and older target groups on Facebook. In the B2B sector, you should be active in customer acquisition on Xing and LinkedIn.

New Customer Acquisition: Integral Part Of Online Marketing

The acquisition of new customers ensures online shops the basis for sales, growth, development and positioning on the market. The possibilities of generating new customers are expanding with advancing technological development. As more and more people buy online, the target group is constantly expanding.

Email marketing, search engine visibility measures, an optimised website with a continuous customer journey and the acquisition of new customers via social media are promising. To get the most out of it, the use of exit intent pop-ups is a complementary variant to attract new customers.