While the COVID-19 outbreak has impacted eCommerce in a variety of ways, one that could have the most lasting impact is the massive influx of first-time online shoppers. Online stores that can manage to capture these customers’ loyalty now can position themselves to reap the benefits of those customer relationships well into the future – and that makes it especially important for them to offer each shopper an excellent experience.
To gauge the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on online shopping behaviors and attitudes, we recently conducted a survey of 1,100 consumers. 14% of respondents said they had tried shopping online for the first time as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Of these new online shoppers, roughly half (48%) said they expected to continue shopping online after the end of the outbreak.
In addition to customers shopping online for the first time, our survey indicates that most consumers (56%) have increased their online shopping due to the coronavirus outbreak. And of the shoppers who have increased their online shopping during the crisis, more than half (59%) say they plan to shop more after the crisis than they did before it.
Traffic hijackers threaten the relationship with first-time shoppers
With so many new customers shopping online during this dynamic period – both those using eCommerce for the first time and those increasing the frequency, variety, or scale of their purchases – it is crucial for retailers to lay the groundwork to keep them coming back.
But while retailers likely know all-too-well that competing successfully for these shoppers demands delivering a hyper-personalized and optimal experience, there’s another barrier standing in the way of making sure their CRO investments deliver on their potential — traffic hijackers.
A reality of the massive global online monetization industry, traffic hijackers present themselves as traffic monetization services — only their ‘monetization’ tactic is distributing ad injections into free software services so that they can grow revenue by selling ad impressions and clicks to ad networks. By design, they target many of the most popular services downloaded by consumers, such as browser extensions, PDF converters, media players, apps, games and many others.
Once these services are installed, the ad injections go to work, and instead of experiencing that optimized customer journey created by eCommerce retailers, the consumer is instead met with unauthorized ads – the majority of which promote competitor sites and promotions. This widespread problem is known as Customer Journey Hijacking, and it’s an expensive one for online enterprises. By appearing during an average of 20% of online shopping sessions, these unauthorized ads decrease eCommerce conversion rates by up to 5%.
Customer Journey Disruptions Especially Harmful to Price-sensitive Shoppers
Customer Journey Hijacking is especially harmful in light of the coronavirus outbreak, because today’s customers are highly price-sensitive. We saw this focus on price in our recent survey, after we asked respondents to rank the influence of five different factors on their online purchase decisions: price, the product’s brand reputation, the online store’s brand reputation, fast and convenient delivery, and how user-friendly the online store’s website is. More than half (51%) of all respondents said that price was the most important of those five factors, while another 24% ranked price as the second-most important factor.
We also used the survey to find out how consumers’ sensitivity to price would impact their reactions to injected ads. Specifically, we asked respondents about how they would react if, while shopping for a product in an online store, they encountered an ad for a similar product at a lower price being sold by a competing online store. More than half of respondents (53%) said they would either “definitely” or “probably” click on the ad, while another 33% said they would “maybe” click. Only 4% said they would “definitely not” click on such an ad.
In this environment, each time a new visitor to your online store sees an unauthorized ad promoting a competing store or product, there is a real risk that the ad could cost you both an immediate sale and what could have been a long-lasting and profitable customer relationship.
Increasing sales revenue from first-time digital shoppers
Heading into the most important shopping period of the year, this is a critical time for retailers to stop losing their online sales revenue to injected ads – especially given the challenges facing today’s businesses as a result of COVID-19.
That’s why Namogoo is supporting online retailers and eCommerce companies by making our Customer Hijacking Prevention solution available at no cost until the end of 2020. Encompassing major events such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday season, Q4 2020 will see more eCommerce revenue, and more competition for first-time online shoppers than ever. Removing distractions from the customer journey therefore takes on heightened importance for retail brands competing for the loyalty of these shoppers.
By blocking injected ads in real-time, our solution offers an immediate conversion rate increase of at least 1.5%. And, because our cloud-based technology can be set up remotely and rapidly, there is no need to wait for any on-site installation.
Most importantly, with so many new online shoppers now in the process of choosing their favorite eCommerce websites, preventing Customer Journey Hijacking puts you in control of the shopping experience you offer – so you not only maximize conversion during the most important quarter of the year, but also start building new customer relationships and strengthen eCommerce KPIs well into 2021.
Ready to cut the cord on traffic hijackers and stop ad injections from harming your conversion and customer loyalty? Take advantage of Namogoo’s Customer Hijacking Prevention technology to eliminate disruptions from your customer journey and maximize revenue until the end of 2020.
