Since SearchKings™ Africa opened its doors in Johannesburg in 2013, we have worked closely with our sister company SearchKings™ Canada gleaning insights and leveraging best practices from each other to better support our customers.
This month we had the pleasure of hosting one of our North American colleagues, Mathew Vincent, an e-commerce expert, in our offices for a few days on his first trip to South Africa. The timing was fortunate given that e-commerce is, without doubt, one of our fastest-growing verticals locally with a 135% increase in new customers since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We asked Mathew to share some of the big trends ahead of 2022 trickling our way from North America. Here are some valuable insights to consider for your e-commerce marketing strategies on Google for next year:
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It’s all about video in 2022. Leveraging the YouTube platform to remarket and generate awareness will give brands a real edge moving forward. And for those who don’t believe it – monitor it. Brand Lift, a free tool for measuring the effectiveness of your video ads is a powerful tool gaining traction too with our American and Canadian customers. Want to learn more here? Check out how to include YouTube in your online strategy
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For those businesses with brick and mortar locations, showcasing inventory as well as your physical locations is a must to engage customers and attract both offline and online shoppers giving them an idea of all that your brand has to offer.
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And thirdly, e-commerce businesses need to set realistic targets on expected ROAS (return on ad spend), especially within the first 6 months of being online. This expectation should be as low as 100%
So what did Mathew enjoy most about this visit to the Kingdom?
The people – of course – followed closely by a braai and whisky tasting for a charity event hosted by SearchKings™ Africa.
As for his highlights of the country, Mathew also got to tick a Safari experience, oceanside drives in Cape Town and a Bloukrans Bridge jump off his bucket list. Not bad for a short stint in The Southern Hemisphere. Thanks for the visit and the insights Mathew – come back anytime!
As we continue to grow this global brand, we look forward to hosting more of our Canadian cousins in the office. As we glean from them, we share with you because we win when our customers win!
