What is the best advertising channel for my new e-commerce website?

I recently helped my wife launch her own online jewelry store.

It really depends on budgets but in her case, she didn't have a huge one. Here's what I told her to do:

1) make sure to build an email list from day 1
2) Use instagram to engage with your target clients (don't sell, but inspire)
3) Start promoting your store with friends on Facebook and have them like your page. Then create facebook ads targeting friends of friends who like your page with your picture on the ad since they're familiar with you.
4) Consider adding your products to marketplaces to generate income faster (Etsy, Amazon, ebay)

That's what she started doing and slowly implementing things.

There is no silver bullet to answer this question, and there is no right answer until you identify a number of factors about your customer base.

I'm happy to do a call with you and help apply some tactics and channels that have worked for others!

Good luck
Matt

Excellent question - the short answer is you should be doing everything possible and then once finding a "soft spot" in the market take advantage of it until it dries up. A more targeted response is I would consider building out a massive email/newsletter list and starting some drip email marketing/re-targeting campaigns so you can get people who have visited the site to return and actually complete an order. Given your target market (jewelry buyers) I would say having an opportunity to continue the discourse is absolutely critical; especially with people's patterns on luxury goods being what it is )(the majority of aren't going to make their final purchasing decision the first time you visit their site, but rather over several instances hitting the page and then also doing off-site research as well.) This also lets you extend your website conversion funnel further by allowing a key interaction/conversion point not only be visiting the site, then the catalog page, then adding to cart and then checking out, but also allows you to get people give you valuable data earlier in the chain just by putting up an email sign-up form (perhaps a light-box roadblock pop-up on the main page?)

My hunch is that fashion and lifestyle blogs – aimed at women and with plenty of image sharing – would convert well for your e-commerce website. How to get their attention or forge relationships is another question – and not for me to answer.

Social media platforms ought to be evaluated on the same basis – demographic and reliance on pictures. Facebook advertising would be something to consider, I imagine.

I think you are asking the wrong question. The focus should not really be in the best channel. It should be: Who is my ideal customer? What is the best way to present my product to them and where is the best place to reach them?

if you understand your messaging well and what is unique value proposition, you can experiment and test different channels.

Hi, I've driven an eCommerce business to $4.5 million in annual sales.

There are 2 approaches to promoting your Webstore:
1. Paid - Instant traffic, must keep ROI positive, low "long lasting" effect.
2. Free - Building a long lasting brand and authority in your space, takes at least 3 months to see substantial results.

The correct approach is balancing between the two.
Your final goal is to drive highly relevant organic traffic, while constantly improving your conversion rates by doing A/B tests.

1. Build up the community of 100 initial evanglist - build the initial relationship with your identified revelant to your industry: 100 bloggers list, Journalists, brands that compliment what you are selling
2. Start with an initial paid media channel - ie Facebook - learn how to setup and run your own ads, don’t have to get complicated, start small with maybe a $5-10 budget a day and scale as you learn along the way
3. Expand on the alternative paid media channels and start small as you did in step 2 and scale gradually.
4. Build upon partnerships you have established in point 1 and explore areas you can work with them (ie co marketing, email marketing etc)
5. Test the above 4 points and share your learning back here with us.

Instagram, owned by Facebook, gives you access to a massive audience. The app boasts 500 million users who open Instagram every day. While this is a far smaller user base than Facebook, it is also one with a high concentration of people from a desirable demographic. Instagram is a highly visually appealing platform. The platform allows you to add your business address and phone number to all posts, meaning that it is easier for prospects to reach you. Snapchat has been a force to be reckoned with since the ephemeral social media platform first emerged in 2011. While some Snapchat advertising is self-serve, others require the participation of a Snapchat representative. If the Snapchat audience is the right one for you, you could find that this is the best online advertising outlet for you. To achieve the best online advertising experience on Google Ads, you will need some technical expertise. Google Ads serves online ads in search results on thousands of web pages. Some Google Ads advantages included targeting your ads based on geography, demographics, and other criteria. One of the problems that many people have with Google Ads is that they find it too feature-rich.
You can read more here: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/best-online-advertising/
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath