Find eCommerce Agency for You: A Comprehensive Guide

eCommerce marketing is getting more sophisticated. To stand out from the pack, it requires you to:

• Keep up with trends;
• Tap right into your prospects’ needs;
• Leverage a multitude of channels and approaches to stand out from the competition;
• Continuously analyze the results and make strategic improvements.

While acing eCommerce marketing isn’t a walk in the park, we’ve got some good news for you. Whether your team lacks the time or expertise to do it, you can now entrust your growth to expert agencies.

What do they do? How can they revamp your business? And what do you have to do to find an eCommerce agency that suits your needs? Let’s figure it all out!

What are eCommerce marketing agencies?

In a nutshell, an eCommerce agency is a business-to-business (B2B) company that offers professional services to eCommerce agency. Such an agency can assist you with:

• Digital marketing;
• eCommerce SEO;
• Content creation;
• Social media marketing and management;
• And much more.

How Do eCommerce Marketing Companies Help Businesses?

Top eCommerce agencies supply your in-house teams with dedicated experts who know how to make your eCommerce brand resonate with your prospects and generate revenues. The experts you can hire from agencies include marketers, web developers, SEOs, and many others. 

The top benefits of working with such companies include:

• Bring the expertise and knowledge you may lack inside your team.
• Save you the cost of hiring and onboarding a large number of in-house specialists.
• Provide a full range of eCommerce marketing services while your team can focus on other important things, such as making sales.
• Bring faster and stronger results in terms of your visibility, rankings, branding, traffic, conversions, etc.
• Help ensure your business’s scalability.

eCommerce Agencies: Two Types to Choose From and Tips for Finding Them 

We can distinguish two types of a digital agency:

• Full-service eCommerce agencies – Companies that deliver all-rounded eCommerce marketing solutions, from site development to SEO.
  • Pros:
    • You gain access to broad expertise that can help your eCommerce brand grow;
    • You save time on a wide variety of tasks;
    • There is no need to hire in-house specialists;
    • You can get faster results and ensure scalability.
  • Cons:
    • Full-service companies might turn out to be more expensive than specialized ones because you get more services;
    • You can lose some control over the process and develop a dependence on your agency.
• Specialized eCommerce agencies – Unlike full-service ones, this type of agency specializes in specific kinds of services. For instance, they can empower your business with SEO, PPC, or design-focused services.
  • Pros:
    • You can complement your team with the specific expertise you need at the moment;
    • You can tackle your digital marketing step by step;
    • It can be cheaper than partnering with a full-service eCommerce company.
  • Cons:
    • Each time you will need to handle a different kind of task, you will need to look for and hire a new team;
    • This can also lead to a lack of cohesion in your marketing processes.

Where to Find an eCommerce agency?

The most obvious way is to search for potential partners on the web. Use a relevant query, like “Top eCommerce marketing agencies,” and explore the options.

While there are quite a few offers out there, we have to admit that choosing reliable eCommerce partners isn’t all that simple. First, it’s hard because of the time it takes. To make the right choice, you will have to do plenty of research and compare dozens of options over multiple factors, which can be quite draining. 

Besides, the only surefire way to assess the efficiency of your service provider is to see if it generates leads, sales, and revenue consistently for your business. Needless to say, it will also take a while to figure out.

Luckily, that’s what third-party reviews are meant for. Unbiased comparisons can provide you with up-to-date information about different options and help you choose the best opportunity with less time and stress. For example, SE Ranking made a handy catalog to get you on the right track.

Inside the SE Ranking’s Agency Catalog, you will find comprehensive overviews of popular eCommerce marketing agencies with their descriptions, years founded, sizes, rates, payment options, service offerings, and more. Consider using this catalog as an auxiliary tool to explore 200+ agencies and find one that perfectly suits you.

Understanding Your Business Needs

Now that you know what eCommerce marketing companies are, their types, and where to look for them, let’s move on to practical advice.

In order to find your ideal eCommerce partner, you need to analyze your business first and detect its core marketing objectives. For example, your goal might be to:

• Improve user experience;
• Expand market reach;
• Boost sales;
• Drive more traffic;
• Launch a new product;
• Build brand awareness, etc.

Depending on your base goals, flag the specific areas and tasks where you will need the help of your partner. For example, if you are just going to launch your store, you might require website development help. Similarly, if you are striving for improved organic traffic, you will probably look for qualified assistance with eCommerce SEO.

Figuring this will let you decide what kind of eCommerce marketing agency you need. Besides, this will also help your future partner clearly see what you are looking to achieve and develop an efficient plan.

When you know your goals and steps you need to accomplish, it’s time to define the budget. Make a detailed financial breakdown to determine how much money you can spend on eCommerce agencies’ services.

Key Criteria for Choosing an eCommerce Agency

After determining your goals, you can start assessing eCommerce marketing agencies to select the one that best suits you.

Here are the top criteria to consider while researching and evaluating your options:

• Experience and expertise – Look for companies with sufficient expertise in the area where you need help. Also, consider their time on the market. Often, companies that have been around for longer may have more expensive services but your experience with them might be more smooth and efficient.
• Reputation and reviews – Customer reviews and the overall brand reputation speak better than words. These two factors can help you analyze how helpful a particular partner is and whether it actually helps its clients reach their goals.
• Services offered – When making a choice, carefully analyze the services offered by a particular agency to see if they offer what you are looking for.
• Communication and collaboration – When it comes to working with an external team, the matters of communication and collaboration are pivotal. You want to find an agency that is effective at communication and can ensure a smooth workflow despite the distance or time differences between your teams.
• Pricing and budget – Last but not least, you need to consider your budget and the rates of potential partners to ensure alignment. However, don’t focus solely on the price. Instead of cheap services, seek value for money.

What Questions Should Be Asked of eCommerce Marketing Companies Before Hiring One?

Assessing existing agencies based on the abovementioned factors should help you narrow your options and detect your favorites. Now, you should reach out to selected eCommerce service providers and ask them several questions to understand how they work from the inside.

Nearly every eCommerce marketing agency will offer free consultations to their potential customers. Use this as an opportunity to collect more details. Here are the top questions you should ask:

• “How do you approach eCommerce strategy and development?” – A potential partner should deliver a straightforward, clear, and well-structured answer to demonstrate their workflow.
• “Can you provide examples of similar projects you’ve worked on?” – A trusted agency should be able to demonstrate real-life case studies with quantitative results backed by analytical data. This can help you predict the outcomes of your collaboration.
• “What is your process for ongoing support and optimization?” – Look for companies that take a proactive approach to continuous support and optimization. To answer this question, your potential partner should outline a methodological process for delivering support and ensuring customer satisfaction. It’s also a good sign if they can share real-life examples or customer reviews to support their statements.
• “How do you measure success and ROI?” – A professional and experienced agency should give a detailed and methodical response to this question. Look for a company’s emphasis on detecting the right KPIs and taking a data-driven approach for continuous results tracking.
• “What are your pricing and contract terms?” – Look out for a transparent answer that delves into the details of collaboration terms and provides a clear overview of the pricing structure. Also, clarify if any additional, unexpected charges might appear.

Maintaining a Successful Partnership

Once you select the right eCommerce agency, one more thing you have to do is ensure an effective and successful partnership.

Here are the top tips that should help you make it smooth:

• Monitor performance and results – For maximum outcomes, you and your eCommerce partner should clearly communicate the goals and detect the metrics you will use to assess the outcomes. In the long run, you should ensure continuous result monitoring to help you stay on the right track and accomplish set goals.
• Establish regular communication and feedback – Effective communication is the key to success in working with distant teams. Be sure to identify the most efficient communication channels and terms to stay in touch with your partners. Also, be sure to provide regular feedback to help your eCommerce agency understand whether they are meeting your needs or not.
• Adapt and evolve strategies as needed. Regardless of your needs and goals, eCommerce marketing is very dynamic. You and your partner should always keep an eye on your results, as well as on the emerging eCommerce trends, and refine your strategies accordingly. This can help you achieve greater results in the end and stay ahead of the competition.

Summary

Professional agencies can make handling eCommerce marketing simple and effort-free. They can help you compensate for the lack of expertise inside your team, eliminate the hiring and onboarding-related challenges, save money, and attain faster and greater results.

These and many other benefits can come to you with a trustworthy agency that knows how to promote and grow your brand effectively. The only thing you need is to know how to pick a suitable eCommerce marketing partner for you.

Use the knowledge and tips from this guide to handle this task and ensure the best outcomes for your business!