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The most important thing for operators is that their shops can be found in the first place – after all, search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine advertising (SEA) have top priority when it comes to selecting marketing measures.

E-shops focus primarily on search engine marketing – topic of the month at OnetoOne.de:More potential in SEO

(...) Thorben Fasching is head of the Agency Division at e-commerce service provider hmmh. The clientele of the Bremen enterprise includes such well-known names as Otto, Tchibo and Bonprix. The online trade expert believes that SEO will gain further relevance.

“On the one hand, the potential, even for such major sector players as Otto, Tchibo and Neckermann, has not been fully exploited yet by a long shot.”

On the other hand, individual keywords in search machine advertising have become so expensive, according to Fasching, that he would advise against booking for economic reasons.

“In addition, the big search engines are undergoing further development – away from a global collection of links and towards a structured search result, i.e. universal search. We are waiting expectantly to see how quickly these changes in the components of the results can also be utilized for sales at online shops,” says Fasching.

Performance marketing tools like SEA or affiliate marketing are generally preferred by online shop operators, he adds, “because in times of tight budgets it is imperative for them to use their media spending efficiently.”Performance marketing can be applied on the platforms in a precisely targeted manner in this context, he feels.

Securing the level of brand awareness

“When I’m just starting, I have to invest in brand awareness,”reminds Andreas Schwend, Managing Partner of Stuttgart service provider Digital Media Center (DMC), whose clientele includes Neckermann and Baby Walz. It may be meaningful, he feels, to put 50 percent of the budget in display advertising. With standard banners, he says, however, you end up on the sidelines “because users demand advertising without advertising.” Once a certain degree of awareness has been reached, he adds, you can follow up with 30 percent search engine marketing and optimization. “When things are then running smoothly, you can shift 10 percent from branding to the search engine area and slowly boost affiliate marketing with the rest. However, to make sure that affiliate marketing can generate an effect, you need a certain level of brand awareness.”

Generally, he continues, the selection of measures and distribution of the budget depend on the product range and target group of the dealer, however. “Marketing for a full-line distributor differs from that for a specialist mail order company that sells snowboards only for deep snow slopes.”

Source > OnetoOne 3/10
Author > Roland Eisenbrand