25 Ways to Increase Online Sales
                     w w w.sa m arita n i n f ote c h.c o m
2 5  W A Y S  T O   
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I N C R E A S E   
O N L I N E  S A L E S
Increasing online sales is the primary goal of countless 
 businesses, large and small alike. Whether you run a  
mom-and-pop retail business or work for a vast  
ecommerce giant like Amazon, increasing sales  
through online channels is a little like bowling a strike – 
 it looks a lot easier than it actually is.
W  W  W . S  A  M  A  R  I T  A  N  I N  F  O  T  E  C  H . C  O  
M
Not only is honesty in your  copy crucial to 
ybouusirness’ reputation, it also fosters and 
1 Be Honest in encourages  t rust  in your brand. Don’t make 0 2 . claims you can’t  substantiate, and don’t use 
 Your Sales hyperbole lightly – today’s  consumers are hypersensitive to marketing BS, so be  honest, 
straightforward, and approachable in all your  
Copy sales copy, from your homepage to your  email  
This might seem painfully obvious, but it’s  campaigns.
amazing to me how many sites write checks their This principle also applies to how you position  
 products can’t cash. yourself as a business. Ever come across a site 
that’s  obviously run by one or two people, but 
features copy  that would be better suited to a 
multinational  enterprise company?
2 .   Get More Ad 
Clicks  with Ad 
Extensions
0 3 If you’re selling stuff online, ad extensions are a no-brainer – 
 this feature (available in both AdWords and Bing) allows 
you  to make your ad bigger with more places to click. And 
it  doesn’t cost any extra! AND it increases your ad’s click-  
through rate! Amazing, right?
In the abo ve  example ,  the links to “Men ’s  Sunglasses” a n d  
“W o m e n ’ s   Sunglasses” give peop le  who a re looking to buy  a  new 
pai r of Ray-  Ban ’s  two addi t ional  p lace s  to click. This saves  the 
potential   custome r  a  step a n d  m a k e s  it eas ie r  a n d  faster  to find 
exactly what  they want  (so they go to your site instead of a  
compe ti tor’s).
Legions of satisfied customers 
 are considerably more  
influential than even the best -   
3 Show Off  written sales copy ,  so make  .   
sure you include gushing  
Customer  testimonials and reviews from  
your hardcore brand  
0 4 Testimonials evangelists gushing about how 
and  Trust  wonderful you are .  These  might appear on your product  
Signals pages ,  landing pages ,  pricing  
page ,  even your home page .
In today’s social media environment,  For  more info ,  check out my  
customer feedback has never been more  post on the power of customer  
important. Fortunately, this means that your  testimonials .
 satisfied customers can provide you with 
one  of the most valuable weapons in your 
arsenal
– testimonials.
4 . Crea te  a  Sense  of 
 Urgency
It’s important to be honest and transparent about who you 
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are  and what you do, but there’s no ru le against creating a 
sense  of urgency to persuade prospects to buy from you 
right now.
Many consumers respond pos itively to incentives that create a  
sense of urgency, from time-sens itive special of fe rs  to 
limited-  edition products. Although the ways you can 
accomplish this  are as diverse as the products you can buy 
online, some  strategies may be more effective than others. 
For example, i f   you don’t (or can’t) make a limited-edition 
product to entice  prospects, maybe you can offer a financial 
incentive to  customers  who commit to a purchase right away, 
such as free  shipping or a discount.
5 .   Offer a Bulletproof  
Money - Back 
Guarantee
Oftentimes, one of the most powerfu l factors in a consumer’s  
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 decis ion not to buy something is r isk avers ion – the des ire to  
avoid a potential loss . Most  times, this perceived risk is a  
financial one. Why  shou ld someone buy your products? 
What  i f  they don’t work, or the customer doesn’t like them? 
Even  small purchases can carry the r isk of “buyer’s 
remorse,” so  overcome this objection from the outset by 
offering a  bu lletproof money-back guarantee.
The more r isk you remove from the prospect’s decis ion, 
the  more likely they are to buy from you, so take away 
anything  that cou ld dissuade prospects from buying from 
you.
If you have a wide range of products, consider  
6 .   OFFER structuring your site or product pages in a way  
FEWER  that offers  visitors as few choices as possible.  This reduces the possibility that the visitor will  
CHOICES be overwhelmed by dozens of different  0 7 products. This can be accomplished by  
To many businesses, this concept is simply  arranging your products into increasingly  
unthinkable. Surely offering more products narrow categories (an added bonus of which is  
offering visitors greater ease to find exactly  
 is a great way to increase sales! Well, not  
what they’re looking for), or you could place  
necessarily. In fact, in many instances, a  
greater emphasis on fewer individual products. 
greater variety of choice can lead to  
 Either way, remember that the more choices  
indecision on the part of the prospect,  
you provide, the more likely a customer is to  
which in turn results in lost sales.
bounce and go elsewhere.
7 .   Target 
Lookalike  
Audiences on  
Facebook
0 8 On e  of the best  ways  to inc rease online  sales is to u se   
the da ta you have  abou t  your  existing c u stome rs  to  
find peo p le  just like them .  Fa ce b o o k  allows you to 
d o   this through the targeting of lookalike  audiences .
Lookalike audiences in Facebook are 
essentially  users  on Facebook who share 
characteristics and  behaviors to customers in 
your database. You  upload your  data to 
Facebook, which then cross-  references its 
own data (and information from third-  party 
data brokers) to create matches based on the  
criteria you specify.
According to Business Insider, approximately $4  
TRILLION worth of online merchandise was abandoned 
 in incomplete shopping carts last year alone, of which  
63% was potentially recoverable. This is a truly jaw-  8 .       Reduce  
dropping statistic, and one that reveals how crucial it is 
 to nail your checkout process. Friction in the  
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Similar to the point above about user experience,  Checkout 
reducing friction in your checkout process can have an  
incredible impact on your conversion rates. Just as you  Process
should make it as easy as possible for visitors to use and 
 navigate your site, you should make it even easier for  
them to actually buy what you’re selling.
Eliminate any unnecessary steps in your checkout  
process that could dissuade a prospect from converting. 
 Skip unnecessary fields in forms.
9 .       Provide as Many
Payment Options as 
Possible
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Okay, so your business takes credit cards. What about Google Wallet payments? Or ApplePay? 
 What about Stripe? WePay?
Consumers have more choice than ever before in terms of how they actually pay for goods and  
services, and not everyone prefers to use American Express. By offering more payment options,  
including newer services that are becoming increasingly popular on mobile, you’re making it easier 
 for prospects to give you their money. Sure, it can be a hassle to optimize your site (and checkout 
 process, as we discussed above) to include all these options, but doing so is a great way to 
increase  online sales, particularly if your site has strong mobile traffic.
10 . Invest in Quality 
Product  Images
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There’s compelling evidence that well-presented food actually tastes better than 
sloppily  plated dishes. Given how important appearance is in relation to how we 
perceive things  (including other people), it stands to reason that investing in quality 
product photography  will have a similar effect on visitors to your site.
Regardless of what you sell, include high-quality images of your products – no tiny  
thumbnails or poorly lit shots taken in your stock room. Also be sure to include a wide 
range  of images. It might seem overkill to include shots of your products from every 
conceivable  angle, but try it out. People love to kick a product’s proverbial tires before 
buying, especially  online.
1 2 11 .   Get Rid of Your Landing 
PWe ’ave  mgenet iosned  this strategy befo re ,  a n d  it usually raises m o r e  than  a  few eyeb rows  to say the least. However,  we ’re not  advoca t ing 
 for  eliminating landing page s  unnecessar i ly,  but ra ther  optimizing your  online ad s  to align with how m a n y  con s u me rs  actually 
b rowse   the W e b  a n d  s hop  online .
Call-Only campaign s  in Fa c eb o o k  a n d  AdWo rds  a re a n  excellen t  example  of  a  situation in which remov ing  the traditional landing page  
 entirely m ak e s  a  lot of sense .  Most pe op le  don ’ t  want  to s pe n d  several  minutes  brows ing page s  o n  their mobile  dev ice  – they simply  
want  to get in touch with your  bus iness .
By utilizing Call-Only ads ,  you ’ re making it eas ier  for  prospec ts  to reac h  out to your  bus iness ,  eliminat ing o n e  of the leakiest stages  of 
 the classic onl ine sales  funnel  comple tely,  a n d  potential lyincreas ing the volume of calls to your bus iness  – o n e  of the most  valuable  
lead source s  to m a n y  bus inesses .  People  who call you a re practically begging you to sell t hem some thing .
12 . G i ve  
G m a i l   A d s  
After years ian an dT outr of ybeta, Gmail Ads  are 
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FINALLY  available to everyone. This is an exciting 
way to reach  prospects and increase sales.
If you’re already reaching customers  when they search 
and  when they browse on social, why not go the extra 
mile and  hit them while they’re in their inboxes, too? One 
of the  most  effective ways to use Gmail Ads  is by 
targeting  competitor keywords. People who are in the 
market for  your competitors’ products are gett ing emails 
from your  competitors that mention their brand terms 
right now. By  targeting those same terms you can show up 
in their  inboxes and hopefully change their minds.
13 .   Keep Messaging Consistent 
Across  Campaigns and Your Site
Ever clicked a  PPC ad  that grabbed your attention, only to be  taken to an  
1 4 irrelevant landing page (bad) or the site’s homepage  (worse)? Did you end  
up  buying whatever you were looking for from that site? Probably not.
If a  user clicks an  ad  for a  specific product or service, the page they’re taken 
 to should be  about that specific product or service – not  a  related category, 
 not  a  special offer for another product, but that specific product. Make 
sure  your messaging is relevant across your PPC and  paid social campaigns 
and   the pages associated with them, so that ad  clicks actually turn into 
sales.
14 .   Answer Every  
Question and 
AEvdedrye sOsbjection 
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in  Your Copy
One of the most dangerous pitfalls you can fall into when 
trying  to sell online is making assumptions about your 
prospective  customers’ knowledge of your product, service, 
or even market.  Many companies mistakenly believe their 
customers know more  about what they’re selling than they 
actually do, which results in  unanswered questions or 
objections that are failed to be  addressed – both of which can 
harm sales.
15 .   Give Away As Much As You 
Possible  Can for Free
People love free stuff, and the more you give away for free, the more favorably prospective customers are 
likely to  perceive you and your brand, which can result in more online sales.
Look at your current offerings. Can you give anything away for free? If you’re in the software business as 
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we are,  it’s easy to offer free, no-obligationtrials of your software. Even if you’re not, you can just as 
easily give away  samplers, trial memberships, two-for-one offers, and other reward-based incentives. 
Giving stuff away for free  isn’t just a great way to improve people’s perception of your business, it’s also a 
great way to introduce them to  your must-have products and tempt them to buy more.
I’m going to go ahead and assume 
ythoaut’re already creating buyer 
16 .   Create and personas  (because if you aren’t, 
you’re in real  trouble), but I am 
Target  Detailed going to challenge  you to create even 
Buyer  Personas more detailed buyer  personas than you have in the past.
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If you’ve ever looked at the targeting  
options available to Facebook  
advertisers, you may have seen the  
amazing granularity with which you can 
 target users on Facebook – advertisers 
 can target users based on the square  
footage of their home, the university  
from which they earned their degree, 
and  even where they plan on going for 
their  next vacation (as Margot 
revealed in her  fascinating post about 
amazingly  granular Facebook 
audiences).
When you go to a restaurant, the chances are pretty  
good that you’ll invariably choose one of the mid-
priced  dishes. This is because many restaurants 
manipulate  psychology to push people toward the 
mid-range  meals. We’ll often avoid the cheapest 
dishes – and the  most expensive – making the 
middle-tier options the  most appealing. This is a 
technique known as “decoy  pricing.” The same 
1 8 17 principle can be leveraged to  increase sales online .
with tiered pricing structures.
Implement  
Tie ed By including a third “decoy” option in your pricing  r structure, you can push people toward the middle  
option – the one you really want them to buy. Sure,  
Pricing some people will go for the most expensive option  anyway (which is a bonus, revenue-wise), but most 
will  subconsciously avoid the decoy and choose the 
middle-  tier option, which is precisely what you 
want them to  do.
If you're looking to increase sales in retail, don't ignore 
the  potential of opt-in offers – prompts that encourage 
people  to sign up for your newsletter, mailing list, or 
loyalty  programs. Using opt-in offers can not only 
1 9 18 Add an Opt significantly  increase the number of contacts in your .   -
database(a major  asset for future email marketing 
In  Pop- Up Offer campaigns), but also  increase online sales in the short 
term.
to  Push Them 
Over  the Edge Prospective customers who are on the fence about 
buying  from you may well be swayed bya well-placed 
opt-in offer  for, say, free shipping, or 10% of their 
first order. Even if  they decide against the purchase at 
that time, but do sign  up for your opt-in offer, you’ve 
still added them to your  database and they may choose 
to return later to complete  the sale.
1 9 .       G r ow  Online Sales  w it h Mobile 
Opt imiz at ion
Make it as easy as possible 
The number of online Mobile search has already  for  mobile visitors to buy 
businesses with poorly  eclipsed desktop search in  whatever  you’re selling. This 
2 0 volume. If you don’t want to  
designed, badly optimized may involve  an extensive 
leave sales on the table, it’s 
 “mobile” sites is overhaul of your  checkout vital  that your site is 
amazing. process (see tip  #18)arate optimized for  mobile – and not 
mobile site.
purely from a  technical 
perspective.
Amazon’s mobile site is an  The harder it is for visitors to  
excellent example of how find – and buy – what they 
mobile  ecommerce can (and want,  the more likely they are 
arguably  should) be done, but Navigation and user to  abandon your site 
you don’t  need Amazon’s experience  are among the altogether  and take their 
resources to  create a most crucial  elements of a business  elsewhere. Pages 
compelling, user-  friendly well-designed,  highly should load  near-
experience for visitors  on optimized mobile  experience. instantaneously, and  
mobile. navigation should be logical.
2 0 .   Impr es s  New  Cu s t omer s  w it h 
an  Amaz ing Follow - Up Email
Sadly, the customer experience typically ends for many businesses when they’ve finally got  
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their hands on a customer’s money. This is a terrible mistake for customer retention. To  
increase sales volume online, make sure you have a thoughtful, considerate, genuinely 
useful  follow-up procedure in place for new customers.
As a hardcore computer geek, I’m always ordering stuff from Newegg.com – replacement  
parts, new components, and other deliciously geeky stuff. The reason I’ve been a loyal 
Newegg  customer for many years isn’t just the price of the goods (which is highly 
competitive), but  rather the focus on customer service and the follow-up process Newegg has 
in place.
21 .   Nail Your Value  Proposition –   And 
Make  It Immediately Obvious
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Far too many companies lose sales and waste time by focusing on themselves. Remember how we discussed that people 
 don ’t  want to buy things, only solve their problems? Well, another painful truth is that unless your customers are the  
brand evangelists we’ve been talking about, the vast majority of them don ’t  care about you or your company – only how 
 your products or services will make their lives better. This is why your value proposition should take center stage in all  
your marketing communications and site content.
Value propositions  can be broken down into th ree main a r e a s :
Relevance: How your product/service will solve customers ’  problems 
 Quantifiable value: The specific benefits your product/service 
offers
Differentiator: Why customers should buy from you and not a  
competing company
2 2 .       Us e  t h e  Voice of 
t he  C u s t o me r  for  Mo re 
 Re sonan t  Ad 
Campaign s
Hopefully you’re already using PPC and paid social to  
expand your reach and find new audiences. However, the 
 language you use in your campaigns can have a  
2 3 tremendous impact on your conversion rates (and,  
therefore, your sales), so my fourth tip is to use “the  
voice of the customer” in your campaigns – but what  
does this mean?
The voice of the customer is a market research technique 
 that aligns copy with the needs, wants, pain points,  
expectations, and aversions of the consumer being  
targeted by that particular messaging. This process often 
 includes language and phrasing used by customers  
themselves during market research and focus group  
testing.
2 3 .       Pinpoint   You r   Bes t   At t r ibu t ion 
and  Conversion Pa ths
Sometimes, it feels as though you’re doing everything right, only to see your  
conversion rates hovering somewhere between “miserable” and “pathetic.”  
Oftentimes, this isn’t anything to do with the messaging or positioning of your 
ads  (though it pays to look at this closely), but rather a misunderstanding of 
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when and  where conversions are happening.
One of the first things you should do if your conversion rates look low is to 
examine  your attribution models and conversion pathways in Analytics. You 
may be surprised  to find that parts of your marketing strategy that seem like 
conversion duds actually  have a big influence on your online sales. For example, 
maybe organic search isn’t a  great channel for converting into sales, but people 
who find you first through organic  search, and then see a Facebook ad are highly 
like to become a paying customer. If  that’s the case, you should double-down on 
content marketing and pour some  money into Facebook remarketing too (see Tip 
#1 ,  below).
Active engagement with prospects via social  
media is overlooked as a potential sales tool by  
far too many businesses because it is perceived  
as having a negligible impact on actual sales –  
when in fact this is one of the best ways you can 
 increase brand awareness, customer  
satisfaction, and sales.
2 4 24 .   Actually Talk 
to  Your Prospects Think of a time when you tweeted at a company, or  
commented on a brand’s Facebook page – and the  
on  Social Media company actually responded to you personally. What 
 effect did this have on your perception of that 
brand?  I’ll wager it became significantly more 
favorable.
Providing fast, honest answers to questions that  
potential customers have about your offerings is an  
excellent way to increase sales, as the more attention 
 you are perceived as paying to potential customers,  
the more likely people are to want to buy from you.
25 .   Use  Remarke ting to Close  Way More  
Deals
No matter whether you ’re running a  PPC campaign or a  Facebook advertising  
campaign , any digital marketing initiative takes time, money, and  effort to  
2 5 accomplish . If you ’re not using remarketing, you ’re essentially banking on  
prospective customers converting immediately, which almost never happens 
(and  is exactly as crazy as it sounds).
Whether you ’re remarketing your content  or a  specific time-sensitive sale offer,  
remarketing is arguably the single most effective way to increase sales online. Not 
 only does remarketing keep your brand at the forefront of prospects ’minds, it  
also provides would-be customers with numerous additional opportunities to  
convert. Given the often-fractured customer journey, which now usually takes  
place across at least a  day or two and  several devices, remarketing also closely  
aligns with how today ’s consumers prefer to shop – which is wherever and   
whenever they choose .
C o n t a c t  U s
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