Last week, the best in Canadian SaaS businesses convened in Ottawa for SaaS North – a yearly conference that aims to highlight and look at the state of SaaS in Canada. To mark the occasion and to show how the Canadian ecosystem has evolved, L-Spark, the organization behind SaaS North, released a report titled the State of SaaS 2017. View…

Each year during the holidays, people flock to your online store. They shop and their purchase numbers boost your bottom line. Seasonal shoppers are both a blessing and curse though because after New Years they’re gone.  For an ecommerce business, this represents a considerable amount of lost business. After all – those customers shopped with you once – imagine how much…

When it comes to developing an Instagram strategy that taps into and effectively reaches potential shoppers, the first place to look is ads. Why are ads so important, you ask? Simple: they’re the best ways to stand out on Instagram as more businesses start to use the platform for marketing and exposure. According to Sprout Social, 70.7 percent of U.S….

You want to grow your ecommerce revenue. Your customers want to feel valued, understood and have a seamless user experience with your website. How can those two things work together? We’ve got a few ideas that are bound to make an impact. “Show me the money!” — you, after implementing these 10 methods for growing your ecommerce revenue: 1. Content Marketing Organic…

Remember those word problems from elementary school where you had to figure out if Sarah has four shirts and three pairs of pants how many outfits can she make? Well, I’ve got some news for you. They were setting you up for social advertising success the whole freakin’ time! That’s right friends—your fifth-grade math class is coming in handy for…

Yes, Halloween is coming up, but that doesn’t mean your ecommerce advertising strategy needs to be scary. We’re guiding you through the missteps and keeping you away from five ecommerce advertising nightmares. Keep your customers from ghosting you by avoiding these five deadly sins during this spooky season (and, you know, always): Winging it No strategy. No research. No tracking. Sounds…

Black Friday and Cyber Monday represent huge opportunities for ecommerce businesses. Unfortunately, lots of brands do themselves a disservice by not testing their headlines, placements, and imagery before the holidays roll around. Here’s why: Black Friday and Cyber Monday can account for the equivalent of 5.4 normal days of traffic, so it’s definitely not the best time to A/B test. Instead, you need…

I don’t know if you’ve looked at a calendar recently, but we’re now into October and Pumpkin Spice season is in full force, meaning that it’s almost Halloween and therefore basically Christmas. With November (*cough* Black Friday *cough*) and December quickly approaching, it’s time to make sure your ecommerce site is in top shape to handle the influx of Q4…

It seems these days that everyone is telling you what to do on your own store. You should be offering more products, change up your theme, switch platforms, or install a “must-have” app (that they’re selling of course). But the one thing we see most often on ecommerce blogs is people telling you that you should be offering subscriptions on your…

If you run an ecommerce store, you know efficiency is key. This extends to everything you do – from product development and distribution to advertising. Unless you’re operating with a massive ad budget (lucky you), you probably don’t have the time or resources to mess around with Facebook ad targeting that doesn’t convert as well as it should. Luckily, you don’t…

When running an ecommerce store you have to worry about the user experience above all else. What effects user experience can range from your return policy to your level of customer service – even your social media reputation can affect your sales, repeat purchases and more! Given the analytics component of our platform, we have access to a large library…

While Black Friday probably isn’t the first thing on your mind – it should be! It’s just around the corner and what better way to help you prepare for 2017 by re-visiting some surprising and helpful Black Friday 2016 stats. What to Know about Black Friday 2016 Why? Because as the title says, Black Friday is only a few months! Why does…

If you advertise on Facebook, you know how important Facebook ad creative is to the performance of your campaigns. When managing your ad creative you must juggle different headlines, images, text and CTA options for different placements, across different devices. What looks great for one will almost certainly not work for another. Fortunately, we have outlined 7 quick tips to creating…

We can write a dozen blogs telling you how BigCommerce store owners or other ecommerce stores can improve your ad creative, promote ecommerce growth, reduce abandoned cart rate, and make a big difference in their inbound strategy, but it only does so much at the end of the day. At some point, it’s helpful to see how other real-life BigCommerce…

Today, with the right tools almost anyone can be an online ecommerce all-star. However, unless you’re intentional about how you construct and run your online store, it’s highly likely you’ll make simple mistakes that could seriously harm your brand. Don’t worry though; there’s good news. By learning to avoid these mistakes, you can win more customers, earn more sales, and boost…

Let’s talk about getting more reviews on social media. Gretchen Wieners famously told Cady Heron “you wouldn’t buy a skirt without asking your friends if it looked good on you.” Well, the 2017 ecommerce version of Gretchen’s iconic declaration is “you wouldn’t buy a skirt without reading reviews from 15 strangers, sorted by body type and including photos.” That’s right,…

Welcome to the Social Media Roundup, where we countdown this month’s top social media stories and news! Find out what’s on the up and up in the world of social media, and what’s on its way out. Let’s go!   Facebook Better Facilitates Influencer Marketing Previously, marketers could only boost a creator’s post by sharing it first. Now Facebook is adding the…

Millennials – they’re an entitled, phone-obsessed generation so millennial shoppers therefore don’t have much pull in the world of ecommerce, right? Wrong. Very wrong. In fact, millennials are likely some of your most critical customers. If you’re looking to drive ecommerce sales in 2017, you can’t afford not to focus on millennials. In addition to being the largest generation in U.S….

For your sales funnel to be as efficient as possible, you need to make it targeted and most importantly, automated. There are 3 main stages to every sales funnel: Attract, Convert and Re-Engage. To run a successful advertising strategy you must have ads dedicated to engaging customers at each stage of the funnel. To get you started, we’ve outlined the top ad campaign types you…

Today, influencer marketing stands out as one of the most important marketing tactics available. According to Convince and Convert, businesses generate an average of $6.50 for every dollar they invest in influencer marketing. Before you can dive into influencer marketing, though, you’ve got to catch the attention of said influencers, which is easier said than done. Luckily, these tips are here…

  If you’re one of the many ecommerce professionals who use online ads to push your products, I am sure you feel the pressure when competing for consumers attention. The good news is that there’s a strategic way to capture it: analytics. Use them wisely, and they’re an effective way to boost your return on ad spend and drive up sales…

It can be difficult to address your biggest ecommerce pain point but we decided to undertake the task. Why? Because we can write endless blogs about ecommerce strategy, tips, and news. At the end of the day, only ecommerce store owners can share unique and meaningful insight about what the burning challenges and all-too-real pain points are. We decided to…

In the world of ecommerce, your target audience is everything. The butter to your bread and whipped cream to your frappe, you live and die by the strength and engagement of your audience. But what happens when that audience isn’t big enough, or when the people within it aren’t paying enough attention? That’s a real problem. Luckily, there are ways…

It’s a no-brainer that your social media content – especially Facebook ads should contain photos. As an ecommerce store, you want to showcase a variety of your products to entice potential customers and remind previous customers how awesome your products are. What you may not realize is that your photos may be turning potential customers away. Not all photos are created equal…

It can be difficult to cut through the noise and connect with and obtai Instagram followers. The advent of Instagram shopping has launched a whole new avenue to sell your products. With this exciting channel on the rise for ecommerce entrepreneurs, how do you convince someone to stop scrolling their feed, notice your product and click ‘buy’? While it’s definitely not…

In an ideal world, you would have the photography skills of Annie Leibovitz, or at least have some stellar lifestyle or customer generated photos to accompany your product images. Sadly, that’s not always the case! When you’re in the market for stock photos, many paid subscription services come with a hefty price tag. Fortunately, there are quite a few top…

Now that the bustle of Canada Day and Fourth of July have died down it’s time to get back to business. While Black Friday probably isn’t the first thing on your mind – it should be! Why? Because as the title says, Black Friday is only 94 days away! Why does that matter? It matters because your competitors are starting to get ready…

Hey, we all make Facebook advertising mistakes. And, as the great Homer J. Simpson has demonstrated over the last 30 years, insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Don’t be like Homer. Try something different if you want different results. Crucial Facebook Advertising Mistakes to Avoid   Mistake 1:…

Instagram has over 500 million active monthly users – and these users are highly engaged, liking a remarkable 4.2 billion posts per day. Of these 500 million, 90% of Instagram users are below the age of 35! But you have to understand how these users interact with the popular photo sharing app if you’re going to snag your share of voice…

Managing inventory is one of the most important factors in both becoming a successful ecommerce business and maintaining your operation. Along with it being one of the most important aspects, it’s also one of the biggest headaches. There’s a fine line between having enough inventory to make it through peak holiday season and having a surplus during downtime. So how…

Lots of businesses use Instagram to find new followers and customers and engage with them, but what if we told you there’s a way to guarantee that your efforts succeed. The secret is in understanding the algorithm that powers Instagram feeds, and today we’re going to teach you everything we know about this mysterious beast so that you too can…

Facebook retargeting ads are a necessity in every ecommerce store owner’s marketing arsenal, and they’re great at recapturing the attention of people who have already made contact with your business. With these people you know you’re part way there, there’s something that brought them to your website and retargeting ads help to seal the deal. Wait just a second though,…

Are you one of Instagram’s 700 million monthly active users? If you aren’t, it’s about time you signed up. Instagram has become an essential platform to be spending your advertising dollars on – if you can make it work for you. As with any social media network, there are tons of best practices out there explaining how you can use Instagram…

There are tons of things that make a website amazing, and when it comes to online stores, BigCommerce has a fantastic, easy-to-use ecommerce platform that can be customized and integrated with lots of awesome apps that make being an ecommerce store owner a whole lot easier. Though it was difficult, we decided to put together a few of our favorite…

Social ads are an excellent way to reach a new audience, and if you do it well, you’ll be able to increase traffic, conversions, and best of all – revenue. Out of all the social ads, we’re slightly biased in favor of Facebook and Instagram ads. Why? Easy – it’s because Facebook ads alone have a click-through rate that’s eight…

It may be tempting to think that all you need for a successful social ad is a high-res, beautiful photo because after all, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? However, as we all know, it takes two to make a thing go right and copy just so happens to be that other thing. For those of us not #blessed…

As you all well know, social media advances at an incredibly fast pace. So much so that it’s undeniably difficult to stay up to date on the latest and greatest developments rocking the digital sphere, so we’ve decided to make things a bit easier. In this post, we’re going to catch you up on all of May’s social news with…

Ever feel like your Facebook ads are working against you and not with you? Ad fatigue is alive and well with the average Facebook ad frequency sitting at a 13.8 times/day. It’s more important than ever to personalize your ads based on how your customers engage with your store, which is why it’s time for you to start stacking the ads in…

Online shopping goes through fads and trends just like any other sector, and while some of them will come and go as quickly as the Unicorn frap at Starbucks, others will stand the test of time and become part of the cannon of ecommerce. Here are six of the top online shopping trends for 2017 that we think will stick…

Revenue is the one thing that all businesses, big and small, track with pleasure (and maybe a little bit of fear). But there are lots of metrics that track growth and success, and if you want to see the whole picture, then you need to look at these as well. Here are five metrics that you should be following closely,…

Many store owners spend time tweaking their homepage, but often forget about the importance of a well-designed product page. Choosing the best way to showcase your products to prospective buyers is essential, as it can make or break your shot at a sale. To help give you a nudge in the right direction, we’ve created a quick rundown of product page…

All marketing, including Facebook ads, email, and old-school print ads, have a single goal: to sell. While this is no easy task to undertake, luckily, things like Facebook ads are making it easier than ever to market effectively. Where to begin? Here are six tips you can start using today to maximize your Facebook ads. 1. Use Visuals That Are…

There are lots of things that make an amazing website, and when it comes to online stores, Magento has a fantastic and easy-to-use ecommerce platform that can be customized and integrated with other functions. As such, there are tons of fantastic Magento sites out there, and we wanted to take a few minutes to pay homage to a few of…

Instagram now has 700-plus million users (and the number keeps growing), and 63 percent of millennials use the site. In other words, if you want your business to connect with the world’s fastest growing super buyers, then learning the art of Instagram storytelling is a must! But storytelling on Instagram is just that—an art, and like any art, it requires…

Ecommerce is a complex mixture of art, business acumen, science, intuition, and a pinch of luck. On any given day, you have to wear many different hats, including customer service, social media and digital marketing, customer experience, loyalty and retention, data analysis, and more. But the good news is that for each of these roles, there’s a tool or app…

As much as you’d love your ecommerce business to be the next Amazon, even striving to measure up can be quite the undertaking. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t compete with this ecommerce giant, and there are a number of tips and tricks you can employ to help your online business stack up against Amazon. To help get you started,…

Shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms today – and it’s not hard to see why. With so many easy ways to customize and expand your store, Shopify gives you all the keys to setting up a successful business. Believe it or not, Shopify doesn’t only cater to small and medium sized ecommerce businesses, they also have another…

One of the major challenges for any ecommerce business owner is shipping and delivery. It’s one of the areas where brick and mortar stores have an advantage because customers shopping at a physical store can leave with their goods at the time of purchase, whereas customers in an ecommerce store often pay extra for shipping and then wait for their goods…

Getting your Facebook ads right seems like a daunting task – but it doesn’t have to be! With a little bit of research, you can get the perfect formula for Facebook ads down to a science. The first step in mastering Facebook ads is figuring out which ads perform best, how to use different ads and placements and when they make…

Ecommerce is only going to continue to grow, and businesses must either provide their customers with digital avenues to purchase, or they’ll be left behind in the dust. Every ecommerce business owner knows that it’s a competitive space, and those that don’t offer a niche that’s different or unique from giants such as Amazon or Wal-Mart will struggle.  For ecommerce…

Reviews, comments, and testimonials from customers have become an important currency in the world of ecommerce, and it’s vital that you understand how to leverage this feedback. For one, customer feedback can help you grade your business on performance in terms of products, services, and customer service. However, you can also use feedback to demonstrate that you’re a trustworthy company,…

Abandoned carts represent an enormous stash of potential sales, but unlocking that vault will require some prying, dedication, and likely a few changes to your checkout, policies, and possibly even your marketing tactics. But before you embark on this mission, it’s necessary to find out where you’re actually losing customers and then you can make a plan of attack to address…

Social media isn’t just for finding old high school friends and sharing pictures of grumpy cat; for ecommerce, social networks are another avenue for driving ecommerce growth. Take, for instance, the fact that a company can use social media to reach out to potential customers all over the world, guided by likes and retweets and groups. Social media can be a…

We’re constantly doing our best to think of innovative ways to help make your store’s Smart Campaigns even better. That’s why we’ve officially made our campaign builder emoji compatible! Your ads can now feature 😈  a devilish grin, 👻  a spooky ghost,✌️ a peace sign, or whatever the mood permits – and we think that’s something to celebrate 🎉! Why did we decide to incorporate emojis? People…

MEDIA ADVISORY It’s Time Retailers and Brands Forge a New Partnership Join global leaders from Vantage and Kimberly-Clark on Thursday at Dx3 as they share learnings from a transformative ecommerce business model WHAT: A groundbreaking collaboration between CPG brands and retailers delivers both new insights and a 10X return. Join Vantage CEO and Co-Founder, Aran Hamilton and Tony Long, Kimberly-Clark Global Lead, Ecommerce…

The Advertising Research Foundation The Advertising Research Foundation or The ARF is an organization dedicated to creating, curating, and sharing objective, industry-level advertising research. They enable members with unique, research-based insights to make a true impact on their advertising and build marketing leadership within their organizations. Founded nearly 80 years ago, The ARF’s members today include more than 400 leading…

Guess what? We’re officially Facebook Marketing Partners! What does that mean exactly? Glad you asked! In Facebook’s own words, “Facebook Marketing Partners are vetted for excellence in exactly the things you need to get more from your marketing. Whether it’s managing campaigns at scale, improving measurement, reaching new audiences or more. What you need is what they do best. Facebook Marketing…

Your ecommerce store is a treasure trove of data that holds all of the key information needed to attract new customers. In order to gain insight into what your customers and audiences are looking for, leveraging your data is essential. You may be wondering the best way to access and convert your data into meaningful insights. That’s where we come in!

There are so many important dates for an ecommerce business owner. While preparing for holidays and developing a sales plan with a competitive edge, the key to an effective marketing strategy is planning in advance. So, how do you go about this? With a comprehensive ecommerce marketing calendar.

In the ever-changing world of ecommerce, one element that remains constant is the desire and the need to maximize sales. Platforms, tools, techniques and concepts morph and evolve, but if your sales fall flat, your entire online business could be in jeopardy. Here are a few valuable tips that you can easily implement to help you boost your ecommerce sales….

For ecommerce, it’s a no-brainer that the best way to reach customers and attract new ones is online ads. You want to reach potential customers in the places they spend most of their time and showcase items that are tailored to their interests. Don’t believe us? Let’s review the facts! Drive Sales and ROI Online ads have revolutionized the advertising…

Gone are the days of holiday shoppers patiently waiting for the stroke of midnight on Black Friday and Cyber Monday to begin scouring for holiday deals. Retailers, specifically ecommerce, have undoubtedly caught on to the record spending levels of the holiday season and have turned two days into an entire weekend of sales to capitalize on the busiest time of…

The design, look and feel of a product is a major determining factor in the way people purchase. Apple is the best example of design and marketing over technological innovation. Recently they have taken up arms on all fronts with technological strides but around the time of the iPod it was marketing and design that won out over more technologically…

With platforms like Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce, it’s become easy to setup an online store to advertise and sell your products. A lot of the advertising is now done through Facebook or Google, but how to do you gain the most value from those high cost clicks? Increasing your conversion rates can only go so far to getting the best…