How to Increase E-Commerce Sales Through Paid Search & Social Media Campaigns

The move from brick-and-mortar retail shopping to e-commerce sites has continued steadily over the last decade.

Between 2014 and 2023, global retail e-commerce sales are expected to increase by $5.2 billion. As online shopping integrates seamlessly with search and social platforms and as UX improves, more users are inclined to make their purchases online.

This shift has made retail brands rethink their marketing and advertising strategies, allocating more of their budgets toward SEO and paid search campaigns. In 2020, advertisers spent almost $200 billion in paid search ads, with retail spending over $15 billion, and this number is expected to increase moving forward.

If you’re behind in your paid search and social ad spend, don’t worry. Paid ads for e-commerce sales are pretty easy to jump into, and you’re likely to see faster results than you would with SEO.

In this article, I’ll discuss everything you need to know to increase e-commerce sales for your retail brand through paid search and social ads.

How Can Paid Ads Help You Reach Your E-Commerce Sales Goals?

Paid search across social, as well as through Google Ads and Bing Ads, gets a lot of attention and helps pull leads through the sales funnel.

For example, Facebook accounts for about 80 percent of U.S. social referral share to e-commerce sites.

Meanwhile, Instagram can reach 1.16 billion users. Over on Pinterest, 58 percent of women use Pinterest to make shopping and purchasing decisions.

SEO takes time to build awareness and pull people down the marketing funnel. Your content may not appear right away, or it may not target the right audience.

Paid search, on the other hand, gives you more immediate results by targeting the right audience right away. You can use it for any number of goals, from awareness to subscription sign-ups to conversions.

When it comes to e-commerce sales, paid search gives you a lot of flexibility, too.

Think about all the various platforms out there and all the different ways to reach your audience. Take, for example, Instagram Shopping. According to Instagram, 60 percent of users they surveyed discover new products through Instagram.

Using Instagram Ads, you can create posts with product tags that link directly to a product details page, helping boost conversions.

I’m not just talking about simple product features. Brands are creating drops: exclusive, limited-time product launches on Instagram that link directly to a shopping page.

McDonald’s Taiwan created a drop for their jet-black burger, a collaboration with designer Apujan.