As online advertisers, we do our best to drive outstanding results for our client accounts. We use the latest and greatest tech available, review reports to find incremental wins, and always test new features that could be game-changers. We’re great stewards of our client accounts.

But what’s the old saying, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes?”

That applies to tons of marketing agencies I’ve encountered, especially the small to mid-sized agencies. When was the last time you worked on marketing or advertising for your own firm? We so often get bogged down with working in our businesses that we forget to work on our businesses. Myself included.

In today’s post, I want to run through some ideas to make sure your agency is set up for success in attracting clients.

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💡 Learn how more than 300 agencies set pricing, choose services, and handle challenges in our free State of the Digital Marketing Agency Report.

How to promote your digital marketing agency

There’s rarely a time when you’re not worried about getting new clients. That makes sense. You can’t grow without booking new business, and you could fall behind if you don’t replace churning clients.

Getting new clients is a top challenge for most agencies.

Focus on these four growth tactics to ease your anxiety and consistently book new business.

Build a strong website

No matter what avenues you pursue to attract new clients, you’ll always need a strong website to ensure you can convert folks from interested visitors to customers. This is likely where they’ll learn the most about you, your team, your abilities, and how you can help them, so make sure it hits all the highlights.

Think of your website as the remarketing portion of the buyer funnel. We’ll attract them in the next section, but you should build remarketing lists ahead of time to capture all potential customers.

Although all agencies are unique and want to highlight themselves differently, here are a few things to include on your site:

• Easy conversion options: This should be a no-brainer, but if you’re going to send people to a website, make sure they can convert. This could be a form fill, a phone call, a service purchase, or scheduling a meeting. It’s the dealer’s choice, really. We don’t let our clients get away without strong calls to action, so why should you?
• Overview of services: Every marketing agency is different. Some specialize in one area, and others are jacks of all trades. Which are you? Highlight all of your services on your site so your potential customers know how you can help them grow their business.
• Case studies: Personally, I don’t love case studies, but that’s a personal rant. Many agencies use case studies to attract potential clients, and many prospects like to see proof of success in their work. Including these can be an easy way to convince someone of your expertise and warm the lead a little before they even reach out.
• Digestible language: This one is a personal pet peeve of mine. So often, when I visit an agency’s website (or almost any tech solution anymore), I find that the entire thing is filled with industry jargon. Do you use proprietary software and machine learning to 10x your ROAS and send your results to the moon? Cool. So does everyone else. But also, your customers likely don’t know what most of that means. That’s why they’re not in advertising and need your services. Keep it simple. Explain how you’ll impact their business and keep the jargon out of it.
• Show off your accolades: If you’ve been successful, show it off. Did you recently win an industry award? That goes on the site. Do you have killer customer reviews? That also goes on the site. Your website is the one and only place where you control what is said about you. Put your best foot forward and show off why you’re so awesome.

Now that you have a strong website that people can engage with after learning about you, it’s time to start attracting new users—the prospecting portion, if you will. Here, I have two main categories to focus on.

🛑 Download The 6 Absolute Best Strategies to Grow Your Digital Marketing Agency and get even more ways to find and retain great clients.

Grow your thought leadership

First, no one will know if you’re an expert at something unless you prove it by sharing your thoughts, experiments, and findings. Even if public speaking isn’t your thing, there are tons of ways to start showing off a little and making a name for yourself as an expert in any field.

I know it might sound counterintuitive, but the more knowledge you give away, the more people want to work with you. Don’t worry; it surprised me too.

I used to think, “But if I give away all my secrets, then won’t people just do it themselves?” Some prospects will. And while that stings a little, there’s a good lesson to be learned here: if someone will take your ideas and do it themselves, they likely won’t be a great client anyway.

Great clients trust in your expertise and work with you to see good results. They don’t try to minimize your impact on their business by doing it themselves. Additionally, if someone’s business is going really well, they likely don’t have time to do it themselves. You’re now an integral extension of their team that helps them stay busy in their business while you work on it.

So, with all of that out of the way, here are some ideas to get you started sharing your thought leadership.

Write engaging content in various forms

The easiest way to get started with thought leadership is just to write. Everyone can write a blog post, whether it’s on a personal site, your agency site, or as a guest blogger. The same is true for ebooks or longer-form content like an industry report or guide.

Write about best practices, wins you’ve had, frustrations, or your strategies. Find a niche that works for you and stick to it. There are tons of tools out there to help you get started with ideas, so do some quick Google searches and see what you can come up with.

Speak at industry events

Whether you focus on PPC, SEO, CRO, or some other alphabet soup, look up the shows in your industry and start pitching to them. In my experience, they’re always looking for fresh faces with new ideas, so don’t be shy about throwing all your ideas at them.

Start a podcast

Who doesn’t have a podcast nowadays? It seems like there are tons out there, and you might think, “I’m too late to the game.” Well, surprise again: you’re not. You don’t have to have a huge audience to see success and expand your customer base.

How can you differentiate yourself? Do you want to focus on Google Ads or highlight landing page tests that worked or didn’t work? Great! What about advertising in your specific industry or location? Also great. Find what works best for you and make it happen.

Post on social media

Many moons ago, I got my first job in PPC right out of college. After an upstart period, I wanted to level up my skills. At that time, the best place to go was Twitter (now X, but I’m too old to call it that). Within a pretty short period of time, Matt Umbro started the first #ppcchat, and that really had a world of impact on my career.

Use #PPCchat on X to connect with other agency professionals.

I met so many people and learned new tactics, but I also started building out an entire timeline of posts that showed off my expertise at that time. More than once, potential clients reached out because they were trying to find an answer to a problem, and my X feed was the solution.

We all know that social media algorithms pay attention to our behaviors on other sites. So, if a business owner is looking for marketing services and they hit up the Instagram Explore page, it might not be a bad idea to have an Instagram feed full of helpful marketing nuggets for them to find.

Submit for industry awards

Remember those accolades I told you to show off on your website? Well, you have to submit to industry award shows to win an industry award. They don’t just hand them out. Do some quick searching and see if there are awards for your specific industry or niche of services and apply to them. Then, if you happen to be good enough (and lucky enough) to win one, shout it out on your site!

Choose the right thought leadership topics

One last tip for this section before we jump into the next focal area. Make sure your thought leadership focuses on things you actually like doing.

If you don’t like Facebook Ads, you probably shouldn’t write blogs or make a podcast about Facebook Ads, even if there’s tons of potential traffic and interest around those terms. Remember, you’re trying to articulate your expertise in an effort to generate new business. If you’re shouting from the rooftops how good you are at Facebook, then you’re going to generate new Facebook clients. Don’t promote the aspects of your services that you don’t enjoy doing!

Build and leverage your networks

The previous section focused on promoting “what you know,” but this section is about growing and leveraging “who you know.”

I mentioned getting started in #ppcchat early on. While that was helpful for client acquisition, it was 100 times as powerful for building out my network. I met folks there that have had immeasurable impacts on my life. Through this network, I found new jobs and a new business partner, made inroads to speaking at industry events, wrote for multiple industry publications, made friends all over the world, and so much more. How can you leverage your network to help market your agency?

Partner with non-competing agencies

Even if you fit into the jack-of-all-trades category, there’s likely a company out there that works with the same types of clients you want to work with and that you could partner with.

An easy example is a PPC firm partnering with an SEO shop. You two likely have a similar book of business, but your disciplines are complementary, not competitive. Finding a partner agency is a great way to build both of your shops. You can trade client referrals and work together on projects. Not only will you generate new business, but you’ll also deliver well-rounded results for your clients.

Consider referral fees

I say “consider” on this one because some folks really love referral fees while others do not. In my mind, both make sense.

Referrals are by far the largest source of new clients.

Referral fees are an amount of money (or a benefit) you give to someone who refers you to new clients. The added incentive to share your name can get you into conversations you might not otherwise have. I find these work well for people who may or may not have worked with you directly before, and they can be great to offer your employees as well.

On the other hand, many people think referral fees create an inauthentic recommendation. If they’re getting paid for suggesting that brand, or if the agency has to offer referral fees for new accounts, they might not be that great. These folks want the business to deliver great results to get the recommendation, not pay them.

The thing is, there’s no right or wrong answer on this one. Some people have very strong beliefs one way or the other, but neither is inherently better than the other, and each approach can work.

Collect customer reviews

Similar to the industry awards on your site, you can’t share customer reviews until you get customer reviews. There are lots of software tools out there that can help you do this, but I’ve also found a quick email can do the trick. Don’t overcomplicate it.

This first-hand account of working with you is great for your site and also helps to strengthen the relationship with the client giving the review. Similar to the folks who want to refer out based on great work, customer reviews can give prospective clients an insider’s opinion on your agency and help them decide if they should choose you or another shop.

Deliver amazing results

The last piece is a bit of a cheat, but I think it deserves its own section because it fuels all the others. If you deliver great results, you’ll drive more business in one way or another.

If you’re seeing great client results:

• Share it on your website: Show off the awesome case studies you’re seeing and build a compelling case for how you can help other businesses do the same.
• Write, present, or talk about it: Write a guest blog for an industry publication that reaches a lot of folks. Submit a speaking proposal around your work and highlight your strategies at industry events. Start a podcast that discusses your approaches to the work and how you’re hitting client KPIs.
• Ask for referrals: Your clients will be so pleased that they’ll be happy to write you customer reviews and refer you to anyone looking for marketing help, whether you’ve paid a referral fee or not.

Use these tactics to promote your digital marketing agency

Delivering great results for clients is hugely important, as evidenced by my last point. But if you’re only thinking about the health of your client’s businesses, who is thinking about the health of yours?

Spend some time developing plans to expand your business. First, ensure you have a solid website for people to land on. Then, share your expertise and leverage your network to attract users to that site and eventually onto your client list.

Here are several more resources you can use to get new clients and maximize revenue for your agency:

This year’s ecommerce trends feel a little oxymoronic. Machines and software are helping do more jobs, even communicating directly with shoppers. At the same time, consumers are heading towards online experiences that give them the personalized, human interactions of in-person buying.

As disparate as the rapid adaptation of technology and the longing for person-to-person retail seem, the two goals are actually coming together in unexpected ways.

Let’s unpack the specific trends ecommerce brands and marketers will face, and explore how to make sure you’re taking advantage of them.

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1. Conversational marketing becomes table stakes for ecommerce brands
2. Ecommerce businesses will find new uses for AR
3. More sellers slide into their customers’ DMs
4. Gen Z spurs shift to social shopping
5. Live commerce bridges the gap between online and in-person shopping
6. Subscription services solidify customer loyalty
7. AI fuels customized buying journeys
8. Dynamic, personalized websites go mainstream
9. Ecommerce brands will launch more data-gathering campaigns

9 ecommerce trends to monitor in 2024

These are the most high-profile ecommerce marketing trends we see headed our way this year. Learn them to stay in tune with customers and ahead of competitors.

1. Conversational marketing becomes table stakes for ecommerce brands

Conversational marketing is a strategy where businesses have two-way communication with customers in real time. Those one-to-one interactions can happen with live agents, but a lot of conversational marketing growth will occur with AI-powered chatbots.

For example, one study suggests that by 2028, around $72 billion in retail spending will happen through chatbot interactions. For context, that’s a 470% increase compared to the $12 billion in chatbot sales from 2023.

Two factors are fueling this ecommerce trend: generative AI and consumers’ desire for fast answers.

Generative AI models like ChatGPT use natural language processing to understand conversational queries. That’s helped chatbots become highly successful sales agents that can guide website visitors through their buying journey.

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For most consumers, the most significant upside of using chatbots is the 24/7 availability of information. Instead of waiting until regular business hours, shoppers can jump in when inspiration strikes and get all the information they need to make an informed purchase.

The great news is chatbots are becoming less expensive and easier to launch, so expect to see them gain traction in smaller businesses. You can launch your own chatbot in a jiffy.

💡 Conversational marketing relies on great calls to action. Download this free guide to get inspired by dozens of high-performing CTA phrases.

2. Ecommerce businesses will find new uses for AR

The virtual reality (VR) craze hit its peak when Facebook rebranded as Meta, a signal that the social media giant was turning its vast resources towards developing online worlds known loosely as the metaverse. Despite some optimistic forecasts, most of us still aren’t guiding our avatars down digital promenades in search of the next digital deal. And with Meta still losing millions on its big VR bet, it’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

However, an interesting movement in ecommerce is taking advantage of augmented reality, VR’s cousin that overlays digital imagery on real-world environments in real time.

AR has become very accessible, even offered as free features like stickers and polls on social media platforms. Expect to see online retailers and brands taking advantage of AR in new ways. For example, fashion brands use AR to help mobile shoppers see how they’ll look in this season’s styles.

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Users snap a picture in the brand’s app, and AR adds the products. Clothing brands, household goods, and even car dealers are all using AR to help buyers make a purchase decision.

Other retailers are using AR to highlight product details, like price tags or features, in promotional videos.

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With AR’s near-zero cost for these use cases and more app developers building creative AR solutions, expect to see it used more often and by a wider variety of ecommerce businesses.

3. More sellers slide into their customers’ DMs

Direct messaging, like the DMs on your Instagram or TikTok account, is ideal for brands to interact with customers and fans one-on-one. You can send links, images, and product videos. Plus, it doesn’t cost anything to send a DM. That’s why we’ll see more brands connect with their customers in direct message apps this year.

Because of their private nature, DMs are a great place to have conversations about customer concerns. You can even use them as a lead generation channel as an alternative to collecting email addresses on your website.

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A word of warning if you want to try this trend out for yourself. If you start messaging random people, you’ll definitely get blocked and probably reported. Always ask before contacting someone in their DMs. Offer a reason, like giving someone a personal discount code or asking them to share their experience with your products (free user-generated content!).

4. Gen Z spurs shift to social shopping

At first, social media marketing was mainly a brand awareness play. Sellers could share their wares in organic and paid posts and then offer links to their e-commerce shops.

Jumping from one platform to the next adds friction to the sales process. With social shopping, consumers can click on the products they see in a post and complete the purchase without leaving their favorite social media apps.

Revenue from social commerce could hit the trillion (with a “T”) dollar mark in the next few years. Younger adults lead the charge, with nearly three-quarters of 18 to 34-year-olds saying they’ve made a purchase from social commerce. But the trend is also permeating through all generations—around 25% of consumers over 65 said they’ve bought through that channel as well. With that kind of cross-generational spread, we expect to see a lot a lot more sales through social selling activities.

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5. Live commerce bridges the gap between online and in-person shopping

If QVC and social shopping had a love child, it would be live commerce. During a live commerce event, a host interacts with viewers via video on a social media platform. Those viewers can then purchase the products on offer right from the video.

Live commerce offers the best parts of in-store shopping without fighting traffic or searching for a parking space. Shoppers get instant answers from a knowledgeable brand representative or influencer right from their living room.

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The most popular social media apps are participating in this trend. Instagram and TikTok offer live shopping features, and YouTube inked a deal with Shopify to let creators add shoppable links to videos.

While the most common format for live shopping involves one or two representatives on screen touting the brand’s latest and greatest, there’s another interesting way to use this tactic. Say you’re launching a new line of cosmetics. You could have a launch party and let viewers buy what they see on their screens.

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The live commerce trend is expected to grow significantly in the near term, with some suggesting it could account for 20% of all ecommerce sales. Since conversion rates at live shopping events can reach 30%, ecommerce brands would be wise to take advantage of this trend.

6. Subscription services solidify customer loyalty

Buy almost any consumable from Amazon, and you’ll be asked if you’d like to save a few dollars by subscribing to auto-refill your order. The initial loss in profit to the seller is well worth the higher potential of repeat business. And the buyer sees the savings as a no-brainer since they’ll need more of the product later.

The trend goes beyond monthly dog food or cosmetics deliveries (although those are common). Now, you can get a regular delivery of all sorts of themed products, like miniature items for your doll house or train set.

Savings and customer loyalty are powerful win-wins that are likely to motivate sellers and shoppers to keep the trend going. 77% of consumers say they spend up to $499 annually on subscriptions, and 41% say they’ll add more in the next year.

7. AI fuels customized buying journeys

In general, AI is a big trend for all marketers. There are many ways ecommerce brands and marketers can use artificial intelligence to boost their businesses. One that’s emerging as particularly useful is having AI create complex, personalized customer journeys.

Here’s an example. Say you send marketing texts to your customers, reminding them of sales and new products. If each text of those campaigns were personalized to the individual based on their prior behavior, you’d close a lot more sales. But it’d be nearly impossible to do manually when you’re promoting hundreds of products to thousands of customers.

That’s where marketing experts are applying AI. Using its machine learning capabilities, AI can “remember” how customers reacted to previous messages, which products they bought, and how they interacted with your website. Then, it can create a custom campaign for each text subscriber.

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Personalization is a well-documented marketing strategy that often lifts revenue by up to 25%. Brands that use advanced personalization strategies say they see a 200% return on the investment.

In the coming year, we’ll see many more retailers and brands use AI to construct personalized buying journeys through promotional emails, texts, and social media, individually and across multiple channels.

8. Dynamic, personalized websites go mainstream

Personalization has been the playground of ad campaigns for a while. But what if every person who visited your promotional landing page or home page saw a version that best suited their needs? That’s what dynamic landing pages and websites offer.

Here’s a simple example where someone considering your product sees a different home page than someone who bought it.

Dynamic landing pages aren’t new. What’s changed is the scale and scope of personalization available with new AI-powered techniques, making them more attractive to ecommerce shops with many product and sales pages.

Let’s say you have a website with hundreds of sales and conversion pages. AI can analyze huge amounts of data about your products and customer behavior. Then, generative AI can quickly create conversational copy or calls to action for each of those pages that are more relevant to each segment of your target market.

Most marketers that use personalized landing pages report a lift in engagement compared to static versions. Plus, 91% of customers said they felt more connected with websites featuring dynamic pages, especially those that provided personalized offers and product recommendations.

9. Ecommerce brands will launch more data-gathering campaigns

Many of the trends we’ve discussed require extensive data about your customers. Gathering this information has pros and cons. Some shoppers love the personalization it provides, while others are rightfully concerned about their privacy.

In light of these concerns, lawmakers and big platforms are making it harder to collect data without direct user consent. Google has finally ended the use of third-party cookies. Some US states and European governments require websites to give visitors a choice to opt in or opt out of being tracked by cookies.

With much less third-party data, ecommerce marketers will need to become really good at convincing shoppers to give up their information willingly, also known as zero-party data.

In the coming months and years, we’ll see more creative campaigns designed to collect data from willing website visitors and customers ethically. These may be contests, newsletter subscriptions, surveys, or even discounts and free products.

However it’s done, collecting zero-party data is a big ecommerce marketing trend that almost every retailer and brand needs to be aware of.

What is the future of the ecommerce industry?

To say last year was one of change for ecommerce stores and marketers is a drastic understatement. With the rapid development of new AI marketing tools, customers’ shift to new sales channels, and potential regulations that can change how everyone does business online, it’s nearly impossible to guess the future of ecommerce with 100% clarity.

But if you look at the trends ramping up now, you’ll see a few themes that hint at the future. Customers want in-store experiences from online shopping. They’ll choose lower-friction purchase options over clicking through multiple apps and websites. And they’d prefer personalized interactions as long as their privacy remains protected.

While you mull over what’s to come for ecommerce stores, have a look at these other marketing trends for further insights:

Who doesn’t like a bit of a challenge? While it’s always rewarding to take on new marketing endeavors, certain businesses, like franchises, feel the heat more than others.

Whether you’re a food and beverage franchise, a multi-location dealership, a national real estate group, an enterprise bank, or anything in between, you know that managing marketing efforts across the board can sometimes feel like an uphill battle.

In this guide, we’ll help you address common marketing speedbumps multi-location businesses encounter and share 10 of the most effective franchise marketing strategies.

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