The State of Ecommerce Marketing

1. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING

2. Author Profile Sam is the author of the book “How to Sell Better Than Amazon” (yes - it’s ironically available on Amazon) and the Head of Ecommerce Marketing @ HubSpot. Feel free to connect with him if you have comments or questions on this report specifically or ecommerce marketing in general! Sam Mallikarjunan

3. Expert Analysis By Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert

4. CONTENTS Inbound Marketing Adoption Blogging Company Focus & Priorities Customer Segmentation Customer Education Marketing Spend Visits and Customer Sources Personalization Shopping Cart Insights Cart Nurturing Survey Methodology 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

5. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING5 www.Hubspot.com Welcome to HubSpot’s first annual State of Ecommerce Marketing Report. At HubSpot, our founding mission is to transform the way people do marketing. The traditional methods of reaching people through interruptive and annoying tactics are disappearing – and those that aren’t are becoming increasingly expensive and ineffective. Further, these high pressure tactics are counterproductive to building long-term relationships with customers. We also believe engaging consumers means much more than simply finding the newest channel to push out a message to the masses. Instead, marketing today is about understanding how consumers research and make purchase decisions in this hyper-connected, digital world. It’s about meeting them at every stage of that decision by integrating relevant content with context on your consumers. It’s about a unified process of attracting audience, converting prospects, closing leads, and delighting customers in ways they actually desire. Every year, HubSpot releases the State of Inbound Marketing report analyzing the tools, tactics, and results of thousands of marketers around the world. Introduction

6. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING6 www.Hubspot.com This year, HubSpot is also releasing the results of our first State of Ecommerce Marketing report, drilling down more specifically into the multi- trillion dollar world of ecommerce marketers. We expanded the survey far beyond HubSpot’s ecommerce customers (with only 5% of respondents reporting that they use HubSpot’s ecommerce marketing software), and the results are very interesting. Some interesting conclusions from the data are less encouraging than others. Ecommerce marketers as a whole are still lagging behind B2B marketers in adopting inbound practices like social media or blogging. Ecommerce marketers as a whole are still not measuring basic metrics like shopping cart abandonment rates, much less actively engaging those customers to bring them back with personalized experiences. What is encouraging is the data from marketers who are measuring and marketing in a customer-centric way. Marketers who focus on creating customer-centric experiences are more likely to see a Return On Investment (ROI) from their inbound marketing activities, and marketers who choose to use content over coupons also see a higher ROI. There are some other interesting pieces of data, such as the fact that a customer abandoning a shopping cart once may not be a bad thing like we always assume - and may in fact lead to higher spending when marketed to appropriately. We are incredibly excited to share our first State of Ecommerce Marketing Report with you. We welcome any and all questions and feedback as well: research@hubspot.com.

7. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING7 www.Hubspot.com Inbound marketing is a holistic, data-driven strategy that involves attracting and converting visitors into customers through personalized, relevant information and content - not interruptive messages - and following them through the sales experience with ongoing engagement. Since 2006, inbound marketing has been the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Instead of the old outbound marketing methods of buying ads, buying email lists, and paying for leads, inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight over time. What is Inbound Marketing?

8. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING8 www.Hubspot.com There are digital marketing tactics that are specifically designed as “inbound marketing” and those that are not. While it’s easy to explain why direct mail and PPC banner ads are “outbound,” it is more complicated to define more flexible online strategies as purely inbound versus outbound. At HubSpot, we see the distinguishing factor as how people are using a specific channel more than the definition of the channel itself. In the simplest sense, it’s about consumer choice. For example, depending on how it is deployed, the email channel often can be considered either inbound or outbound. One-off, non- permission based email blasts (SPAM) are nearly always bucketed as outbound, because they aim to interrupt people’s inboxes. However, as a part of an opt-in, nurturing strategy, email is a terrific complement to other inbound techniques. Similarly, if you were to simply send out 200 tweets a day announcing a “new special,” you wouldn’t really be doing inbound marketing. An inbound marketing relationship goes both ways between the business and the individual customer. A Note On Channel Distinction

9. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING9 www.Hubspot.com Inbound marketing methodologies are becoming the norm among ecommerce marketers. Stat: 55% of ecommerce businesses invest in inbound marketing, and 22% of respondents don’t know if they do inbound marketing at all. Inbound Marketing Adoption Expert Analysis: 23% of respondents not knowing if they do inbound marketing or not is not too surprising, given how relatively new the methodology is (much less the term to describe it). It’s encouraging to see 55% of respondents self-identifying as using inbound marketing methodologies. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 55% 22% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Implements Inbound Marke:ng Does Not Implement Inbound Marke:ng

10. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING10 www.Hubspot.com B2B Ecommerce marketers still lead in overall In- bound Marketing Adoption. Stat: 54% of B2C ecommerce companies implement inbound marketing, compared to 60% of B2B ecommerce companies. Expert Analysis: B2B companies continue to adopt inbound marketing at a slightly higher rate than B2C companies. This has stayed constant over the last several years. It may be due in part to the economic contractions that affected B2B companies more heavily than B2C companies in the past few years when inbound marketing was first being de- veloped as a cohesive methodology. As competition in B2C ecommerce increases dramatically, adoption of inbound marketing methodologies is growing as well. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 60% 54% 24% 21% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% B2B B2C Implements Inbound Marke=ng Does Not Implement Inbound Marke=ng

11. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING11 www.Hubspot.com Larger revenue businesses lag in adopting inbound marketing. Stat: Only 19% of companies with more than $50MM in annual revenue are using inbound marketing. Expert Analysis: Large businesses have lagged in adopting inbound marketing, usually because control of the decision-making process is more decentralized and they’re less likely to make big changes quickly. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 30% 19% 22% 11% 18% 39% 25% 17% 5% 14% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 0 -‐ $100,000 $100,001 -‐ $1,000,000 $1,000,001 -‐ $10,000,000 $10,000,001 -‐ $50,000,000 Over $50,000,000 Implements Inbound MarkeAng Does Not Implement Inbound MarkeAng

12. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING12 www.Hubspot.com Large companies lag in adopting inbound marketing. Stat: Only 32% of companies with more than 50 employees are doing inbound marketing. Expert Analysis: With more cooks in the kitchen, the decision to adopt a disruptive marketing methodology like inbound takes more time and has more opportunities to get killed by the stakeholders. As with most “new” things, smaller and more agile companies are more likely to adopt them. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 40% 22% 6% 15% 6% 11% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 1 -‐ 5 6 -‐ 25 26 -‐ 50 51 -‐ 200 201 -‐ 500 More than 500 Implements Inbound Marke<ng

13. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING13 www.Hubspot.com Adoption by marketers. Stat: 67% of marketers at ecommerce companies invest in blogging. Blogging Expert Analysis: Blogging is gaining rapid adoption in ecommerce, with fewer firms able to grow sales while ignoring it entirely. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 67% 33% Invests in Blogging Does Not Invest in Blogging

14. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING14 www.Hubspot.com Marketer investment in frequency. Stat: 47% of marketers at ecommerce companies blog at least once a week, with 14% of marketers blogging at least once every day. Expert Analysis: As adoption of blogging as a marketing method grows, ecommerce marketers are investing more heavily in building an audience and providing more entry points through organic search by blogging more frequently. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 14% 33% 20% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% Once a day Once a week Once a month Blogging Frequency

15. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING15 www.Hubspot.com B2C vs. B2B ecommerce blogging adoption. Stat: 64% of B2B inbound commerce companies blog at least once a week, while 71% of B2C inbound commerce companies blog at least once a week. Expert Analysis: B2C ecommerce companies are adopting blogging at a slightly faster rate, possibly because B2B ecommerce firms can rely more heavily on sales reps and account managers to educate prospects and nurture them through the initial buying cycle. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 64% 71% 66% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% B2B B2C Both Invests in Blogging

16. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING16 www.Hubspot.com Blogging adoption based on company priorities. Stat: Companies that describe themselves as “customer focused” are 24% more likely to blog at least once a week than companies that describe themselves as “sales focused”. Expert Analysis: Although “customer centricity” is still an imprecisely defined term within the industry as a whole, ecommerce firms that self-identify more strongly with that term are more likely to focus on creating content that addresses a broader range of customer education topics than firms who self-identify as being sales, product, or marketing focused. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 60% 75% 40% 25% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Sales focused Customer focused Invests in Blogging Does Not Invest in Blogging

17. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING17 www.Hubspot.com Blogging and Inbound Marketing ROI. Stat: 72% of people who saw ROI from inbound marketing blog at least once a week, and people who blog are 155% more likely to see ROI from inbound marketing. Expert Analysis: With blogging being such a fundamental part of inbound marketing, those who focus exclusively on other aspects of inbound marketing (such as On-Page SEO) without investing in blogging are less likely to see an ROI. In addition, blogging at least once a week dramatically increases the value that survey respondents report from inbound marketing as a whole. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 72% 28% Invests in Blogging Does Not Invest in Blogging

18. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING18 www.Hubspot.com Blogging and Customer Life Time Value. Stat: Companies that are focused on increasing customer life time value are 216% more likely to invest in blogging. 78% of ecommerce companies are focused on increasing customer LTV and are investing in blogging. Expert Analysis: Ecommerce companies that are focused on growing customer life time value in addition to new customer acquisition are investing more heavily in blogging than companies focused primarily on new customer acquisition. These companies tend to use blog content in marketing automation to re-engage contacts and up-sell/cross-sell/re-sell items with educational content before using discount or coupon incentives. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 78% 22% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% Invests in Blogging Does Not Invest in Blogging

19. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING19 www.Hubspot.com Success in organic search optimization and blogging. Stat: 69% of companies whose major source of customers was from organic & direct traffic blog at least once a week. Expert Analysis: In addition to more traffic from organic search, ecommerce firms that invest heavily (meaning at least one original blog article per week) tend to see more sales from organic and direct traffic. Blogging is becoming a more indispensable part of an organic search engine optimization strategy. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 69% 31% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Invests in Blogging Does Not Invest in Blogging

20. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING20 www.Hubspot.com Customer centricity is on the rise. Stat: Overall, 40% of inbound commerce companies are customer focused. Company Focus & Priorities Expert Analysis: It’s good to see more companies consciously focusing on customer centricity, although the vague definitions of “customer centricity” and the number of people who claim to be customer centric but don’t engage in “customer-centric” activities (such as using content and marketing automation to increase customer lifetime value or educate prospective customers) means that people may self-identify as “customer focused” emotionally without practically being so. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 20% 40% 25% 8% Sales focused Customer focused Product focused Marke9ng focused

21. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING21 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Customer centric ecommerce companies are 107% more likely to see an ROI from inbound marketing than sales focused companies. Expert Analysis: A fascinating statistic that dramatically validates the “Customer Cen- tricity” narrative. Companies that are sales focused, which an earlier statistic affirmed meant primarily focused on the initial transaction, are significantly less likely to see an ROI from inbound marketing. It’s still telling, however, that a significant portion of respondents in each category don’t know or aren’t able to tell if they’re getting an ROI from their marketing. This indicates a lack of access to closed-loop marketing analytics. It’s very telling that neither sales- nor marketing-focused companies had a majority of respondents say that they saw an ROI from inbound, whereas customer- and product-focused companies did. Product focused companies are also, in a way, highly customer focused because of their focus on the end user’s requirements and feedback. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 21% 44% 21% 9% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% Sales focused Customer focused Product focused Marke;ng focused Company Focus See ROI from Inbound Marke;ng

22. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING22 www.Hubspot.com Smaller companies tend to be more customer focused. Stat: Very small businesses (less than 50 employees) are 145% more likely to self-identify as customer centric than large companies (more than 200 employees), which tend to be more product focused (with 40% of large companies self-identifying as product centric). Expert Analysis: This data aligns fairly well with what we know about the growth cycles of ecommerce companies. Small companies frequently have a smaller number of overall customers and are able to devote more individual attention to customers. Also, smaller companies are less likely to be able to compete with large firms in acquisition costs and more likely to invest in customer delightion and retention. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 42% 23% 19% 8% 35% 23% 27% 11% 29% 40% 25% 5% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% Customer focused Product focused Sales focused Marke=ng focused Small (1 -‐ 50) Medium (51 -‐ 200) Large (More than 200)

23. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING23 www.Hubspot.com Blogging is an important part of seeing an ROI with inbound marketing. Stat: Companies that focus on SEO and PPC without also investing in blogging are 201% more likely to label proving the ROI from marketing activities as a significant challenge. Expert Analysis: On-page SEO without a blogging or content creation component is becoming less and less effective each year as search engines weigh fresh, unique, valuable content more and more. It follows, then, that On-page SEO strategies without a blogging component are driving less revenue and making it more difficult to demonstrate an ROI. Similarly, companies that focus on PPC, which has seen an explosion in competition in the last few years are seeing their cost-of-customer-acquisition (COCA) rise and their ROI fall. On the contrary, relatively lower competition for audiences through blogging leads to a lower COCA and higher ROI. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 13% 14% 14% 26% 24% 22% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% Proving the ROI of our marke<ng ac<vi<es Securing enough budget Understanding my contacts database Blog Focused SEO & PPC Focused

24. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING24 www.Hubspot.com Companies focused primarily on new customer acquisition are less likely to worry about customer happiness. Stat: Companies that self-identify as “sales Focused” and are primarily focused on new customer acquisition over selling to existing customers are 30% less likely to rate “customer happiness” as “very important”. Expert Analysis: Companies that aren’t focused on – or aren’t able to – engage in up- sell/cross-sell/re-sell marketing activities and focus primarily on new customer acquisition aren’t as concerned with customer happiness, since the happiness of existing customers is primarily a factor of LTV. However, these firms may be putting themselves at risk for negative social proof through negative product reviews or reviews in social media that might eventually end up impeding new customer acquisition anyways. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 69% 26% 95% 4% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Very important Somewhat important Sales focused Customer focused

25. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING25 www.Hubspot.com Calculation of Customer Life Time Value by Company Size. Stat: 45% of larger ecommerce businesses calculate the life time value of their customers. Expert Analysis: This might be due to the fact that, although smaller businesses tend to self-identify as customer centric more than larger businesses, they lack the resources to effectively track, calculate, and leverage the LTV of their customers as a marketing metric. The larger a company is, the more likely it is that they can dedicate analytics resources to calculating customer life time value. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 17% 37% 45% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% Small (1 -‐ 50) Medium (51 -‐ 200) Large (More than 200) Calculate LTV

26. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING26 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 96% of businesses that saw ROI from inbound marketing rate raising the lifetime value of existing customers as a somewhat or very important marketing activity. Expert Analysis: Inbound marketing can have huge implications for new customer acquisition, but one of the key advantages in building an experience that customizes itself to the buyer instead of forcing the buyer to adjust to the experience is that customers remain more loyal and spend more over time – growing LTV. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 69% 26% 4% Very important Somewhat important Somewhat unimportant

27. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING27 www.Hubspot.com Stat: On average, 72% of ecommerce businesses implement some form of customer segmentation. Customer Segmentation Expert Analysis: It’s encouraging to see only 24% of marketers not segmenting their contacts in some way. On the flip side, it’s discouraging that 24% of marketers still aren’t segmenting their database in any way. The most popular method of segmentation is based on product purchase history, which is the easiest since that data is processed in most shopping cart software. Segmenting based on buyer personas and social media interactions is more sophisticated and usually requires some kind of specialized contact management software, so it’s understandably lower. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 9% 9% 18% 24% 25% Social Media Interac6ons Website Page Views Based on Buyer Personas We don’t segment our customers Product Purchase History

28. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING28 www.Hubspot.com Customer Segmentation and LTV Calculation Stat: Companies that are focused on tracking and increasing customer lifetime value are 790% more likely to segment their customers. Expert Analysis: Companies that are focused on increasing the value of existing customers rather than primarily focusing on new customer acquisition get more value from segmenting their databases to engage in personalized marketing. Buyer persona segmentation actually exceeds segmenting on website page views (which is a more widely adopted form of behavioral segmentation). Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 28% 25% 11% 10% 9% 23% 15% 9% 8% 31% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% Product Purchase History Based on Buyer Personas Website Page Views Social Media InteracCons We don’t segment our customers Calculates LTV Does Not Calculate LTV

29. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING29 www.Hubspot.com Remarketing Channels Stat: 25% of marketers use email for remarketing to existing customers, making it the most popular channel followed closely by social media. Expert Analysis: One surprising finding is that email adoption is so low, even though it still tops the list. This method has been around for quite a while, so seeing social media follow so closely is very interesting. It’s encouraging to see so many ecommerce marketers using a sophisticated enough integration with their social media channels to follow and pro-actively engage existing customers in social media. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 25% 24% 12% 11% 13% Email Social Media Blog Paid Campaign Search Engine Marke<ng

30. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING30 www.Hubspot.com Adoption and distribution of pre-transactional conversions. Stat: 58% of ecommerce marketers use educational content for pre-transactional conversions. Customer Education Expert Analysis: It’s definitely encouraging to see ecommerce marketers relying less on coupons. It’s also encouraging that only 17% of the respondents report having no conversion options outside of completing a purchase. Historically, the contacts databases of most ecommerce companies were filled primarily with existing customers, with very few contacts converted earlier in the consumer buying cycle and nurtured to make purchas- es. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 12% 58% 9% 17% Coupons Educa3onal Content (Guides, Feature Sheets) Aspira3onal content No non-‐transac3onal oﬀers

31. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING31 www.Hubspot.com Customer focused companies use less coupons, more educational content. Stat: Companies that self-identify as customer focused rather than sales focused are 491% more likely to use educational content than coupons. Expert Analysis: Both sales-focused and customer-focused companies are significantly more likely to use educational content as pre-transactional conversion events (usually someone filling out a form in exchange for a piece of content) than coupons. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 18% 12% 63% 70% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% Sales focused Customer focused Coupons Educa=onal Content *Educational Content includes Guides, Feature Sheets and Aspirational Content

32. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING32 www.Hubspot.com Larger companies are more likely to use educational content. Stat: Large companies are 25% more likely to use educational content to convert contacts prior to a sale than small companies. Expert Analysis: Coupons are a very low barrier-to-entry for pre-transactional content. It’s built in to most ecommerce shopping cart platforms natively, so it’s not surprising that smaller companies are more likely to rely on those than educational content – which takes time to write and often requires design resources that small businesses don’t have easy access to. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 13% 10% 11% 64% 76% 80% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% Small (1 -‐ 50) Medium (51 -‐ 200) Large (More than 200) Coupons EducaEonal Content *Educational Content includes Guides, Feature Sheets and Aspirational Content

33. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING33 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Businesses that offer educational content on their website are 527% more likely to see ROI from inbound marketing (IM) than businesses who offer coupons. Expert Analysis: Although some marketers try to use them this way, coupons aren’t actually inbound marketing. Therefore, it follows that marketers that don’t have any educational pre-transactional content on their site will see a higher ROI. In fact, marketers who use coupons and no educational content are 150% less likely to see an ROI from inbound marketing. Coupons can be very beneficial when used during the proper phases of the buying cycle, but when you rely on coupons to fill the top of your funnel, you’ll only attract price-sensitive customers. Using coupons instead of content to re-engage existing customers can actually turn those customers who weren’t price sensitive and make them that way. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 12% 76% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% See ROI from Inbound Marke<ng Coupons Educa<onal Content

34. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING34 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 42% of ecommerce marketers prefer social media to educate consumers. Expert Analysis: This is somewhat surprising! Social media posts tend to be more effective when used in a communicative manner rather than educational due to the limited amount of time that consumers are exposed to them. Email’s popularity makes sense, since that’s still the primary way that people digest new information. Ebooks and webinars and podcasts are all harder to produce, so their lack of popularity is also under- standable. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 8% 10% 20% 3% 42% Ebook Webinar Email Podcast Social Media Posts

35. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING35 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Only 36% of companies that spend less than $25k/year on marketing see an ROI from inbound marketing. Companies that spend at least $25k/year on marketing are 178% more likely to say that they saw an ROI from inbound marketing. Marketing Spend Expert Analysis: It’s difficult to imagine a company spending less than $25k/year on marketing having the resources to implement inbound marketing. Content creation alone will probably cost at least that much in order to be effective, if only in terms of the salary required to hire a dedicated marketer. Spending less than $25k, the owner (this group skews heavily in favor of being very small businesses) likely has to do all the marketing themselves in addition to running the business, a significant – though not obviously com- pletely insurmountable – challenge. What’s encouraging is that a relatively small investment in marketing (from the perspective of slightly larger small businesses and mid-sized businesses) has a very high likelihood of seeing an ROI from inbound marketing. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 36% 39% 10% 8% 7% 68% 20% 8% 2% 2% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Less than $25,000 $25,001 -‐ $250,000 $250,001 -‐ $1,000,000 $1,000,001 -‐ $5,000,000 Over $5,000,000 Sees ROI from Inbound MarkeEng Does Not See ROI from Inbound MarkeEng

36. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING36 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Companies that spend less than $25k/year on marketing are 23% more likely to rely on coupons than educational content. Larger companies ($5M+/year on marketing) are 50% more likely to rely on coupons. Expert Analysis: It’s interesting that the extremely small businesses and the larger businesses share this characteristic. For the small businesses, it’s likely that they don’t have time or resources to create educational content. For the larger businesses, it’s more likely just internal resistance to investing in more educational content when they’re already seeing an ROI. At any rate, the rapid-growth-focused mid-sized companies are much more likely to invest in educational content. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 59% 24% 7% 2% 9% 48% 27% 11% 8% 6% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Less than $25,000 $25,001 -‐ $250,000 $250,001 -‐ $1,000,000 $1,000,001 -‐ $5,000,000 Over $5,000,000 Coupons EducaAonal Content *Educational Content includes Guides, Feature Sheets and Aspirational Content

37. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING37 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Organic search remains the largest driver of ecommerce traffic, at 22% on average. However, social media has now passed PPC and Email with 17.37% of traffic share. Visits and Customer Sources 14% 17% 19% 22% 13% 10% Sources of Visits Email Social Media Direct Website Organic Search Referrals PPC Expert Analysis: Ecommerce sites have long relied on organic search as the primary driver of traffic. PPC’s declining importance is likely a reflection of marketers getting more sophisticated around attributing customer acquisition costs and the climbing costs of clicks. It’s extremely surprising to see social media having such a large share of the traffic. Perhaps it shouldn’t be, with the fantastic success of sites like Pinterest. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert

38. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING38 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Direct and organic search traffic are the primary drivers of ecommerce customers with 40% of total customers attributed to those two sources. 16% 15% 20% 20% 15% 9% Sources of Customers Email Social Media Direct Website Organic Search Referrals PPC Expert Analysis: Referrals and email both have slightly disproportionate levels of customers attributed to them based on the amount of traffic they drive, which is interesting to see. Also noteworth is the fact that traffic from social media is the most disparate from the amount of just visitors it drives. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert

39. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING39 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 65% of businesses are investing in marketing personalization. Personalization Expert Analysis: Personalization is a harder inbound tactic to deploy, usually requiring specialized software and a centralized contacts management database. Although some shopping carts have the functionality built in natively for product recommendations, the percentage of marketers using it in email indicates that it’s rapidly expanding into other channels. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 37% 27% 8% 10% 36% 30% 11% 7% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% Important Somewhat Important Somewhat Unimportant Not Important Personalized Email Personalized Website

40. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING40 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 74% of businesses who got a majority of their customers from email, rated personalized emails as at least somewhat important. Expert Analysis: It follows that marketers who get lots of value from email would invest in getting more – and email personalization is the next level of contextual marketing. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 48% 26% 8% 5% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Important Somewhat Important Somewhat Unimportant Not Important Personalized Email Ra0ng

41. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING41 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 82% of businesses who got a majority of their customers from direct & organic, rated personalized product recommendations as at least somewhat important. Expert Analysis: This is a little interesting because organic and direct traffic are less directly controllable channels. That is, you can’t pro-actively email or post to those channels to attract traffic. So, the emphasis on personalization and conversion optimization and helping those customers discover more products makes sense. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 45% 37% 11% 7% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% Important Somewhat Important Somewhat Unimportant Not Important Personalized Website Ra1ng

42. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING42 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 60% of marketers don’t know their current cart abandonment rate. Shopping Cart Insights Expert Analysis: This is an astounding statistic. Shopping cart nurturing is usually the lowest hanging fruit for ecommerce marketers to rapidly drive more revenue. If you’re not at least tracking this metric, you need to. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 10% 7% 7% 4% 3% 3% 2% 2% 60% Cart Abandonment Rate 0 – 10% 11 – 20% 21 – 30% 31 – 40% 41 – 50% 51 – 60% 61 – 70% Greater than 70% Don’t know

43. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING43 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Of marketers that can track cart abandonment, only 42% of companies are nurturing abandoned carts. B2C companies are 128% more likely to implement cart nurturing than B2B Companies. Expert Analysis: It’s still the minority of ecommerce marketers that are engaging in cart abandonment activities. It makes sense that B2C has a higher level of abandoned cart nurturing. In B2B, you usually have a human involved in some capacity with the sales process. In B2C, you have only one “sales rep” - your shopping cart + marketing automation – and it has to engage with sometimes hundreds of thousands of contacts a month. Therefore, implementations like cart abandonment tend to have much greater leverage in B2C companies. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 16% 37% 84% 63% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% B2B B2C Implements Cart Nurturing Does Not Implement Cart Nurturing

44. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING44 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Of marketers that track cart abandonment, 66% successfully recover less than 20% of abandoned carts. 43% 23% 12% 7% 7% 2% 2% 4% Cart Recovery Rate 0 – 10% 11 – 20% 21 – 30% 31 – 40% 41 – 50% 51 – 60% 61 – 70% Greater than 70% Expert Analysis: A quarter of marketers are recovering 21-50% of carts. With the average cart abandonment rate at 13% (once you exclude those that don’t track it), that’s a significant revenue lift. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert

45. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING45 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 59% of ecommerce marketers primarily use email for abandoned cart nurturing. Cart Nurturing 59% 11% 5% 14% 8% 4% Cart Nurturing Channels Email Social Media Blog Direct Phone Call Direct Mail Other Expert Analysis: Email was the expected clear winner. Surprising, however, are the number of companies that follow up with a direct phone call (mostly B2B ecommerce companies) and the number of companies using social media in cart recovery. Again, that requires a fairly sophisticated software alignment between the cart, a contacts management database, and their social media channels. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert

46. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING46 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 75% of companies did not know if abandoned cart nurturing demonstrated ROI for them. Stat: Customer-focused companies are 12% more likely to demonstrate ROI from cart nurturing than sales-focused companies 1% 14% 3% 4% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% B2B B2C Cart Nurturing Demonstrated ROI Cart Nurturing Did Not Demonstrate ROI 9% 10% 8% 15% 6% 5% 2% 5% 0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% Sales focused Customer focused Product focused Marke<ng focused Cart Nurturing Demonstrated ROI Cart Nurturing Did Not Demonstrate ROI

47. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING47 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 46% of businesses that tracked abandoners’ spending stated that customers spent more than the original cart value after being nurtured. Expert Analysis: Cart abandonment is often considered a negative metric. However, as we’ve discussed elsewhere, consumers don’t think of their path to purchase as a linear progression. The fact that the largest cohort of recovered cart abandoners are those that spend more money is a further reinforcement that other motivations – such as education, timing, and trust – are motivations that marketers can address instead of just using coupons and framing the abandonment nurturing solely from the perspective of price. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 46% 31% 14% 9% More than original amount spent Less than original amount spent Don't spend at all Other

48. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING48 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 31% of marketers use coupons in abandoned cart nurturing. Expert Analysis: Coupons tend to be the most gratifying solution, so it’s not surprising they’re the most popular. What’s surprising is that 14% of marketers are doing abandoned cart nurturing with direct mail. It’s not a channel typically associated with the near- real-time requirements of abandonment nurturing. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 7% 7% 18% 31% 13% 14% 10% Ebooks Webinars Customer Reviews Coupon Codes Newsle?er Direct Mail Other

49. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING49 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Using educational content is 32% more likely to recover cart abandoners that spend more than the original amount than using coupon codes. Expert Analysis: It makes sense: Coupon codes recover price-sensitive customers and inherently reduce the amount they’re spending without encouraging them to add additional products to offset the unit discounts. Educational content addresses non-price issues and better positions the marketer for up-sell/cross-sell activities when they return to the cart. Also, consumers are becoming savvier around cart abandonment – with mag- azines and shopping tips websites even telling consumers to abandon carts to receive coupons, thereby increasing the number of costly deal-seeking customers you acquire with coupons. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 38% 29% 15% 16% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% Educa1onal Content Coupon Codes More than original amount spent Less than original amount spent

50. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING50 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 72% of marketers that do abandoned cart nurturing send the first message within the first day. Expert Analysis: Data from ecommerce and B2B direct sales, as well as common sense back up that consumers will be easier to connect with and more likely to be receptive to converting the quicker you engage with them. Within 1 hour you run the risk of losing consumers who just hadn’t finished browsing or checking out yet, which is especially dangerous if your first message contains a coupon instead of educational content. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 21% 51% 14% 8% 4% 2% Within 1 hour of the abandonment 1 – 24 hours 25 – 48 hours 49 – 72 hours 3 -‐ 7 days A>er 1 week

51. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING51 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Businesses that send the first nurturing message within 1 hour of the abandonment are 326% more likely to see ROI from abandoned cart nurturing. Stat: 60% of customers that were sent the first nurturing message within an hour of recovering their cart spent more money than the original cart value. Expert Analysis: There’s definitely a diminishing value here that backs up conventional wisdom in this case: The earlier you send the first email, the more likely you are to recover the abandoner and the more likely they are to spend more than they had originally planned. 0% of marketers who reported waiting a week to send the first nurturing message reported that the carts they recovered spent more. Greg Wise Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 81% 8% 6% 4% 52% 14% 5% 10% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 1 – 24 hours 25 – 48 hours 49 – 72 hours 3 -‐ 7 days Cart Nurturing Demonstrated ROI Cart Nurturing Did Not Demonstrate ROI 70% 10% 3% 3% 0% 56% 11% 4% 4% 4% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 1 – 24 hours 25 – 48 hours 49 – 72 hours 3 -‐ 7 days A8er 1 week More than original amount spent Less than original amount spent

52. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING52 www.Hubspot.com Stat: Customers who receive nurturing emails with product descriptions included are 52% more likely to spend more money than the original cart value when they return. Expert Analysis: It’s a pity that not enough people are collecting “use case” information in pre-transactional conversions (that is, collecting information about why or for what the customer wanted to use a given product) for us to use that data, because being able to remind people why they wanted something is a powerful ability. At the very least, however, this data backs up that you should reference what the customer wanted when they came to you. What’s interesting is that recommending additional products was the one category likely to cause the customer to spend less money. Educating and persuading seems to be effective; confusing cross-selling seems to be detrimental. Ted Ammon Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 52% 13% 6% 8% 37% 17% 5% 5% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Descrip3on of the product (Text and/or Text & Pictures) Addi3onal product recommenda3ons Product how-‐to videos Product Guides / Ebooks More than original Less than original

53. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING53 www.Hubspot.com Stat: 49% of marketers who send abandoned cart nurturing emails include a description of the products in the cart. Expert Analysis: Personalizing the message with data about the actual product the customer was interested in is the most popular method. However, still 17% of marketers aren’t including any product messaging – even though customers nurtured with such content are more likely to spend more when they return. Morgan Jacobson Principal Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Expert 52% 13% 6% 8% 37% 17% 5% 5% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Descrip3on of the product (Text and/or Text & Pictures) Addi3onal product recommenda3ons Product how-‐to videos Product Guides / Ebooks More than original Less than original

54. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING54 www.Hubspot.com Stat: On average, 57% of abandoners revisit the website with 1-5 days. However, businesses that send their cart abandonment messages within 24 hours of abandonment are 14% more likely to get those customers back to their website within 5 days. 57% 21% 6% 4% 3% 3% 4% 3% Revisit Timing 1 – 5 Days 6 – 10 days 10 – 15 Days 15 – 20 Days 20 – 25 Days 25 – 30 Days More than 30 Days Never revisit

55. THE STATE OF ECOMMERCE MARKETING55 www.Hubspot.com HubSpot fielded our 2014 State of Ecommerce Marketing Survey between January 07 and February 02, 2014. The query took the form of an online survey, to which there were 1,099 qualified complete and partial responses from marketing and business professionals in 45 countries on six continents, including North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, Australia, South/Central America, and Africa. Survey respondents included business owners, marketing practitioners, marketing managers, marketing directors, CEOs, CMOs, and agency sales and IT professionals from the ecommerce industry. The sampling method was an incentivized, non-probability, voluntary sample composed of HubSpot prospects having expressed the willingness via opt- in to receive marketing-related email messages and those responding to invitations via social media promotion on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. As the goal of this survey was to assess the market saturation level of inbound ecommerce marketing tactics (which are often decoupled from the larger framework), we did not exclude any responses, including those who indicated they did not implement inbound marketing strategies specifically. For visual purposes, we eliminated “don’t know” and/or “not applicable” responses from various analyses. The incentive for participating in the survey was entry into a contest to win either a free iPad or $500. To request further information about the design or conduct of this survey- based study, please contact research@hubspot.com. Survey Methodology

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