The Rise of Bot Marketing

Chatbots are taking over marketing. You may have not even noticed that you’re talking with a bot as they’re so seamless. These messenger bots have invaded Facebook messenger, platforms like Kik and WhatsApp, and are present on ecommerce websites across the Internet. Bot marketing saves companies and advertising agencies time and costs on their marketing efforts as they propagate across different marketing segments.

Despite the rapid growth of chatbots, there’s still some concern over their ubiquity. Bot messengers can certainly take over many tasks from humans, but for the moment, they only enhance and supplement traditional digital advertising. Ultimately, human interactions are a necessity for many online sales to occur and chatbots can only take you so far.

However, the future is coming fast, and chatbot marketing technology is constantly evolving. Smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo ecosystem, Apple’s Siri, and Google Voice are all informational chatbots that employ some marketing techniques, including allowing you to order food, call an Uber, and perform other functions. With some key tips, you can utilize existing chatbot technology to improve your marketing strategy and reduce stress on your team.

Customer Service

This is probably where you’ve most frequently seen chatbots. Even today, most businesses force you to wait on the phone and wait for a customer service representative while listening to incessant muzak. Many people are getting more impatient and want to be able to everything online. Whether it’s ordering food, banking, or online shopping, we want to do these tasks with speed.

Messenger bots make these chores easier—a chatbot can often answer your question in a short period, and a customer service agent doesn’t need to get involved. 24/7 customer service is now possible without paying someone to be there all hours of the day. If your customers do need additional help, chatbots can transfer them to a human.

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Personalized Ad Creation

Ad agencies are always looking for ways to create more personalized creatives. Facebook and other messenger bots can greet customers, collect preliminary information, and then use that to generate customized ads. These personalizations can increase conversions and lead to future and repeat sales. It’s important that the bots appear to be as human as possible, or this technique won’t work. A quality chatbot will at least initially appear to be an actual customer service representative, while a bad one can damage your brand image and lower conversion rates.

Analyze Your Customers

Chatbots can do a whole lot more than talk to people. They can analyze consumer data and optimize your sales and marketing strategies with those conclusions. If you’re using chatbot marketing to sell a product, it can track purchasing patterns and monitor your clients’ data, giving you key insights to redevelop strategy.

By utilizing the processing powers of messenger bots, you can save on the costs of hiring an analyst and avoid the possibility of human error.

Customer Feedback and Surveys

If you want to grow your company and evolve your brand, you need genuine feedback from your customers. You can use survey responses to help design future business strategies and improve your customer relations. Bot marketing makes this process much easier than it has been in the past. Forget tired and expensive phone surveys that never get completed.

AI-powered chatbots can adapt conversations based on customer responses and get useful data. Wizu is a chatbot specifically for conversational surveys, helping you improve your customers’ experience and giving you valuable insights. Polly uses Slack for surveys, leveraging the power of the chat app itself to create perceptive questions.

The Future of Chatbots

male cyborg representing bot marketingAs chatbot technology grows, their versatility only increases. They are already an asset to marketing firms and businesses as they’re deployed for a myriad of uses. Bots will continue to be a marketing asset in the future, especially when used in voice assistants. You can use chatbots to handle many of your marketing needs to increase productivity, efficiency, and lower costs.

Used in the right fashion, chatbot marketing can revolutionize your business. You can learn more about your customers and increase your conversion rates with minimal cost and effort.


For the latest in chatbot technology, consult the experts at Leverage Marketing. We utilize the latest technology and can help your business grow to its fullest potential.

How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment

If you’re an ecommerce retailer, you likely deal with the reality of abandoned shopping carts every day. According to the latest statistics from Listrak, an industry source on abandoned cart strategy, the 6-month average abandonment rate sits at 78%. There’s up to $260 billion in lost annual revenue due to people placing items in online shopping carts and leaving them. How can your business reduce shopping cart abandonment and start bringing those customers back?

There are several strategies for cart abandonment solutions, but it’s ultimately about creating trust with the customer, so they feel comfortable using your site.  While there are certainly shoppers who leave their carts, or who had no intention to buy in the first place, many are merely put off by the checkout process, and leave the site due to frustration. By removing barriers during the checkout process, you can lower cart abandonment and begin increasing revenue.

Why Do People Abandon Their Shopping Carts?

There are countless reasons why people abandon their shopping carts. It’s your job as an ecommerce retailer to ask, “How do I reduce shopping cart abandonment?” and discover new methods of appealing to customers. Some shoppers are distracted by a video, a family member or colleague, or they just leave their computer or mobile device without checking out.

Sometimes, the checkout is complicated or requires too much information. This process can be especially frustrating when checking out on mobile. Cart completion rates for desktop are higher than mobile, with 13% compared to 9% according to Listrak. By optimizing for mobile, you can try to recoup some of these lost purchases.

Ultimately, people abandon shopping carts for a multitude of reasons, and the best cart abandonment solutions are designed to make the process as seamless and secure as possible for the customer so that you can reduce shopping cart abandonment.

How Should I Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment?

Implementing cart abandonment solutions means getting creative and removing obstacles that stand in your customers’ way. With these ideas, you can lower cart abandonment, increase your revenue, and build a relationship with your customers based on trust.

  • Show Shipping Prices Up Front – A common cause of cart abandonment is high shipping prices, especially when they aren’t transparent throughout the checkout process. A shipping estimator can minimize this problem, while free shipping can solve it almost entirely. There will still be customers who abandon their cart due to the cost of the item, but showing the full price up front, without hidden fees, will reduce shopping cart abandonment.
  • Don’t Trick the Customer– Avoid making the customer add items to the cart or create an account to see the price. People don’t like jumping through hoops to make a purchase, including going through additional steps. Offer simple, transparent pricing on product pages, and don’t hide it behind any paywalls.
  • Don’t Require an Account to Purchase- While it’s quickly becoming the norm to offer guest-checkout and options like Amazon and PayPal sign-in, many ecommerce websites still don’t do it. By providing additional payment options, you can reduce the barrier to checkout and increase your site’s trustworthiness.
  • Create a Seamless Navigation Flow Between Cart and Store– Make changing items in your cart easy, so the customer can view the store, make modifications, and more. If the cart is a segregated part of your website, this can lead to frustration and abandoned carts.
  • Allow for Sharing and Saving Carts– Not everyone is ready to make a purchase right away. Include functionality that allows your customers to save their cart, share it with friends, or even automatically save their items, so they’re there when they come back to the site.
  • Use Remarketing Ads to Target Cart Abandoners– Since we know some potential buyers will inevitably abandon their carts, we can still take advantage of the fact that they’ve shown interest in a specific product or brand. Use Google AdWords or Facebook remarketing ads to capture that market share; this customer base is far more likely to buy than other Internet users.
  • Send Emails with Special Offers to Follow Up- Depending on the size of your company, you can send automated or personalized emails to follow up on the abandoned cart. Offer 10% off or another exclusive deal if they complete their purchase. While sending too many of these emails can turn customers off, it can also remind them of their potential purchase and help them pull the trigger.
  • Improve Your Mobile Checkout Process- Use a simple progress bar that tells your customer how far along they in the process. This simple solution can reduce frustration and lead to more sales. Add a quick sale option so they can go straight to check out, without wading through various forms. With any necessary forms, ensure you’re only asking for need-to-know information and that your keyboards are field-sensitive, reducing their time spent.

Implement Your Cart Abandonment Solutions

Reduce shopping cart abandonment on your ecommerce site today with these cart abandonment solutions. You can build trust with your customers, create a more seamless checkout process, and increase your revenue over time. Avoid having customers leave your site in frustration and annoyance and begin building positive customer experiences with your checkout process.


Still stuck on why people are abandoning their carts on your ecommerce site? Contact Leverage Marketing to learn more about our web design services for ecommerce businesses. We can help you design an intuitive website and checkout process that lowers cart abandonment.

Amazon’s Race to the Top: Will It Change Ecommerce?

Amazon has become a titan in the ecommerce world over the last decade, making up 34% of ecommerce spending in 2017. In the last several years, Amazon has broken into new markets, buying up new companies and expanding its offline presence. With seemingly endless resources at its disposal, Amazon has the power to launch new technologies, leverage its supply chain in innovative ways, and change the face of ecommerce as we know it.

With Amazon’s entrance into the online advertising space, the company controls vast portions of retailers’ online experience, from sales to marketing, and its ad share is only growing, as it becomes the #3 player behind Google and Facebook.

As traditional retail stores become less relevant, Amazon’s power grows. By 2021, Amazon’s ecommerce market share will surpass 50%. In the coming years, Amazon will continue to innovate and change the way we shop.

Amazon’s New Markets

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While Amazon started off as an online marketplace for other retailers to sell their merchandise, it’s become so much more than that in recent years. The company has released a branded line of hardware products, including e-readers, including the current Echo products that integrate Alexa (Amazon’s voice assistant). With seemingly limitless resources and capital, Amazon can grow its ecommerce business in new directions.

Amazon’s recent purchase of Whole Foods Market indicates a push into grocery, one of the largest potential markets in the United States. Whole Foods only controls less than 2% of grocery market share, but with Amazon’s supply chain management and cost-cutting measures, it could take on big players like Wal-Mart and Kroger. Only Costco sells more organic food than Whole Foods currently, and that market is ripe for growth in an online expansion. With innovative new products like Amazon’s Dash Wand, which allows you to scan items, and order new food from Prime Now and Prime Pantry, the newly acquired Whole Foods can change the way grocery shopping works.

Watch for continued expansion from Amazon in new areas like meal kits, competing with Blue Apron, and home improvement goods, going up against Home Depot and Lowe’s. Amazon has already reached a deal to sell Kenmore appliances from Sears and has meal kits available in the Seattle area. Look for Amazon to take advantage of current trends in ecommerce.

Amazon vs. Traditional Retail

There’s been a trend toward ecommerce and away from traditional offline retail in recent years. As ecommerce sales grow, reaching close to $400 billion in 2016, more retail stores file for bankruptcy, including The Limited, Wet Seal, RadioShack, Payless, Gymboree, and more. With easy and fast access to goods on Amazon and other online platforms, many retail stores can’t keep up.

Only Walmart has been able to maintain pace with Amazon’s dominance. Both aspiring to be omnichannel retailers, Walmart and Amazon are expanding from opposite sides, with Walmart building out its ecommerce presence, and Amazon expanding its offline footprint. Traditional retail outlets won’t completely die out yet, but the landscape is changing drastically, and companies like Walmart need to modify their strategies to compete with Amazon. As Walmart buys up ecommerce companies like Jet.com, Modcloth, and Bonobos, Amazon is building out offline bookstores, purchasing companies like Whole Foods, and spreading out its warehouses across the United States and globally. It’s unclear which company will succeed in the end, but it’s fascinating to watch.

Amazon’s Growing Ad Platform

When looking at ecommerce in 2017, ads might be the most vital factor. With Google and Facebook currently ruling the roost on ads on desktop and mobile, Amazon is attempting to break into the space, with $1.5 billion in ad sales in 2016. Half of online shoppers begin their search on Amazon, making the marketplace an integral ad space for ecommerce retailers. Combined with Alexa voice searches, Prime video, and other marketing efforts, Amazon’s ads platform will continue to grow.

Amazon’s growing ecommerce dominance necessitates working with the company to sell your product, serve up ads, and more. As Amazon continues to develop new strategies and ventures, it will change ecommerce forever.

Are you an ecommerce company looking to grow your sales? Leverage Marketing has the knowledge and experience to help you succeed in this evolving space. Contact us today, and we’ll help your business succeed.