It’s a complex process to run e-commerce ads for your business, especially if you have multiple simultaneous campaigns with several variations for each ad. While the process can be difficult enough to manage if you’re on just one channel, such as Google or Facebook, if you’re attempting to run your marketing campaigns across multiple channels, it can be dizzying indeed.
While each of the major channels can provide you with marketing optimization strategies for their channel, it’s not obvious how to get the level of control you need over the ad experience across multiple channels to be most effective for your ideal users.
The inconsistencies across the different channels in combination with the challenge of figuring out how to attribute the ultimate purchase can make it hard for your business to determine how to best invest your ad budget. If you’re looking for some tips to help you deal with the complexity of a multi-channel e-commerce marketing in 2021, here is some expert advice:
1) Make Sure You Understand the Full Customer Journey Across Channels 
Recent research suggests that users are spending on average over 6 hours per day online, including time on multiple social media platforms and websites.
In order to engage your ideal customer, you want to make sure you have a full understanding of all the ways they’re likely to encounter and interact with your brand. This means devising your marketing plans across digital, including mobile and social, as well as in-person experiences.
While Facebook (including Instagram) and Google are the two top platforms in 2021, your business might get the most bang-for-your-advertising-buck by focusing on platforms with less ad competition, such as Reddit or Bing. Just because TikTok is trending in 2021 doesn’t mean your business needs to advertise there.
What’s important is that you understand all the possible ways you are likely to encounter and engage your particular ideal audience so that you can plan your marketing accordingly.
2) Try Cross-Channel Tools and Expertise
While many marketers create spreadsheets to try to organize all their disparate efforts, there are services and tools now currently available that can help you aggregate your data and plan a cohesive marketing strategy so that you don’t have to try to manage each channel separately on your own.
Unfortunately, there is not yet a solution that offers perfect 1:1 comparison across different ad channels, however there are tools that offer multi-channel analysis, algorithms, aggregation, and predictive modeling to help you analyze your advertising investments based on discrete data points
For example, you might want to check out tools such as BuzzSumo, AgoraPulse, SEMRush, or Zapier. Or, you can work with digital marketing specialists, especially a team or agency with a track record of success helping businesses across multiple online channels.
3) Make Use of UTM Tags 
It might seem too obvious to mention, but be sure to utilize UTM tags when you market across multiple digital channels. Truth is, they are often underused, even in 2021.
A UTM (Urchin Traffic Monitor) tag or code is a way to track how traffic is coming to your website. These tags can let you know if your traffic is coming from a particular source (such as Google, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, etc.), or from a particular medium (organic traffic, affiliates, PPC traffic, etc.), or from a specific marketing campaign or piece of content or keyword term.
One proven way to use UTM tags effectively is to systematically test one variable at a time so you get insights into how you might be getting your most valuable traffic.
If you’re looking for expert insight and extra support for your e-commerce campaigns, our team here at JXT Group can help. Wherever your audience likes to spend their time online, we can help you reach them on all their favorite platforms by developing a well-rounded, effective campaign aligned with your business goals and resources.
Just give us a call at 718-690-7302 or fill out our online contact form to learn more.
