Selling products online is easier said than done. Many brands find success with respect to generating organic attention for their content and causes, but online marketplaces tend to not enjoy this luxury. After all, how many people are organically going to become excited over one or more consumer products that aren’t already household names?

With this key understanding of the situation in mind, e-commerce platforms must understand how to market their products and services effectively. Digital marketing provides a wealth of opportunities for brands that know how to use them, with some strategies simply being more effective than others.

To illustrate what e-commerce stores should do, let’s examine which digital marketing methods are most efficient at generating both attention and sales.

Email Marketing

Arguably one of the oldest forms of marketing for established brands, email marketing remains a highly cost-effective strategy. Given that true email marketing revolves around collecting the email addresses and contact info of those who have demonstrated prior interest in your brand and its offerings, the conversion rates for email marketing campaigns are especially effectiveness when balancing cost.

For most e-commerce stores, email marketing involves pitching products and services to those who have already made purchases or who have at least taken steps to do so. By pinging your website and its products occasionally to these prospective and current customers via email, you’ll see a dramatic return on investment. The one potential downside to this strategy is that you generally need a hefty and established mailing list to truly deliver substantial results.

Search Engine Optimization

Another form of digital marketing that requires no recurring budget or expenditures is search engine optimization. SEO is a long-pursued strategy by brands of all kinds due to the consistent, organic traffic it can drive to websites via search results. While other forms of digital marketing via search engines – such as PPC campaigns – exist, organic SEO ensures that your listings aren’t hidden by ad blockers.

While generating optimal SEO results takes time and dedication, it is often considered the most effective form of long-term e-commerce marketing that doesn’t involve paid advertising.

YouTube Video Marketing

Most search engines utilize a set of algorithms that guarantee a set percentage of displayed results on default pages are video-based. Given that via the above-mentioned SEO strategy most brands pursue text-based optimization, the opportunities for ranking well in search results via videos are much greater.

Additionally, most people use YouTube on a regular basis: those who search for specific product needs, reviews and other forms of information via the platform have a decent chance of finding your video. As such, YouTube marketing for e-commerce purposes is becoming increasingly common. Given the low rate of competition and the ability to disseminate a plethora of product details quickly via videos, this is a highly-effective form of marketing for online stores.

Social Media Advertising

The one form of digital marketing on this list for e-commerce businesses that requires a consistent budget – social media advertising – is also one of the most rapidly growing forms. With hundreds of millions of users on multiple social media platforms, reaching large segments of your target audience has never been easier.

Thanks to PPC advertising campaigns, e-commerce stores across every niche and industry can target individuals based on their demographic habits, shopping tendencies and even whether they’ve been pinging your website previously. While the overall conversion rate may be low, the true cost per click and return on investment using this form of digital marketing makes it by far one of the most effective forms of marketing any online store can utilize.

Dozens of digital marketing strategies can be used in conjunction with one another – and often should be – but e-commerce brands looking for maximum return on investment should be focused on the above four strategies. Through social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing and YouTube video marketing, online stores can expect to see a dramatically better conversion rate than through most other forms of advertising.