11 Proven Ecommerce Marketing Tactics That Drive Sales in 2025

To increase sales in 2025, DTC brands must use ecommerce marketing tactics that are both data-driven and customer-focused. The most effective strategies include personalized email automation, influencer marketing collaborations, high-converting SEO content, retargeting ads, and TikTok Shop integrations — all proven to drive traffic and boost conversions.

Behind every abandoned cart is a missed connection. And behind every viral product? A strategy that nailed timing, trust, and attention.

Now, you’ll get 11 proven methods used by today’s fastest-growing stores to attract traffic, build loyalty, and sell more. Ready to stop guessing and start scaling?

Let’s dive in.

Types of ecommerce marketing tactics

1. SEO for ecommerce marketing

SEO remains one of the most successful ecommerce marketing tactics in 2025, with Google processing over 16.4 billion searches daily and search contributing approximately 68% of all trackable website traffic.

The stakes are particularly high since the first result in Google search gets 27.6% of all clicks, whereas only 0.63% of searchers ever click on websites listed on page two.

For online stores specifically, SEO delivers an exceptional ROI compared to other marketing channels.

E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) now forms the core of how search engines evaluate content quality. Demonstrating product expertise and building credibility through detailed descriptions, reviews, and supporting content directly impacts your store's visibility.

2. Influencer marketing for ecommerce

It makes sense when you consider that nearly half of millennials trust influencer recommendations, and one-third of Gen Z consumers made purchases based on influencer advice.

Partnering with digital creators delivers exceptional results for online stores, with influencer marketing now a USD 16.40 billion industry. This strategy has become essential for e-commerce brands looking to drive sales in 2025.

Influencer marketing benefits

The advantages of influencer marketing go beyond simply getting your product seen. Influencers help amplify brand awareness by positioning products before broader audiences through trusted channels. They leverage their expertise and authority to establish credibility with potential customers while enabling precision targeting of specific audience segments.

Influencer marketing offers cost-effective outreach compared to traditional advertising methods. Businesses see an average return of $2.90 for every $1.00 spent on influencer marketing, with top performers achieving $20.00 or more. These numbers show why more brands are shifting their budget to this channel.

On average, Humansy clients earn $4.30 for every $1.00 spent, turning influencer marketing into a growth engine for brand love, awareness, and consistent sales.

Influencer marketing campaign ideas for ecommerce

Different industries benefit from unique campaign approaches:

• Beauty: Unboxing videos and before/after transformations

• Fashion: Outfit-of-the-day posts and style guides

• Food: Restaurant collaborations and review roundups

• Fitness: Workout series and transformation stories

Contests and giveaways effectively increase engagement and generate buzz around new releases.

When implementing influencer strategies, focus on alignment rather than follower count. Micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers) often deliver higher engagement than macro-influencers (100,000-1 million), with Instagram micro-influencers achieving 4.84% engagement versus just 1.06% for macro-influencers.

To maximize effectiveness, establish clear goals and select appropriate platforms where your audience is most active. Above all, ensure your product integrates seamlessly with the niche influencers’ content to maintain authenticity.

If you want to implement influencer marketing to increase both sales and awareness for your brand, choose the right agency wisely, and you’ll take your brand to the next level.

3. Email Marketing Automation

Capturing email addresses is just the start. What matters is how you use them. Successful ecommerce marketing relies on sending regular, valuable emails that deepen customer relationships and drive repeat purchases.

Here are essential email types your audience will appreciate:

• Welcome emails after a first purchase to build trust from day one.

• Exclusive offers like promo codes or surprise gifts are used to reward loyalty.

• Weekly or bi-weekly newsletters with discounts, tips, and product updates.

• Post-purchase content that helps customers get more value from their order.

• Personal thank-you notes for your highest-value customers.

• Feedback requests to understand why someone didn’t buy and improve the UX.

Personalized campaigns deliver impressive results for e-commerce brands. Take Kerrits as an example - their automated seasonal emails make up just 4% of their sends but generate 23% of email sales with a revenue-per-email of $6.50.

A tiered engagement strategy works best — send 70% of campaigns to engaged profiles, 20% to broader audiences, and 10% to the entire list.

4. Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms have become essential for e-commerce brands, with nearly 5 billion users worldwide actively discovering and purchasing products online.

The impact on sales is clear: businesses with a social media presence generate 32% more revenue than those without.

Social media marketing content types

Successful social media content for ecommerce typically falls into several key categories:

• Product showcases: Highlight features, applications, and benefits

• Behind-the-scenes: Share company processes and team highlights to make your brand more relatable

• User-generated content: Feature customer photos and videos showing products in real-world use

• Educational content: Offer tutorials, tips, and insights related to your products

• Interactive posts: Create polls, quizzes, and questions to boost engagement

5. User-Generated Content (UGC) and IGC

User-generated content (UGC) and Influencer-Generated Content (IGC) stand out as one of the most authentic marketing tools for online stores, with 90% of consumers finding it more influential than branded promotional content.

What are UGC and IGC in ecommerce?

UGC includes content created by everyday customers showing their experiences with products: photos, videos, reviews, and testimonials, that showcase real-world use. IGC, on the other hand, is created by influencers working with brands, offering more control while still maintaining authenticity.

The impact speaks for itself: 62% of consumers say UGC is most trustworthy when making purchases. This makes sense: people trust real customers showing products in actual use situations rather than polished marketing presentations.

How to collect and use UGC and IGC

To gather quality UGC & IGC content for your e-commerce strategy:

1. Create branded hashtags to organize and track content

2. Implement post-purchase emails requesting reviews or photos

3. Run contests or giveaways that encourage content creation

4. Feature UGC & IGC creators on your channels to show appreciation

Always request permission before using customer content. Industry experts emphasize this point: "You always need to ask for their permission before using their content on your website or social media platforms".

Displaying UGC and IGC on product pages, social media, and marketing emails provides social proof that guides potential customers through their buying journey. When shoppers see real people enjoying your products, they're more likely to imagine themselves doing the same.

6. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads

PPC advertising gives e-commerce businesses immediate traffic and conversions, with companies seeing an average of $2.00 in sales for every $1.00 invested in Google Ads. This approach puts your products in front of ready-to-buy customers at the exact moment they're searching for solutions.

PPC platforms for ecommerce

Several platforms offer powerful PPC options for online stores:

• Google Ads - The most widely used platform with search, shopping, and display networks

• Microsoft Ads - Typically 33% cheaper than Google, with an older, higher-income audience

• Facebook/Instagram - Average CPC ranges between $0.50 - $0.95, making it cost-effective for visual products

• Amazon Sponsored Products - Places products directly on the world's largest marketplace with an average CPC of $0.89

It's worth noting that 40% of clicks come from the top three ads on search pages, making ad position crucial for visibility. Non-Google platforms like Pinterest ($0.10-1.50 per click) and TikTok provide specialized alternatives for different audience demographics.

7. Affiliate marketing in ecommerce

Affiliate marketing programs help ecommerce stores boost sales by partnering with external promoters who earn commissions on results. This performance-based approach lets online stores expand their reach while only paying when they get actual sales.

Commission structures typically include:

• Pay per sale: The most common model, where affiliates earn a percentage of each purchase

• Pay per lead: Payment based on lead conversion

• Pay per click: Compensation for driving traffic regardless of whether it converts

Commission rates differ by industry, typically ranging from 5% to 30%. Health products often command higher rates of 20-30%, while clothing brands usually offer around 10-15%.

Top platforms for e-commerce businesses include:

• LeadDyno: Offers easy Shopify integration with automated lead management tools

• Refersion: Provides recruitment, tracking, and payment management in a user-friendly interface

• UpPromote: Features customizable commission structures with unlimited programs at higher tiers

Many brands also use affiliate networks like Awin, Amazon Associates, or Rakuten Advertising to connect with established affiliates who already have audiences.

8. Video marketing in ecommerce

Video marketing has become a must-have for e-commerce brands, with 90% of consumers saying that watching a product video has convinced them to make a purchase.

Several video types drive exceptional results for online stores:

• Product demonstrations show features and functionality, answering questions shoppers might have before buying

• Unboxing videos build excitement about the purchase experience, with influencer partnerships being particularly effective

• How-to tutorials rank among YouTube's most popular content, helping customers understand how to use products

• Brand videos remain the most common format, making up 71% of all video marketing content

For mobile shoppers, video is even more powerful. One brand saw a 147% jump in mobile conversions after adding video content. Beyond boosting sales, videos reduce purchase uncertainty by showing products in detail, which helps lower return rates and improve customer satisfaction.

9. Retargeting and remarketing campaigns

Retargeting campaigns help online stores reconnect with the 95% of website visitors who leave without making a purchase or filling out a form. Retargeted ads achieve 2x higher click-through rates and 50% lower cost-per-acquisition compared to standard display ads.

Retargeting (sometimes called remarketing) reaches potential customers who have previously interacted with your brand. The process works by placing a tracking pixel on your website that follows users as they browse other sites across the internet. There are several approaches to retargeting:

• Site retargeting: Shows ads to users who visited specific pages on your website

• Email retargeting: Displays ads across the web to people on your email list

• Search retargeting: Targets users based on their search history and behaviors

• Social media retargeting: Reaches people who engaged with your brand on social platforms

Beyond bringing back potential customers, retargeting helps nurture existing prospects, increase site traffic, grow brand awareness, and complement your email marketing campaigns.

Remember to track conversion rates rather than just clicks; clicks show acknowledgment, but conversions represent meaningful engagement when users take the actions you want them to take.

10. Loyalty and referral programs in ecommerce

Loyalty and referral programs are among the most cost-effective ways to drive e-commerce sales, with the global loyalty management market expected to grow from $4.02 billion in 2020 to $13.80 billion by 2026. These customer retention tools turn casual shoppers into brand advocates while boosting repeat purchases and word-of-mouth marketing.

Loyalty program benefits

Setting up a well-structured loyalty program delivers clear business advantages:

• Increased revenue - Customers spend 67% more when they participate in loyalty programs

• Higher customer lifetime value - Loyal customers are 10 times more valuable than first-time buyers

• Improved retention - A 5% increase in customer retention can lead to 25% higher profits

• Community building - Over 75% of US adults already participate in brand loyalty programs

The exclusivity of these programs creates emotional connections that foster long-term relationships. At their core, loyalty programs reward repeat purchases by showing customers you value their continued business.

Customer retention through loyalty

The data is clear, keeping existing customers costs five times less than acquiring new ones. When businesses add personalization to their loyalty programs, they see 40% more revenue than competitors without such initiatives.

The most successful programs don't stay static. They continuously evolve based on customer data, providing valuable insights into buying patterns and preferences that inform future marketing decisions.

11. A/B testing and conversion optimization for ecommerce brands

For successful conversion optimization, test multiple elements on your pages:

• CTA buttons - Play with text, color, size, and placement; something as simple as changing a button color can boost click-through rates by 21%.

• Headlines and subheadings - Different wording styles can dramatically impact results.

• Page layouts - Test different arrangements of content, navigation options, and how products are displayed

• Product pages - Compare product image styles, from lifestyle photos to plain backgrounds

• Checkout process - Single-page versus multi-page checkout can make a big difference in abandonment rates

The main goal is to remove friction from the customer journey. As industry experts note, "When you can remove friction from the shopping process, it significantly increases the chances of conversions".

Comparison Table

Final Thoughts

There’s no single magic bullet in ecommerce, but combining the right strategies is where the magic happens. From conversion-boosting emails to scroll-stopping TikTok content, these 11 ecommerce marketing tactics are battle-tested ways to drive traffic, build trust, and sell more in 2025.

The data is clear: brands that go multi-channel, embrace personalization, and stay agile outperform the rest, by a long shot.

Now’s the time to stop guessing and start scaling. And if you're serious about turning influence into revenue, we’re here to help. At Humansy, we specialize in influencer marketing that actually moves the needle. Our clients typically see a $2.80 to $4.30+ return for every $1 spent.

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