In the world of e-commerce, brands face problems when it comes to reaching old and potential customers. From ad blockers to the ability to track data, it’s hard for companies to reach the audiences they want.
Running online ads has become more expensive, with less payback.
And two years into the supply chain crisis, brands have discovered that shipping costs are much higher than they were before the pandemic.
Despite such changes in the industry, e-commerce continues to be a driving force in the US economy. According to Statista, e-commerce sales in the United States totaled $871 billion last year, a number that economists estimate won’t be reached until 2023. Globally, nearly $4.9 trillion was spent on e-commerce last year.
That’s where Tapcart comes in. The Santa Monica-based company designed the technology that integrates Shopify, an e-commerce platform for online stores and retail systems. Shopify merchants can use Tapcart to connect more with their buyers through a mobile app. You can also sync their online store backend and build a mobile app with the online editor.
“Consumers are using mobile devices. (Over) 90% of the time they spend on e-commerce is on a mobile device, not a web browser,” said Eric Netsch, founder and CEO of Tapcart. began.”
Creating applications
In the year Founded in 2017, TapCart is a software-as-a-service platform that helps brands across industries create mobile apps to connect with their customers.
“We believe it’s extremely important to have an owned marketing site that you can trust. You don’t own that traffic by placing ads on Instagram or Facebook, you have to pay for it,” Netsch said. Your phone experience is like a mobile app if you have a sales channel that you can own and customize and rely on.”
Email and SMS are marketing channels that companies can own, and the best way to use them is through text push ads. According to Tapcart, push notifications increase retention rates by up to 88% and reduce cart abandonment rates by 30%.
“You own the information,” Netsh said. “This (data) is coming through push notifications, where you can get access to use our platform and use that data to better optimize your marketing campaigns.”
Tapcart monetizes its services through a subscription model. Companies like e-commerce brand Fashion Nova, for example, charge monthly subscriptions ranging from $250 to $1,200 and up. If the brand takes more advantage of the app, the price may increase.
Netsch says the app store ecosystem and push notifications have become increasingly important to companies like Apple and Google.
“As your business, you want to have an app, you want to have push notifications, and they’re going to help you through that process,” Netsh said. “This is something that people don’t talk about much. It’s often said that ‘Apple is killing the email and ad businesses’, but one thing they’re doing the opposite is prioritizing mobile apps and push notification experiences.
“If you’re a business, it’s a good bet that they’ve invested heavily in the app store so that their push notification technology not only makes that more accessible and a better experience for consumers, but also for brands,” he added.
Dynamic market
Marketing looked very different a few years ago.
According to Netsh, marketers relied heavily on email marketing, but that channel was saturated and didn’t have the same results. Email marketing is said to be 45% less effective every year.
“Email marketing started to be marginalized by systems like Gmail and Outlook and other systems that split your mail. So now we’re seeing more marketers relying on email as a traditional marketing method, but it’s stuck in the promotional tab. “You probably have thousands of emails from your favorite brands sitting around in this area. “
In April last year, Apple released an update that made it harder to track users. Before this update, an Apple device would automatically send an identifier (known as an IDFA) to advertisers.
“In the old days, the principle was ‘opt out’. “If you didn’t want to be tracked, you had to go through seven steps on Facebook or Instagram and opt out of being tracked or receiving ads,” said Gerard Tellis, a professor of marketing at USC. “That’s changing. That means the default is you’re out, and companies have to opt-in to tracking you. And that means they have to give consumers an incentive to be tracked.”
We believe that having a proprietary marketing site is… extremely important.
Eric Netsh
Company Name
According to Adjust, a marketing analytics platform, about 20% of iOS users opt out of ad tracking and cannot be tracked using IDFA.
“With Apple removing some tracking capabilities, it’s very difficult to know if your marketing is working or not,” Netsch said.
On top of that, the advertising market is more competitive than ever. A few years ago, advertising online was easy and affordable, allowing businesses of any size to participate.
According to Netesh, the advertising industry, like many others, has been shaken by the pandemic.
“A lot of the big industry players[ads]were pulling back, and that really put some fuel on the fire for millions of e-commerce brands to put ads on the fire and start competing against each other in this space. So it’s more competitive than it has been, and the cost is going up.” Netesh explained.
The biggest and most recent change, according to Netesh, is that companies like Apple and Google are putting limits on performance tracking, which means brands have a harder time re-engaging customers based on how well their ads are performing.
“The dollars you put into Facebook and Instagram, you don’t know if it’s going to work or not,” Netsh said. “There’s fragmentation there and[it]adds another big traditional marketing technique to e-commerce products that is becoming less effective and more expensive every year.
Most recently, Tapcart released a product called App Clip, a mini app that requires zero downloads. How it works: On a merchant’s website, a consumer can scan the company’s QR code and access the brand’s mobile app without having to download it. According to Tapcart, a brand can use App Clips to reduce the friction of app discovery and installation, increase seller conversions, get new downloads, and encourage repeat business over the long term.
“You don’t go to Blockbuster to rent your movie anymore; You stream them on demand from Netflix and other services,” Netsch said. “It’s the same concept for apps. And[I]can picture the world in one year, two years, three years. You can use them only when you need them, and we support this practice.
