Do you own a Shopify website? Are you interested in using marketing tools that will increase sales on the site consistently? Virtually all site owners share that goal. The challenge is identifying the tactics that will help you reach that goal. These five tools will get you started in the right direction.

1. Shopping Ads

Shopping ads bring your message to potential buyers at the point where it’s easy for them to click over to your website. The ad should take the user to the specific page on your website where the user can learn more about the product and make a purchase.

You can create a shopping feed that includes your shopping ads and provide it to the ad network provider like SourceKnowledge. That company will use its network to serve your ads to prospects based on criteria such as user behavior and website visits.

2. Leveraging User-Generated Content

User-generated content can be a very powerful tool for driving sales. In fact, studies show that search results for the world’s top 20 brands link to user-generated content 25 percent of the time. User-generated content includes the following:

• Customer photos: Displaying photos showing customers actually using or enjoying a product reinforce a buyer’s purchase decision.
• Testimonials: Be prepared to encourage your customers to leave testimonials. Testimonials are especially effective when you host them on a third-party website.
• Support Content: Support content like forum questions, FAQs and knowledge base articles can also be an effective marketing resource. If you’ve written your FAQs and responses well, an internet search can bring a prospect right to the answer to the question they’re researching.

3. Use Instagram

Instagram gives you the opportunity to engage with your prospects and customers in a visual way. Posting captivating photographs and posting consistently will help build your follower base. Instagram users are prone to follow brands they like on Instagram. According to Adweek, 80 percent of Instagram users connect with a brand that uses the platform well. You can drive online sales by adding products to some of your posts to give followers a direct path to make a purchase.

4. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Users

Optimizing your site for mobile users is critical to encourage and leverage user-generated content. In fact, experts have predicted that by the year 2021, consumers on mobile devices will complete over 50 percent of e-commerce sales.

If you want to attract mobile consumers, you need to do more than make your website mobile responsive. The entire design of your website needs to make it easy for mobile users to interact with you. For example, you may need to use a larger “Add to Cart” button, or present images so that they load faster than they do on desktop monitors.

5. Offer Free Shipping

Consumer expectations are changing, and free shipping is becoming something they expect. In fact, there are all kinds of research to back up that statement. For example:

• Nine of 10 consumers cite free shipping as the key motivation for shopping online
• Online orders with free shipping generate on average approximately 30 percent more revenue.
• Sixty-one percent of consumers say they are “somewhat likely” to cancel a purchase if free shipping isn’t offered.

The challenge for most e-commerce companies is determining how to make free shipping profitable. It is possible to do when you follow some simple rules.

How Will You Increase Sales?

Every business is different, but there are some marketing tools, like the ones described above, that will make your Shopify store drive more sales and convert at a higher rate. Sign up with SourceKnowledge to start your shopping ad campaign today!