How to Promote Your Online Store with a low budget (3)

With this third post, after talking about organic positioning and low-cost content strategies, we focus on the third pillar of eCommerce promotion: SEM or, to be more precise, paid media, since it encompasses all paid strategies on any platform (search engines, social media, or programmatic).

You might be thinking: “Didn’t you say promoting stores on a low budget?” Of course, but you always have to invest a little.

The idea of this post is to help you get more out of every euro you invest in attracting customers and, what is almost more important, to avoid wasting resources on platforms and formats that do not perform.

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I do not know which half.”

This famous quote is attributed to John Wanamaker, a marketing visionary from the early 20th century. Back then, this was true—but not so much now. Thanks to the new paradigm of online advertising, we can know the return on every cent.

This is what we need to focus on, not on spending more than our competitors, but on spending better.

The first step is to be absolutely clear about:

Here is an example of cases where budget is used inefficiently.

Imagine you want to reach a professional audience and, instead of posting on LinkedIn, you run a campaign on Pinterest, or, this is very common, your Google Ads campaign shows ads in the Canary Islands when you don’t even ship there.

These are just two cases, but there could be thousands, leaving you with the impression that advertising does not work, when in fact it is just money lost.

I am glad you asked that question, after all, it’s the basis of this post. Once you are clear on who, what, and where, it is time to jump into how.

Before going into channels and strategies, here are three simple guidelines to keep in mind:

In short, with a small budget, the priority is to minimize risk and maximize learning. Each insight is money in your pocket later on.

When you are aware of your budget, you know you cannot, and should not, be on every channel. It is always better to concentrate your spending where the return will be highest.

We could go much deeper into this, but to keep it practical, I will focus on three cost-effective options for eCommerce.

Google Ads can be a money burner if used incorrectly, but it must be acknowledged that the combination of Google Shopping with Performance Max allows to sell without complex configurations.

These are campaigns at a very BOFU (bottom of the funnel) stage or close to purchase. Consideration and discovery are great, but they are not profitable in the short term.

The algorithm works very well at managing bids, placements, and audiences. It also learns from user interactions what to show to improve conversion chances.

The “showcase” format, where the customer sees the product and its price even before entering your website, helps qualify clicks.

Additionally, there is another interesting point: by uploading your product feed to Google Merchant (an essential step to run campaigns), you also appear organically in searches (free, which is even better than cheap).

They do not have Google’s conversion power, that is obvious, but do not dismiss them. Here we are working on the discovery and consideration phase, with the great advantage of being able to “tag” catalog products directly in posts and in certain ad formats.

This ad platform, currently at a very mature stage, still provides great reach with very competitive CPC (cost per click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions).

Another major advantage is its targeting capability, which allows for highly specific campaigns with surgical precision, an important factor when your investment is small.

Finally, but no less important, it is the perfect environment to create campaigns leveraging influencers and storytelling, it’s their natural ecosystem.

There is no better network geared toward sales, especially impulse buys and low to medium ticket products. So much so that the famous phrase, almost a slogan, was coined: “TikTok made me buy it.”

We are not really talking about a traditional influencer channel, but rather a UGC (user-generated content) space where everyday creators recommend products to peers. The result: a much more immediate and attainable sense of aspiration.

When it comes to producing content for spark ads or sponsored posts, it does not matter if it is not top-quality, in fact, that slightly raw, smartphone-recorded look works even better.

TikTok users seek authenticity and tend to be skeptical of conventional ads.

Do not forget that TikTok Shop exists in Spain, this means users can purchase natively within the app, even without visiting your store. A super-smooth shopping experience for the user.

Did you get it right on the first try? Are you sure there’s no room for improvement? If you truly want to make your eCommerce paid media budget profitable, you must understand that optimization is part of a continuous cycle.

For what does not work, double down on what does, and test, test a lot. Small changes can save you a few cents per click or bring in a few extra sales each month. By the end of the year, those two things make a significant difference to your bottom line.

Also, even though you already know this, it is worth repeating: you need to reinvest to grow. If you don’t, you risk staying stuck in the same place (at best).