10 eCommerce Advertising Statistics to Be Aware of Before Entering 2024

Updated by March 18,2024

ECommerce has been growing continuously for years, but the Covid-19 pandemic has further accelerated its growth. According to Statista, global eCommerce sales will reach $5.7 trillion by the end of 2022. The upcoming years will be just as successful. The value of the market is projected to be worth $6.3 trillion in 2023 and $8.1 trillion by 2026.

Retailers are recognising the opportunities offered by online sales and more and more of them are setting up eCommerce stores and starting to advertise their products on various platforms. As a result, competition is getting tougher and it's getting harder to make your ads visible to as many potential customers as you want.

It is important to keep an eye on the latest eCommerce trends, as they will show you which way your business needs to go to reach your target audience and succeed.

To help you understand what's happening in the industry, we've chosen 10 important trends based on analysis conducted by a few data companies, as well as a research of 15,000 stores in 60+ countries and over 20 eCommerce sectors compiled in the Feed Marketing Report by DataFeedWatch.

Search & Social Dominate eCommerce Advertising

Multichannel strategy is nothing new for most online retailers. It's common knowledge that expanding to multiple channels gives you a good chance to gain increased visibility as well as more potential buyers and multiple revenue streams.

Search and Social are two channel types that are most popular among eCommerce advertisers.

According to Feed Marketing Report 2022, 91.55% of e-sellers promote their products on Search channels. This high percentage is not without reason. Paid Search platforms are most often used by customers who are actively looking for specific products in order to purchase them. This makes this channel type a perfect platform to find customers with a high buying intention.

54.15% of online retailers advertise on Social channels. This is also a rather high percentage, which shows that this channel type is also considered a relevant channel to advertise products. It may not generate as much revenue as a Search channel like Google Shopping, but it remains one of the most important revenue sources for eCommerce stores. The social commerce market is growing every year and its value is expected to reach $992 billion by 2022 and $2.9 trillion by 2026.

Affiliate platforms close the podium of the most commonly used channels in eCommerce. However, compared to two other platform types, only 11% of online advertisers promote their products on affiliate platforms such as Awin or Criteo. On the other hand, affiliate marketing drives 16% of eCommerce sales in parts of the world such as the US or Canada. It seems like it might be an untapped market opportunity that online retailers should try to exploit.

26.49% of Products in All Product Catalogs Globally Are on Sale

A good discount strategy can really boost the company’s revenue. It can bring in many new customers and help retain old ones.

Customers love discounts and online retailers often make them part of their strategy. 26.49% of products across all product online catalogues advertised on paid channels in March/April of 2022 were on sale.

A relatively high percentage of discounted products was a result of the covid-19 pandemic, that caused supply chain disruptions in 2021 and 2022, which in turn led to increased inflation and significant price jumps (7.51% in one year).

Online retailers who decide to implement product discounts must keep in mind that using this strategy and achieving higher conversion potential with it has its drawbacks. The profit margin on discounted products will be lower, so you need to take this factor into account and see if it is still profitable.

Some sectors use discounts to a greater extent than others. Apparel & Accessories is the leading product category when it comes to products being sold at promotional price. In the first half of 2022, even 37% of fashion products were on sale. Health & Beauty and Furniture are two other sectors where product discounts are widely used with 33.12% and 32.77% of items on sale.

Industries such as Media and Business & Industrial do not use much discounting in their strategies.

Mobile Will Drive Lots of Sales for eCommerce in 2024

In 2022, we broke the record for the amount of time spent online, mostly surfing on mobile phones. Generation Z and younger ones in particular are boosting these statistics because they don't use computers much anymore.

Basically everything from daily shopping til paying your bills can now be done on mobile phones. Texting and calling are no longer primary reasons for using mobile devices and people expect brands to allow them to shop via mobile devices quickly and smoothly.

Smartphones account for 71% of global traffic on eCommerce websites. Moreover, they generate 61% of all online shopping orders. These figures cannot go unnoticed.

Global mobile retail sales are projected to exceed $4.5 trillion by 2024, accounting for nearly 70% of total eCommerce retail sales. If you don’t optimize your eCommerce business for mobile in 2024, you won’t be able to stay competitive. The proper optimization includes integrating responsive design into your eCommerce site, offering mobile-friendly payment options (e.g. Google Pay), adding mobile-friendly elements to your website (thumb-friendly buttons and more), making mobile checkout easy-peasy, and having a downloadable mobile app.

Google reports that shoppers are 62% less likely to make a purchase from a brand after they had a poor mobile experience. Optimizing for mobile should be your top priority for 2024.

64.74% of Marketers Remove Products from Ads.

According to Feed Marketing Report 2022, 64.74% of online retailers remove certain products from their ads. That’s because advertising all products (in case you have many of them) included in your feed can sometimes be unprofitable. You risk paying for clicks that have no conversion potential.

Excluding unprofitable products from paid advertising campaigns is an effective way to optimize advertising budgets and protect ROI.

There are various factors based on which online marketers filter products from campaigns but the most common one (in 15.79% of the cases) is the price. Title and availability are the two second most frequently used attributes for removing unwanted items from PPC campaigns.

Coming back to price, in most cases this exclusion strategy is used because the product price falls below a certain threshold. On average, 90.92% of marketers using price-based exclusions remove products below a certain price point. This is a problem with low-cost products. Sometimes it might happen that the cost of the ad exceeds the profit, in which case excluding such products may be the best option.

15.77% of online marketers that use exclusion strategies remove products based on the title. This is only slightly less popular than filtering items based on their price. Using titles as a reason for exclusions helps marketers to remove entire collections or specific product types.

When online stores have incorrect data, low stock levels or lack some relevant product data, the most frequently used factors for exclusion are attributes such as availability or image_link.

49% of Marketers Have a Dedicated Budget for Retargeting

Retargeting ads, which have been an ongoing trend for a longer time now, are display ads that appear on websites your potential buyers visit after leaving your site. This type of advertising helps you bring back leads who showed interest in the products you offer before.

Many people leave your store’s website because they get distracted or simply aren’t ready to convert. Retargeting gets them to reconsider the purchase. And statistics show that 3 out of 4 consumers notice retargeting ads when surfing online. It’s a pity not to take advantage of that.

Almost 50% of brands allocate budgets for retargeting campaigns. For digital agencies this percentage level is even higher and it comes up to 68%. This might only mean one thing - retargeting strategy is effective for lots of companies .

Moreover, the spending for retargeting across all businesses is in constant growth. In 2013, only 20% of brands had a dedicated budget for retargeting and now it’s much much more.

When creating a retargeting campaign, you need to remember to use high-quality photos and add clear information as well as a straightforward call to action (CTA) to guide your shoppers in the right direction.

Car Parts Stores Handle the Largest Product Offering across eCommerce

When you take into account all industries and product categories, a typical online store has 999 products.

The Vehicles & Parts sector is the leader when it comes to the number of SKUs in a store. In fact, an auto parts store manages approximately 16% more products than a store within the Home & Garden industry (second in the SKUs volume rank).

Certainly, the larger the inventory of products you handle in your store, the more challenges you are likely to encounter when it comes to managing data feeds.

In case you manage multiple variants of the same product, you need to make a strategic decision whether to advertise the variants or only the parent products.

You also need to take care of the technical part of your product feed, i.e. properly mapping product data with a focus on variants. Make sure attributes such as colors, images, sizes, models or patterns are assigned the correct values and are optimized.

If you choose to advertise both parent and child products (variants), be sure to include distinctive details about each item, such as color, unique variant image and size in the data feed. By doing so, you can avoid duplicate ads and achieve better query matching and thus a better conversion rate.

Over 90% of Shoppers Feel micro-influencers Have the Power to Convince Them to Buy

Micro-influencers is another relatively new eCommerce trend that will continue in 2024. Online survey results show us that 91% of consumers consider influencer marketing to be an effective strategy.

Micro-influencers are not the same as big influencers that have millions of followers and probably take lots of money for promoting products. Connecting with big ones can be difficult and expensive, but partnering with them has also been a steady trend, only with larger companies.

A new rising trend is to get in touch with micro-influencers, which operate on a bit smaller scale and often appeal to a very specific niche audience. The number of their followers can spread from 2000 to even a couple hundred. What’s special about them is their very strong connection with a specific community of people, who are deeply interested in their content.

By working with micro-influencers, you can reach an audience that you are 100% sure is interested in the product you are selling. It seems like a great boost for your business but the only challenge is to find the right micro-influencers.

You can search for them on various social media channels by typing in specific hashtags and see who is using them. Also look for people posting on topics related to your business and what you sell.

Almost 17% of Products Are Advertised without Identifiers

The recent Feed Marketing Report also tells us that 17% of products across all advertising catalogs have no unique product identifiers assigned. An UPI can be Brand, MPN and/or GTIN.

Some products advertised on shopping channels simply don’t have any UPI, because they are items that were produced before GTINs were introduced or are hand-made products or custom goods. However other products do have a unique identifier but online retailers don’t know it and don’t add it to the data feed.

Some e-sellers who are missing GTINs, MPNs or Brands in their feeds, even though they’ve been issued, report no existing identifiers in the hope of avoiding penalties.

This just might be a big mistake, as not using UPIs significantly reduces the visibility of your product ads. An even worse thing you can do is assign the wrong UPI to the wrong product. In that case you risk Google jeopardizing your Shopping ads.

Some industries struggle more with the lack of UPI than others:

Office supplies, with almost 50% of items advertised without identifiers and Toys & Games, with more than 40% products lacking UPIs can be an untapped opportunity for online retailers selling products with submitted GTINs. Google will probably grant a higher priority to their products and it will be much easier to compete against other products in these categories.

New Generations Enter the eCommerce Market

In 2024, there will be new generations entering the eCommerce marketplace: generation Alpha and Z. This means completely new types of audiences with new needs.

Younger generations plan on being very active consumers with high purchase intent in 2024. Business Insider estimated Gen Z's spending power at more than $140 billion in 2022 and next year this figure will only be greater.

The role of online retailers is to adapt their resources to these powerful generations and their shopping preferences. Buying goods and services online is something totally natural for younger shoppers, and all online retailers are expected to provide a seamless online shopping experience.

One of the most crucial improvements that needs to be done in preparation for new generations of shoppers is optimizing your online business for mobile. 98% of Generation Z members own a smartphone and 55% of them use it for at least 5 hours a day.

Another important optimization is to connect the shopping experience for younger generations. They never make a purchase without first researching their options. That's why you need to optimize your omnichannel.

In your advertising strategy for 2024, don’t forget about social media. Generation Alpha and Generation Z spend a lot of time on apps such as TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat.

Augmented Reality (AR) in Online Shopping Is Becoming a Hit

Augmented Reality has been a popular eCommerce trend for the entire year 2022 and will continue in 2024.

AR (short for Augmented Reality) is the integration of real-time digital information into a user's environment. The idea behind this technology is that users can place digital content, sound, visual elements or other sensory stimuli over a real environment.

Augmented Reality has transformed the whole idea of online shopping. It provides entertainment while helping brands showcase their products in an interactive way. Users can try out different products before deciding whether to buy them. For example, they can virtually combine different fashion items together or try out different furniture options. The goal is to give the experience as close to the real world as possible.

The market for AR applications is growing rapidly and is forecast to reach $198 billion by 2025. AR is most likely to become big or even crucial in eCommerce industries such as Beauty, Apparel & Accessories or Furniture. In fact, shoppers are 50% more likely to engage with 3D visuals than with static ones.

Moreover, about 56% of customers who have used Augmented Reality in their buying journey claim that it prompted them to make a purchase.

Summary

We hope the 10 statistics from this article will help you understand where your business stands and what areas need improvement before 2024.

If you're trying to break through with your online offering, it's crucial to stay up to date with the latest eCommerce trends and adapt your strategy accordingly. 2022 was a very interesting year in terms of new developments in online advertising, and we're excited to see what 2024 will bring!

About the Author

Jacques van der Wilt is a leader in the feed marketing industry and an entrepreneur. He founded DataFeedWatch (acquired by Cart.com) - one of the largest feed management companies in the world, that helps online merchants optimize their product listings on more than 2000 shopping channels in over 60 countries.

Prior to that, Jacques has held leadership positions in both the US and Europe. He is also a seasoned guest speaker at industry events and mentor at Startup Bootcamp.