In the thriving world of eCommerce, marketing is more than just an option; it is a lifeline that can significantly enhance growth and sales.
A well-planned and executed marketing strategy can set your online store apart from the rest, attracting many customers and driving exponential revenue.
In this digital era, using plugins and platforms to streamline and boost marketing efforts is pivotal for any eCommerce business. These tools, ranging from free to premium, offer immense capabilities to target, reach, and convert potential customers more effectively and efficiently.
This post will delve into some of the best e-commerce marketing plugins and platforms for 2023. Many free tools exist, but any eCommerce store worth its salt will invest in powerful eCommerce plugins.
At this point, I must disclaim that some of the products mentioned here belong to me and my co-founders. However, we do not recommend these products out of self-interest or do so lightly.
A key reason why my business and brand even exist is that our audience would reach out to us, especially requesting tools that answered their needs. A decade ago, the state of the market was such that there was a strong gap for tools that helped with lead generation, email marketing, and so on. And we did our best to fill that gap with top-notch products, some of which are listed below.
Here are the best eCommerce marketing plugins for 2023.
1. Best Lead Generation Plugin: OptinMonster
It’s rare for audiences and users to simply land on a product page and buy something without a gradual build-up to it.
This is why lead generation is so important. For eCommerce sites, this means using an option popup form that appears at exactly the right time to stop a potential customer from leaving without a way to bring them back.
The most effective and straightforward way to manage this is using an opt-in popup form geared towards lead building.
And our very own OptinMonster is such a tool. It’s built for small businesses and professionals and carries out sophisticated functions, once only available to large businesses with in-house development teams.
This tool lets you create a simple lead capture form at specific triggers. For example:
- When they reach a specific section of the page, like the middle or end
- When they start to hover over the close button
- A few minutes or seconds after they land on your page, and so on
For eCommerce stores, using a tool like this allows them to get in touch with people even after they exit a landing page or product page. And over time, you can nurture your lead and convince them to buy from you in the future.
2. Best Social Proof and FOMO Plugin: TrustPulse
In the world of eCommerce, social proof is no longer optional. It’s a must-have to increase sales and conversions.
An effective way to showcase social proof without interrupting a customer’s experience is to show them a small bubble at the corner of their screen. Such a notification informs the customer that ‘Eileen from NYC bought this product 3 hours ago’ or ‘Jason from London added this to their cart just now’ and so on.
This is a social-proof notification. Using a plugin like TrustPulse, you can easily link your store activities to generate such notifications automatically.
You can highlight that a product is fast-selling, that someone nearby bought it, that it’s running out, and so on.
It’s also easy to create the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) effect by setting a timer to show when an item will be out of stock, or you’re running a promotion.
3. Best eCommerce CRM Plugin: HubSpot
Personalization is the key to success for your eCommerce store. It’s no longer enough to offer a customer-centric experience simply.
You have to go beyond that, like understanding their history with you, preferences, or interests, and then creating offers accordingly. That’s where a CRM or Customer Relationship Management tool comes in.
HubSpot is a powerful CRM plugin that gives detailed insight into your customers’ needs. It helps you analyze customer data, create targeted offers, and engage with them via personalized messages.
It also allows you to set up marketing campaigns within the same platform and track ROI for each of them. And what makes this great for small businesses is that you can easily incorporate it with your WordPress site using its plugin.
4. Best eCommerce Funnel Builder Plugin: FunnelKit
Funnels help move customers from one stage of the buying process (awareness, consideration, decision) to another. An effective funnel setup is crucial for any eCommerce store to make every lead count.
Our very own product – FunnelKit is an eCommerce-focused funnel-building plugin. It helps craft, build, and manage funnels to get customers, push sales, re-engage customers, and more.
It offers several pre-made templates designed to meet your goals as effectively as possible. You simply go to the dashboard and customize any of the already-optimized kits that will make sales or build your email list.
There’s no coding involved, and you have a visual and intuitive builder that allows you to add upsells, thank you pages, and more.
And you have a performance dashboard showing how users engaged with your content. You’ll get plenty of insights to help you make improvements and of course, sell more.
5. Best Push Notification Plugin: PushEngage
The trouble with email marketing is that it has delayed communication. Your audience may or may not open your email, and they’re likely to forget all about your content.
Soon enough, their email provider will push your emails down, and it’ll be out of sight.
However, if you use a push notification plugin like PushEngage then your audience will receive notifications right away – even when they’re not on their site.
That is, if you make a compelling enough reason for people to accept push notifications. And if you ensure that you don’t spam people with unnecessary content.
PushEngage allows you to set up automated notifications to remind customers about specials, and sales or send personalized messages at the perfect time. It also allows you to segment your messages to better target users. It’s also great for sending customers timely information.
One of our favorite cases is when an athletics company held a webinar but had technical disruptions twice! With our plugin, they were able to bring back most of the webinar audience and lost only a small number of viewers.
As you can see, there are many creative ways that a push notification tool can help you improve your eCommerce sales.
6. Best Stripe Payment Plugin: WP Simple Pay
Stripe is one of the most popular payment gateways for eCommerce stores. It’s fast, secure, and supports multiple currencies and languages.
But maybe you don’t have a developer on your team to quickly set up Stripe on your site. That’s where WP Simple Pay Pro comes in.
WP Simple Pay Pro is a powerful and user-friendly Stripe payment gateway plugin. With it, you can easily add a Stripe payment gateway to your eCommerce site without any complex coding. This plugin allows you to accept payments, subscriptions, and donations directly on your website, making it easier and more convenient for your customers.
What sets WP Simple Pay Pro apart is its simplicity and efficiency. And how it’s geared to meet your marketing goals by reducing cart abandonment and increasing conversions.
You can also integrate it with other tools and build yourself an efficient and effective eCommerce marketing ecosystem without the high cost.
In this way, you don’t just collect payments but also understand your customers, optimize your sales funnels, and engage with your audience in meaningful ways.
7. Best Landing Page Builder: SeedProd
Landing pages are the linchpin of any eCommerce business’ online marketing strategy. A well-crafted landing page is crucial in converting website visitors into potential customers. Here, you showcase your products or services, make the value proposition and prompt visitors to take a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
So, you want to use SeedProd as your go-to plugin for high-converting landing pages.
Our tool offers hundreds of templates, all of them geared to sell.
With a few customizations, you can literally start promoting and selling your products in minutes, even if you don’t have any design experience.
In fact, this is why we built it – so that small business owners can carry out elaborate design work quickly.
Just drag and drop the elements you need, add images, forms, etc. You’ll be selling like a professional eCommerce agency in no time.
8. Best Schema Markup Plugin: AIOSEO
You can’t forget about SEO when it comes to eCommerce marketing. You need people to find your site, visit it, and buy your products.
The key to this is using schema markup. What is it?
It’s a type of code that you add to your site. It notifies search engines about the content on a page so it can be displayed in search results.
It can be quite complex and time-consuming to add schema code manually. You’re best served by using a tool that handles key SEO functions, especially for eCommerce sites. And this is where AIOSEO comes in.
By enabling AIOSEO’s schema markup feature, you can add the right tags to different elements of your content. For example, if you’re selling a software application, you can create fields for adding your product Name, Operating System, Price, Currency, and so on.
And this gives Google valuable information about your products and makes them easier to find.
Soon enough, you’ll find your products ranking higher on search engine results pages and will get organic traffic and sales, reducing your costs.
9. Best Affiliate Marketing Plugin: AffiliateWP
Many eCommerce businesses rely on affiliates to promote and sell their products.
However, setting up an affiliate program is challenging. Using an existing platform to list your products and find affiliates is possible – but the negative aspect is that you lose some control over the process and pay a fee, reducing your profit margins.
That’s why it’s best to create your own affiliate program in-house using a plugin like AffiliateWP.
Again, this is built for small businesses and professionals with little technical expertise. It is completely intuitive, visual, and well-supported, with documentation, tutorials, and a knowledgeable customer support service. So, you can build an entire affiliate program from scratch with minimal problems.
And you get features like one-click payments, advanced affiliate tracking, coupon codes, and much more.
If you’re looking for an easy way to grow your eCommerce business, this tool will help you do it.
Conclusion
Stepping into the eCommerce world can be daunting, but success is just around the corner with the right setup.
By leveraging the tools and plugins highlighted in this guide, you’re not just setting up an online shop but creating an ecosystem that can grow and adapt to your business.
Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Rupixen; Unsplash; Thank you!
