Category: Articles

To domain or subdomain? That is the question: As your eCommerce business grows or explores new markets, expanding your website’s content categories and assessing your site’s informational architecture can be exciting—but it also raises a key question: should this new content sit on your main domain or a subdomain? There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer; it depends on your business needs, competitive landscape, and digital strategy. In this article, LION Digital dives into how running Google Ads on subdomains can impact campaign performance, weighing the pros, cons, and tactics for maximising your ad results while avoiding potential risks.

What is a Subdomain?

There are 3 fundamental parts in each URL:

1. Top-Level Domain or TLD: This is the extension at the end of any website URL, such as .com, .net, .org. It’s the highest level in the Domain Name System hierarchy after the root domain. It includes familiar endings like country codes (.au, .uk, .nz, .us) and specific-use types (.gov, .edu). These TLDs help categorise websites, giving clues about their origin or purpose, which is worth considering when structuring a domain strategy for SEO and ads.  
2. Second-Level Domain or SLD: This is where brands showcase their identity. It’s the creative part of the URL, typically featuring a brand’s name or something unique to them. For example, “Nike” in nike.com or “Starbucks” in starbucks.com.au. The SLD is a powerful branding tool that makes the website easily recognisable and memorable, helping to establish an online presence that users can instantly identify.
3. Subdomain: This part appears before the main domain name in the URL, helping to organise and separate content. It’s like the “shop” in shop.starbucks.com.au, setting apart site sections for specific functions. Businesses often use subdomains to create distinct areas tailored to different goals, making navigation easier and enhancing the user experience. They’re a flexible way to segment content while maintaining brand identity. 

Using a subdomain is a smart way to create distinct sections within a website, helping businesses separate specific areas for different purposes. This setup aligns sections with business goals, enhances user experience, and keeps content organised. For example, eCommerce brands might use subdomains for areas like a customer portal, blog, or online store, ensuring smooth navigation without cluttering the main site.

Subdomain or Subfolder (Subdirectory): Which is Better?

The important thing to remember is the difference between a subdomain and a subfolder, otherwise known as a subdirectory. If “shop” in shop.starbucks.com.au is a subdomain, “about-us” in starbucks.com.au/about-us is a subfolder or subdirectory. In a URL, subdirectories come after the main domain (like example.com/blog), while subdomains appear before (like blog.example.com). 

A subdirectory is part of the main domain, so search engines treat it as part of the same site. However, it’s important to note that subdomains are seen as separate entities by search engines, giving them independent identities. This distinction influences how search engines process and rank content on each, impacting SEO strategy.

Google Ads on Subdomains

To gauge the impact of subdomains on search engine marketing, it’s essential to look at SEO together with Google Ads strategy.

Here, we’ll break down the potential benefits of running Google Ads on a subdomain, including situations where this approach can enhance campaign performance. We’ll also look at the possible drawbacks, from campaign outcomes to broader SEO implications, along with strategies to reduce any risks.

How Subdomains Can Be Good for SEM?

1. Relevance and Quality Score: If your SEM campaign targets a subdomain that closely aligns with ad content and keywords, it can boost your Google Ads Quality Score. This relevance can lead to better ad placements and potentially lower costs per click, making campaigns more efficient and cost-effective.
2. User Experience: Subdomains let you create a focused, user-friendly setup. For instance, if the main site covers general content, a subdomain can tailor experiences for a niche audience or product line—often boosting conversions. 
3. SEO Considerations: Google treats subdomains as separate sites, so using one for ads can be helpful when keywords and audiences differ significantly. However, because of this separation, poor management could risk lowering your main domain’s authority and diluting SEO.  
4. Brand Perception: Subdomains help organise and segment content, improving navigation and professionalism. This structure can positively impact user experience and Google Ads performance, including Ads Quality Scores and costs.
5. Targeting Foreign Markets: Using a market.domain.com (us.liondigital.com) structure is great for targeting multiple markets. With this approach, English language nuances for spelling or keywords can be addressed EG Flashlight vs Torches. Many international brands use this strategy to improve site organisation while catering for the consumer and aligning the way they search with Googles guidelines.

Why Subdomains May Be Bad for SEM?

1. Separate Domain Authority and SEO efforts: Subdomains are treated as standalone sites by search engines, meaning any SEO work you do for your main domain won’t help your subdomain and vice versa. This separation can damage the Quality Score for Google Ads, leading to higher costs per click. The Quality Score is a main predictor of the Google Ads campaign ranking, and its decrease will result in higher cost per click (CPC). To maintain a subdomain’s Quality Score comparable to the main domain, you’ll need to invest significantly in SEO for each subdomain, which can strain your marketing budget.    
2. User Mistrust and Confusion: Having multiple subdomains can confuse users, especially if branding and navigation aren’t consistent. If someone clicks on an ad and is taken to an unexpected URL structure, they may lose trust in your brand, leading to higher bounce rates and lower conversions. Over time, this can negatively impact your Google Ads Quality Score, damage ad performance, and increase costs.
3. Ad Irrelevance and Quality Score: If your subdomain lacks the authority or relevant well-optimised content that matches your main domain, it can lower your Google Ads Quality Score. As the SEM campaign attached to the subdomain is not aligned with the main domain’s authority, this misalignment reduces ad visibility and drives up costs, making your campaigns less effective. 
4. Tracking Complications: Running Google Ads on subdomains can complicate tracking by creating accuracy difficulties that can impact attributing traffic and conversions. Data gaps may arise, especially when using remarketing tags across the main domain and its subdomains, making it harder to assess campaign performance accurately.

Short Tips on Running SEM on Subdomains

Wrapping up the items above to watch out for, at LION Digital, we recommend running search ads on your primary domain when possible. This ensures you leverage your established domain authority, developed user experience, and data and analytics infrastructure.

However, you do need to use subdomains, here are some key strategies to minimise the potential negative impacts of running SEM on subdomains:

1. Ensure Relevance: Keep content on your subdomain relevant and closely aligned with your targeting ads and keywords. This helps maintain the Quality Score and ad performance at an acceptable level. 
2. Consistent Branding: To create a seamless experience, maintain consistent branding—visual elements, navigation, and overall user experience—across your main domain and subdomains. The user needs to be certain that the page they land on is trustworthy, and the final destination needs to be clear and aligned. 
3. Appropriate Linking: Ensure your subdomains are correctly linked to your main site to improve navigation and indexing. This improves user navigation from the main domain to the subdomains and can help search engines crawl and index your site as a whole.
4. Constant Performance Monitoring: Regularly track metrics related to the subdomains, like click-through rates (CTR), conversions and user behaviour to refine your approach. Don’t forget to add the subdomains to Google Analytics for marketing analytics​.
5. SEO Best Practices: Treat your subdomains with the same care as your main domain. Invest in SEO best practices to boost their authority and improve ad performance. This includes meta tag optimisation, using relevant keywords, building high-quality backlink profiles, and more. These practices increase the subdomain authority and affect the performance and costs of Google Ads through the Quality Score.
6. Advanced User Experience: To enhance user satisfaction, prioritise fast loading times, mobile optimisation, and intuitive navigation. A good user experience can lead to higher conversion rates and lower costs when running SEM campaigns on subdomains.
7. Test and Iterate: Rely on data-driven decisions, not just guesswork. If you think something is working, always double-check it. Use A/B testing to optimise ads and landing pages continually. Continuously test different ad copies, landing pages, and strategies. Never rely only on gut feeling; always try to make data-driven decisions.

Connect with our specialist eCommerce team at LION Digital to craft a tailored SEM, SEO, or blended search strategy that drives your business forward. Schedule a discovery call today!

Thankfully, the days of carpet-bombing email marketing are behind us. Customers no longer need to sift through inboxes full of generic emails aimed at mass outreach instead of building personal connections. Personalised emails are much more likely to grab the recipient’s attention and drive them to take action. It’s all about reaching the right audience at the right time with messages that feel tailor-made. With pre-built eCommerce automation and real-time audience segmentation, your chances of getting subscribers to open, click and convert dramatically increase—ultimately boosting your ROI. Data shows that personalised emails deliver six times higher transaction rates than non-personalised emails.

Thanks to AI, data analysis tools for personalisation have made huge strides, especially in email marketing. As a result, 80% of marketers state that AI has significantly improved their email campaigns’ performance. 

This article looks at the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) tools for email marketing, targeted personalisation and send times optimisation to note how you can gain traction in your customers’ inboxes.

Email Personalisation and Beyond

Reports suggest that AI in email marketing can analyse customer data to create personalised content, leading to an increase in email open rates by 26%.

As one of the leading platforms, Klaviyo utilises AI for personalisation in email marketing and SMS in three main directions:

1. Predictive analytics to retrieve and apply useful insights from customer data.
2. Generative AI that saves time and creative energy.
3. AI optimisation without any human interference.

1. Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics allows AI marketing tools to:

• Identify emerging trends and potential issues in their inception phase through customer review sentiments analysis;
• Predict the next order date, customer lifetime value (CLV) and spending potential, average time between orders, churn risk, etc., which allows businesses to anticipate the future order flow and adjust processes accordingly; 
• Transform the email communication in AI email campaigns by integrating personalised feeds that show customers products they are likely to be interested in buying;
• Compare the outcomes with industry-specific benchmarks to check and drive the efforts’ efficiency.

2. Generative AI

With generative AI email marketing tools, businesses can:

• Utilise AI email campaign generator and effortlessly create the AI workflows in a few clicks by merely describing the process requirements in a couple of prompts;
• Apply email writing artificial intelligence capabilities or AI email generator to draft impactful subject lines and generate email content; 
• Manage the SMS marketing channel by streamlining and improving the process of writing SMS campaign copy or applying suggested responses to customer requests in SMS conversations;
• Enable customers to write impactful reviews through suggested headlines and content pieces.

3. AI optimisation

AI optimisation helps businesses to:

• Personalise emails by gaining insights from A/B tests and using the message version that resonates the most with a specific customer profile;
• Enhance the efficiency of the A/B test output by smartly identifying the outperforming subject line, image, offer, CTA, or other driving element.

AI Audience Segmentation

Segmentation allows the grouping of audiences based on personal characteristics, interests, and behaviours. There are 7 key segments used to boost email and SMS performance:

1. Cross-sell segment – customers who bought one product but skipped related items that might interest them;
2. Location-based segment – groups customers based on where they live or shop;
3. Item and brand-specific segment – targets customers who visit the website for a particular product or category;
4. Engagement tier segment – allows flexible targeting by adding multiple levels of grouping based on the conditions you set, which are variable and not fixed; 
5. Churn risk segment – focuses on customers likely to leave for a competitor, making them ideal for win-back campaigns or automated flows to reignite loyalty; 
6. Average order value (AOV) segment – groups customers by how much they typically spend, helping to spot those who are high or low spenders; 
7. Holiday shoppers segment – gathers customers who are ideal for receiving offers during key sales periods like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Mother’s Day, Christmas, and more. This keeps them engaged and reminds them of why they loved the brand last year.

Forms also can be targeted to new strategies through segmentation:

1. Expected date of next order segment – displays a form at the customer’s predicted order time, nudging them toward a repeat purchase;
2. Customer lifetime value segment – sets up forms to target visitors based on what they’re likely to spend over the next year;
3. Location-proximity segment – highlights a local event to visitors within driving distance, encouraging sign-ups.

Got a brilliant idea for a new segment but unsure how to make it work? Many email marketing experts share your frustration. AI-driven audience segmentation email marketing tools offer a completely new approach to segment building. Think of them as your personal AI assistants, helping you build the perfect audience segments with ease.

AI allows marketers to create audience segments by using natural language inputs — phrases or sentences — which the system then converts into specific segment criteria. Afterwards, marketers can further refine and edit these criteria to match their exact needs. This AI-driven segmentation is considered one of the most powerful tools in email marketing, with brands reporting up to a 760% increase in revenue after implementing it.

Personalised AI Recommendations and Addressing Abandoned Baskets

Roughly 69% of online shopping carts are abandoned, which is one of the high-priority challenges in the eCommerce business. Potential customers may abandon the cart for several reasons, including additional or hidden costs, poor delivery or return policies, overcomplicated ordering and checkout processes, payment processing problems, and technical bugs and glitches.

AI-powered tools are already tackling the problem of cart abandonment head-on. Based on AI-analysed customer behaviour and intent defined through previous searches and browsing patterns, the moment a customer abandons the cart, AI marketing tools can be implemented to catch their attention and keep them engaged:

1. AI personalised product recommendations – for example, a complimentary product or a special offer on a product a customer has shown interest in;
2. AI-driven chatbots – these bots can offer instant advanced virtual shopping assistance through conversational AI, personalised nudges to the customers and engage them with relevant reminders and exclusive offers;
3. AI retargeting campaigns – creating personalised ads in real-time through AI, reminding potential customers of the products left behind;
4. AI-powered personalised email follow-ups – a well-timed email featuring abandoned products, along with suggestions for complementary items and limited-time discounts or free shipping. Personalised follow-ups can recover up to 30% of lost sales! 
5. AI-tailored automatic SMS messages – texts offer a sense of urgency through a limited-time discount or a notification about running low stock;
6. AI-powered predictive analytics – help to identify customers who are most likely to abandon their carts and take preventative, proactive measures;
7. AI-identified detailed customer personas – adjust the marketing strategy according to a persona built around a real person who frequently abandons the carts, returns items or buys only during the sales.

Take a look at some industry game-changers: Amazon’s recommendation engine is responsible for a whopping 35% of the company’s revenue. This AI technology shapes personalised shopping experiences and boosts sales. Netflix is another prime example—the brand’s AI analyses what you like to watch, keeping you hooked with personalised recommendations, which plays a huge part in the streaming service’s high customer satisfaction and retention. And then there’s Spotify, which revolutionised music streaming with AI-powered song suggestions and tailored playlists. These are just a few examples of how AI is transforming businesses, making marketing more personal and effective.

Optimising Send Times with Klaviyo’s AI Features

Smart Send Time

Klaviyo’s Smart Send Time feature takes the guesswork out of email timing. It digs into customer data to figure out the best time to send emails, so you can boost open and click rates. In fact, research shows that sending emails at the right time can increase open rates by up to 20%.

Smart Send Time not only picks the optimal send time but also shows you exactly how and why it made that choice. By tracking engagement over a 24-hour period across multiple email sends, this AI tool gives you real insights into what works best. However, it’s only available for accounts with at least 12,000 active profiles.

The optimisation process contains 3 stages:

1. A random time is assigned to each recipient in their local time zone, and Klaviyo sends out an email over a 24-hour period;
2. The system determines the best time for the highest engagement, and to validate the selected time, one email will be sent Customer Loyalty team at a given time, another two hours before, and another two hours later;
3. Klaviyo fine-tunes the send time based on feedback, then delivers emails at the optimal moment in each recipient’s local time zone.

However, the data in the graphs is based on information gathered from exploratory and focused email sends. So, if you’ve never run an exploratory campaign before, the graphs will be empty, and you won’t see any data right away when Smart Send Time is first activated.

Although Klaviyo maintains the identified send time without further modifications in the last stage, the subscriber list may grow, and their behaviours and preferences may evolve over time.

According to studies, effective timing leads to a 7% increase in click-through rates. However, the Klaviyo Smart Send Time feature is about more than sending emails at the right time; it’s about maximising engagement, helping with:

1. Reducing email fatigue by estimating the optimal frequency and timing for sending emails to individual subscribers. 
   The Smart Send Time is equipped with an Open rate per hour graph that demonstrates the percentage of people who opened the email out for each hour of those who received it. If a focused send has a much higher open rate, Klaviyo will not spike the hours for that focused send because a single campaign performed better than average. There is also an Expected Open Rate Lift graph showing how open rates compare before and after using Smart Send Time. However, it will be populated only after a focused send time has been reached.
2. Boosting engagement metrics: Improving engagement is all about tailoring emails to each recipient’s behaviour to boost open rates and click-throughs. This way, more subscribers not only see your content but also engage with it more actively. 
   Two additional graphs based on the data from the exploratory sends allow an analysis of the efficiency of the send-outs: the Open rate and Placed Order Rate per Hour. The placed order event is attributed to the time when the email was sent.
3. Personalising email experiences: By analysing subscribers’ behaviours and preferences and ensuring that emails arrive in the inboxes when the probability of engagement is high, subscribers feel valued and understood, which deepens their connection with the brand.

Why Choose LION Digital for Your AI Optimised Email Flows

At LION Digital, we’re proud to be a Klaviyo Elite Master Partner. We choose Klaviyo’s advanced tools over other popular platforms because they simply deliver better results. With powerful features like Smart Send Time, we help you stay ahead of the curve, ensuring your emails reach the right audience at the right time. By continually optimising and adapting your strategy, you can keep engagement high and your customers coming back for more. Ready to boost your email marketing game? Contact our experienced CRM & Loyalty team, and let’s make it happen!

In today’s digital-first economy, strategic brand growth is often driven by expanding into international markets. Global-e is a leading cross-border eCommerce platform that helps small to large businesses expand globally by localising customer experiences and tailoring solutions, such as global payments, logistics, and marketing, with data-driven insights. 

Our recent partnership with Global-e cements our dedication to expanding our reach along with that of our clients. As LION Digital is currently servicing clients in 14 global markets, including Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the UK, Canada, and Japan, our multichannel eCommerce digital marketing agency has proven strategies for international growth.

Driving International eCommerce Success with Global-e and LION Digital

More than just a tech provider, Global-e delivers full-service solutions, offering tailored geocentric retail strategies, tools and techniques for international success. 

As Raj Mukherjee, Global-e Partnership Manager Asia-Pacific, explains, “Global-e provides everything that a brand needs to accomplish global eCommerce successfully. Our technology enables shoppers from over 200 countries to have a more localised experience, and our services simplify expansion minimising the risks and complexity involved in selling online to overseas markets.” 

This comprehensive cross-border solution allows merchants to focus on their core business while Global-e tackles complex supply-chain logistics, compliance, duties, taxes, customs, and currency conversion.  By providing a single, integrated stack that manages international operations, Global-e helps merchants transform untapped international sessions into revenue, rather than brands having to build their own multi-regional stacks instead.

Key Benefits: A Comprehensive Solution in One Platform with Vast Reach

Unlike other cross-border eCommerce providers that offer only parts of the necessary infrastructure, Global-e provides an enterprise-grade end-to-end solution. For brands operating in multiple markets, this allows a valuable opportunity to consolidate their efforts under one platform. 

“We have aggregated all the information that’s required end-to-end, and effectively brands don’t need to piecemeal it,” says Raj. “Global-e has all of it under one umbrella.”

This includes everything from tax calculation and compliance to logistics and payment services, which is a huge boon for brands wanting to expand as it can drastically reduce operational complexity and risk. Ecommerce brands can now expand into new regions without the added pressure of dealing with local regulatory requirements and technical infrastructure. 

This holistic approach is a major advantage, eliminating the need for brands to integrate multiple solutions from different providers. The platform’s size and scale—being the largest business of its kind globally—enable access to vast amounts of data, which in turn fuels better market insights and strategic recommendations.

Leveraging Data Insights for Market Optimisation

One of Global-e’s most powerful assets is its data. With over 30 million transactions and 2 billion sessions from more than 1000 brands that the company services, the platform has access to extensive insights into local customer behaviour across the globe.

With a strong focus across verticals including fashion, beauty, consumer electronics, toys and kids’ space. Global-e tracks “shopper behaviour in different regions”, explains Raj. “We peer group that data and present it back to the relevant brands to help them identify their low-hanging fruit opportunities.”

One of Global-e’s key differentiators is its ability to use data to inform strategy and pricing, allowing brands to make informed decisions and maximise their ROI. Global-e uses data analysis to help brands pinpoint the regions where they are most likely to succeed so they can fine-tune their pricing, product offerings, and marketing strategies. These insights are particularly valuable for brands looking to enter high-growth markets or optimise their existing regional performance. 

Improved Customer Experience by Localising the Entire Shopper Journey

One of the most significant challenges in cross-border eCommerce is ensuring that international shoppers can engage as seamlessly with international brands as they would local online businesses.

“The software is designed to geolocate the shopper, present a welcome message, and display local banner messaging with special offers,” says Raj. “We also enable shoppers to browse and pay in their local currency, so they don’t need to worry about converting it themselves or being exposed to unknown transactional fees.”

Global-e’s solution integrates with all eCommerce platforms and is the exclusive third-party global eCommerce provider for Shopify. Raj says, “We feel fortunate to have a solution that works across platforms and to be chosen by Shopify to help their merchants expand globally.”

Shopify Managed Markets expands the capabilities of cross-border management tools offered by Shopify. Currently available to US-based merchants, this tool can help brands set up and start on their journey to global sales.

Global-e’s platform supports over 30 languages, more than 100 currencies and over 150 payment options, including buy-now, pay-later options, digital wallets and credit cards. This creates a seamless experience with a domestic feel for international shoppers. Brands can build trust and loyalty in new markets by helping to reduce friction for shoppers, therefore, increasing the likelihood of conversion rates.

Partnership Synergy for Global-e and LION Digital

The Global-e and LION Digital partnership has been built on shared values and complementary expertise. LION Digital is renowned for its multichannel eCommerce capabilities, specialising in helping brands with a minimum international annual revenue of $100K expand their global footprint.

Raj sees this alliance as a natural alignment, saying that the partnership was driven by LION Digital’s “strong eCommerce focus, especially in the D2C online eCommerce space and is known as an eCommerce powerhouse, and its team has the capability and that focus, making the alliance a strong partnership for success”.

The primary driver of the alliance for Global-e is the fact that LION has such a strong eCommerce focus.

“That alignment is invaluable,” says Raj, “In the Australian market, some of the major clients that LION works with would be a great fit for Global-e or are potentially working with Global-e already, and this partnership will allow us to work more closely to deliver strong results for them,” adding that, “LION’s growth in APAC and in countries where Global-e is also established gives this partnership a global recipe for success.”

LION Digital’s ability to run multichannel campaigns at home in APAC and across 13 foreign markets perfectly complements Global-e’s cross-border eCommerce capabilities. Combined, they offer brands a complete solution for growing their international online presence, entering new markets, and driving revenue across multiple channels.

Global-e publishes a global data insights report that breaks down regional trends that can assist brands that are selling from and optioning the Australian market. This report provides market trends that share international growth and decline, showcasing how the US dollar can impact world commerce.

Future Outlook for a Winning Partnership

As the eCommerce landscape continues to evolve, the partnership between Global-e and LION Digital is poised to deliver significant value to brands looking to expand their global presence. With Global-e’s robust technology platform and LION Digital’s expertise in digital marketing, brands have access to powerful solutions that simplify cross-border eCommerce and drive international growth.

Looking ahead, both companies are excited about the possibilities. Raj says “ We look forward to some exciting wins together. We have had some good success; you can see our case studies with Australian fashion and fitness brands like St. Agni and Muscle Republic on our website, and there are a few more to come.”

By combining Global-e’s cutting-edge technology, strategic data insights and eCommerce expertise with LION Digital’s expert digital marketing solutions, this partnership provides brands that are either established or starting on their journey to global success with the tools and expertise they need.

The Latest Version of Shopify Online Store 2.0: Benefits of Migrating to Shopify

OVERVIEW

In this article, the LION team explores the latest updates from the latest Shopify Online Store 2.0 platform and offers the best reasons to upgrade, along with sharing its key features. LION Digital has used Shopify 2.0 since its launch in 2021, when it transformed the retail experience with greater store flexibility and increased user control. LION became a Shopify Plus Partner in mid-2022, having seen the scope of benefits for eCommerce clients, and is therefore well positioned to integrate this platform into your eCommerce strategy. 

What does Shopify’s Latest Version Look Like?

Since then, Shopify has continuously improved its platform, making today’s Shopify migration a major win for your business. It rebuilt merchants’ interactions with the Shopify online store through time-saving features, enhanced performance, and improved content management. Shopify OS 2.0 introduced a new era for Shopify developers with a suite of new tools, theme architecture, and advanced customisation options. All this is aimed at ensuring e-store users can enjoy simpler use and increased control. 

Extensible Checkout 

Shopify Plus store owners using OS 2.0 can customise their checkouts through personifying apps such as loyalty programs, branding, recommended products, and more, achieving 11% higher conversion rates and a 4X faster checkout experience.  

The Benefits of the Latest Version of Shopify Online Store 2.0

The Shopify Online Store 2.0 features considered above deliver a range of benefits for merchants and end users:

Better User Experience for Store Owners

Thanks to the new theme architecture, creating and maintaining a store on Shopify 2.0 is a much sleeker user experience than on Shopify 1.0. The process is more efficient, smoother, and faster. 

The default Dawn theme provides a satisfying UX by following the latest trends. It is fully optimised for mobile and includes features such as enhanced product pages, equipped with announcement bars and much higher conversion potential.  

Shopify is now less dependent on coding skills, grants retailers complete control over the store assets, and provides a sense of ownership and flexibility. The user experience for eCommerce teams has improved considerably, making it much easier to use than its predecessor.

Quick Implementation of Changes

Store owners can save time and implement the changes faster without the developer’s involvement. Hence, businesses can respond promptly to their internal and client needs. However, some complex customisations may still require development work. 

Unlocks Budget for Strategic ROI

The latest Shopify update also cuts costs on feature development and saves funding that could be reallocated to strategically important directions and ROI-positive activities. For instance, the money can be spent on product development by launching additional features and functionalities, increasing the digital ads budget, investing in optimisation by running experimentations and tests, and more. 

Enables the eCommerce Stores’ Originality

By upgrading the stores using enhanced control, content management and enriched customisation features in Shopify, merchants can craft a unique, memorable, and compelling online shopping experience for their clients, making the stores more coherent with brand values and tone of voice.

Improved Customer Experience

Thanks to advances such as enhanced content experience and optimised layout, websites built on the Shopify platform perform better, increasing customer satisfaction and lowering the bounce rate. 

The Main Features of the Shopify’s Latest Version

The primary features of the latest Shopify have been designed to make the platform more intuitive and user-friendly:

Improved Customer Experience 

Shopify Plus store owners using OS 2.0 can customise their checkouts through personifying apps such as loyalty programs, branding, recommended products, and more, achieving 11% higher conversion rates and a 4X faster checkout experience.  

Sections on Every Page Type

Shopify sections are like building blocks for your website’s pages. In the past, you could only make changes to the sections on the homepage. If you wanted to change other pages, you’d need a developer or special tools.

With Shopify 2.0, you can now easily customise your entire site without waiting for a developer. For example, you can put up a new banner for a sale, move things around on a product page, or build a landing page without using extra tools.

You can now add, remove, and rearrange sections on almost any page, like products, collections, blogs, or custom pages. Shopify also increased the number of sections you can use—you can add up to 25 sections per page template, and each section can have up to 50 blocks. This gives you even more options to personalise your store. However, some themes may still limit how many sections you can use, and in some cases, you might still need a developer’s help.

Improved App Integration with Themes

Shopify Online Store 1.0, launched in 2006, was the original version of Shopify. It gave businesses basic tools to set up their online stores, manage inventory, and process payments. However, it wasn’t easy to integrate apps with store themes, and developers had to do extra work to make apps run smoothly on different themes and locations.

With Shopify 2.0, there’s much more flexibility. Now, developers can easily integrate apps into store themes using app blocks, which are like little widgets that can be added, removed, or customised directly in the theme editor—no coding needed! This means you don’t have to worry about breaking your store or needing troubleshooting later.

Shopify 2.0 also gives you full control over where apps appear on your site, and you can add app features and widgets with just one click. Plus, aside from the default “Dawn” theme, the Shopify Theme Store now has over 80 themes, including 8 free ones and more than 1,000 third-party themes to choose from.

Better Theme Editor User Interface

Shopify’s new interface lets store owners easily control where apps appear on a page. You can now drag and drop blocks to move them around without any hassle.

The latest version of Shopify makes it easier to manage your store’s content. The layout is more organised, so adjusting sections and pages feel more natural and user-friendly. It’s also easier to move between pages and update content across multiple pages.

Shopify introduced a “tree view” in the sidebar, which shows all the parts of a page in a clear, organised list. This makes it easy to access and update sections, blocks, and other elements instantly.

Everything is centralised, making website management smoother, and the faster preview feature lets you see any changes you make in real-time. 

Liquid Input Setting

The new Liquid input feature in Shopify makes customising your store even easier. It allows you to add custom elements across your entire site or on specific pages directly from the theme editor.

With this feature, you can access Liquid variables, which means you can make global or page-specific changes without needing to touch any code. You can personalise and fine-tune your store without having to hire a developer.

This feature helps store owners take full advantage of Shopify’s latest tools to make decisions and solve problems more easily. 

Preview Inspector

In the latest Shopify update, a Preview Inspector was introduced to the theme editor. Preview Inspector helps Shopify merchants quickly and easily find blocks and sections they want to change. Rearranging, hiding, deleting, or adding the sections and blocks can now be done simply by clicking on them in the preview window.

Shopify Mobile App

The latest version of the theme editor, available also through the Shopify mobile app, is the most relevant upgrade for Shopify merchants who are always on the move. The mobile theme editor allows you to adjust the theme settings, edit sections and blocks, and customise the templates and pages.

No Code 3D Viewer Configuration

Merchants with limited technical ability can now integrate 3D models into their product listings, helping improve customers’ online shopping experience. As 3D models provide a true-to-life and immersive view of products of all sizes, the no-code 3D viewer configuration feature allows store owners to edit background colour, lighting, zoom, exposure level, and initial camera view on their product pages without extensive technical help.

Metafields Improvement 

Shopify now lets you add custom fields called “metafields” to your store more easily. These fields allow you to store extra information about your products, pages, or other parts of your store. Before the updates, adding metafields was complicated and often required special apps, APIs, or custom code.

Now, you can add metafields directly in the theme editor, saving time and making it much easier. Here’s how they’ve improved:

• Standard Metafields: These can be used across different types of stores and products, making it easier to scale.
• Flexibility: You can now add more types of content, like images, videos, product lists, text, and PDFs. For example, you can easily show a product’s colour options or size chart on the page.
• Metaobjects: These allow you to group multiple metafields together and apply them to several products at once. For example, if you sell wine, you could create a meta object with information like where the wine is made and the producer’s certifications and then apply that information to all related products in one go.
• Dynamic Content: Metafields and metaobjects can be used as dynamic data sources, meaning they adapt to fit the context of products, collections, blogs, and more.
• More Attributes: Initially, metafields were mainly for products and variants, but now multiple metafields can be grouped in metaobjects and applied to several products simultaneously instead of applying numerous metafields to each. So they also work with orders, collections, customers, pages, blogs, and blog posts. This opens up new ways to personalise the shopping experience.
  If this information is stored in a metaobject, you don’t have to add it one by one to every product description. For instance, if you have a wine store on Shopify, the set information about the products could be created.
  • Where the wine was produced; 
  • The location of the producer; 
  • Information about the producer’s wine-making certifications.
  • Customer metafields can also help with marketing by segmenting shoppers based on their data, such as preferences or purchase history.
• Metafield Lists: This new feature lets you store multiple values in one metafield, which can improve search capabilities and allow you to show more detailed information.
• Increased Limits: Shopify has doubled the number of metafields you can create, from 100 to 200 per resource type, giving you even more flexibility.

These improvements make it easier to manage complex product information and create a more personalised shopping experience for your customers.

How Can You Migrate (Upgrade the Theme) to Shopify?

The latest Shopify update is now available to all online store owners. By the time this article is published, all Shopify apps must work seamlessly with the latest Shopify version, and those incompatible with OS 2.0 will already be deleted from the app store. 

However, if merchants choose not to upgrade to the latest version, Shopify doesn’t mandate that they do so. Thus, users of the previous version will continue to receive all the necessary support from the platform.  

Nonetheless, your website’s theme should be compatible with the latest Shopify to leverage all the benefits of the new version. In some cases, this means upgrading the current theme to 2.0; in others, a rebuild is a more appropriate option. Talk to us about website design and how to get the best customer experience out of your website.

With LION Digital’s professional guidance, your brand can benefit greatly from migrating your website to the latest Shopify update. In today’s cutthroat eCommerce market, it makes sense to use the best platform available.

Drop us a request and leverage the benefits of the latest Shopify with Shopify Plus Partner, LION Digital!

OVERVIEW

Discover the trends and technologies shaping the future of online search, from predictive search algorithms that anticipate user intent to AI-driven recommendations personalising content. In this article, we look at the rise of voice search and digital assistants, which are revolutionising user interaction with search engines, and note the critical role of mobile search and local SEO in providing tailored location-based results.

Part Three in our series on the timeline of online search looks at how evolving themes and technologies are reshaping the way people find information. If you missed the earlier segments, you can catch up on Part One: Early Search Engines Before Google and Part Two: Navigating the Changes in Online Search.

Predictive Search

Imagine typing just a few letters and seeing your desired results pop up instantly. Predictive search, powered by advanced AI and machine learning, is transforming how people search online by anticipating user needs before they finish typing. As the goalpost for the ultimate user experience is constantly moved, the predictive search feature anticipates user intent and suggests queries before users finish typing. Predictive search algorithms dynamically generate personalised suggestions based on accumulated user data. These algorithms track behaviour, search history, the context of the search, and search engines’ internal factors like popular searches, trending topics, and user preferences.

Earlier examples of this technology were Google’s “Google Autocomplete” or “Google Instant,” which were then augmented by Google’s “People Also Ask” and “Related Searches” sections, providing additional context and suggestions. Bing and Yahoo joined the trend and applied predictive search to offer auto-complete suggestions and refine search queries in real-time. Bing’s “Search Suggestions” feature offers predictive search recommendations based on user input and browsing history.

Predictive search helps users obtain more accurate and relevant results much faster. It also offers topics to find additional information that users may not have thought of. The more users engage with predictive search, the more accurate it becomes, therefore improving the quality of search results.

Artificial Intelligence for Search

In August 2024, one of the AI market-leading companies, OpenAI, announced the creation of a brand-new search engine called SearchGPT. In its testing phase at the time of this article going live, this prototype aims to lead the path towards a more natural and intuitive way of searching for information. AI-assisted search will allow users to ask follow-up questions and clarify the search results in the way queries typically flow back and forth during natural conversations.

Thus, the long-run concerns of Google’s parent company Alphabet’s investors got real-life proof that OpenAI could take a market share from Google. The full rollout of a service like SearchGPT would further revolutionise the search landscape through a new way of finding information.

This could be an important move for Google, coming off the back of a recent court ruling in which a US judge ruled that the search juggernaut has violated an antitrust law. The ruling potentially paves the way for a possible split of Google and Alphabet, irrevocably changing the search landscape from its current dominating position.

AI-Driven Recommendations

Ever wondered how Netflix knows what movie or TV shows you’ll love next? That’s the magic of AI-driven recommendations at work, learning from your behaviour to make suggestions for you. In an attempt to ‘think’ in the same way users do, a generative recommendation system is one of the most common ways of finding compatible items. Earlier versions, such as the “Related Articles” sections, primarily relied on manual adjustments, related information structures, and tags. However, modern AI-generated recommendations powered by sophisticated algorithms have enhanced this subclass of machine-learning information filtering systems.

AI-driven recommendation algorithms analyse accumulated user data (past purchases, viewing history, preferences, social interactions, etc.), distinguish behaviour patterns, examine ratings and trends, and apply contextual signals to match content relevance and curate personalised recommendations. These engines aim to enhance the user experience and increase engagement by extending the time spent and the depth of the journey with the aim of driving business conversion rates.

Think about the last time global streaming services suggested a show you binge-watched over a weekend or when Spotify created a playlist that felt custom-made for you. These personalised experiences are powered by sophisticated AI algorithms that learn from your habits and preferences. Amazon recommends products based on past purchases, browse history, and search history. Popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok also apply AI-driven recommendations to personalise users’ news feeds and explore tabs.

Voice Search and the Rise of Digital Assistants

Asking Siri for the weather or telling Alexa to play your favourite song make up part of the 3.1 billion voice searches every month. Voice search, which started as a novelty when Google introduced it in 2011, has evolved into a daily habit for over 50% of adults using it daily in 2024. With advances in speech recognition technology, voice search has become an integral part of search behaviour and marketing. Today, the average voice search SERP takes 4.6 seconds to load, and people use the technology to access information conveniently and hands-free, utilising natural language in their daily lives. Voice search is applied to such actions as searching for directions and making dining reservations to shopping and controlling smart home devices.

Voice search technology integrates seamlessly with leading search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, allowing users to perform voice-activated searches from their web browsers or, for 27% of users, from their mobile devices. With smartphones, smart speakers, and wearables becoming universal, voice search has shifted user behaviour from typing queries to simply speaking them.

Advances in natural language processing and speech recognition algorithms powered by AI and machine learning have made voice searches more accurate and intuitive. AI-driven voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant now understand user intent and context, providing relevant recommendations in real-time.

As the voice search market expands, it presents numerous opportunities for businesses to connect with users in new and innovative ways, but it also poses challenges in optimisation. LLM voice recognition chatbots achieve an impressive 93.7% accuracy, ensuring businesses and website owners must optimise their online presence to appear in voice search results. Voice searches are more conversational and reflect natural human communication, which has profound implications for SEO and content strategy.

The Impact of Mobile Search and Local SEO

With smartphones becoming non-negotiable for most people, mobile search and personalised local SEO have become essential for connecting with customers on the go. Google has stated it will no longer index sites that aren’t optimised for mobile as of July this year. The transition has prompted search engines to prioritise mobile-friendly websites to deliver optimised search results tailored for mobile users. For relevancy, business owners must consider applying local SEO strategies, like updating their Google My Business listing and using location-specific keywords, to make it easier for customers to find them online and offline.

Imagine a user searching for a nearby coffee shop while walking through an unfamiliar city. Mobile-friendly sites with local SEO strategies will appear at the top of their search results, providing the most relevant and convenient options.

Google’s algorithm updates, such as Pigeon and Possum, have refined local search results to provide more contextually relevant information. This makes it vital for businesses to adopt local SEO strategies to maintain visibility. Partnering with eCommerce SEO specialists like LION Digital can help your business stay ahead of the competition.

Local SEO strategies focus on optimising a business’s online presence to improve visibility in local search results and attract local customers. Features like Google Maps, Google My Business, and Google Local Pack results have made it easier for users to find local businesses and services directly within search engine results pages. Optimising website content with local keywords and claiming and optimising Google My Business listings are essential for improving local search rankings.

Maintaining an active presence on social media and vertical search engine platforms is also necessary for local SEO. Users often turn to these platforms to find local businesses, read reviews, and engage with communities. Social signals, which refer to a webpage’s collective shares, likes and social media visibility, are considered a ranking factor by traditional search engines. Social signals contribute to a page’s organic search rankings and are seen as a form of citation, similar to backlinks. When built and managed effectively, citations signal trust and credibility to search engines and potential customers, shaping local search rankings and influencing consumer purchasing decisions.

The Challenges of Online Search

Advances in online search have led to several hurdles for businesses to overcome:

• Privacy and Data Collection: Awareness and concerns regarding the protection of privacy rights and the ethical use of user data have become prevalent and are vital for eCommerce businesses to address.
• Ethical Impact of Personalisation on User Autonomy: Personalisation in search results and advertising based on user data influences user decisions, raising ethical considerations about user behaviour manipulation, autonomy, and freedom of choice.
• Misinformation: With developments in artificial intelligence, the amount and speed of web content delivery are astronomical, making it more challenging to distinguish false and misleading content. More emphasis should be placed on prioritising authoritative sources and filtering out unreliable ones.
• Filter Bubbles and Echo Chambers: Personalised search algorithms can limit users’ exposure to diverse viewpoints and contribute to the spread of misinformation. This can reinforce existing biases and limit access to various perspectives, contributing to the polarisation of online discourse.

To remain relevant in today’s fast-paced digital world, search providers must address these challenges to avoid issues concerning unauthorised data collection and breaches. Managing your SEO effectively requires a comprehensive approach involving user education, algorithmic transparency and accountability, and regulatory oversight.

Boost Your eCommerce Success with LION Digital’s Search Marketing Expertise

LION Digital is a global, full-service digital agency specialising in eCommerce. Our team of over 45 seasoned veterans and channel specialists ensures smooth, journey-led experiences across multiple touchpoints. We offer search expertise across multiple channels to help you avoid SEO pitfalls in the online space.

If you’d like a complimentary audit to determine how search marketing can work for your eCommerce brand, please speak to our specialist team today!

Smart eCommerce brands are constantly seeking customer marketing platforms that can keep up with their growth by scaling to their needs. If you’re questioning the efficacy of Mailchimp and wondering what is the difference between Klaviyo and Mailchimp, you could join one of over 35,000 brands that have already switched to Klaviyo, and for good reason. As a Klaviyo Master Elite partner, LION Digital is positioned to help you make the transition successfully. Our CRM specialists understand the importance of a robust, efficient marketing platform that powerfully drives audience engagement, loyalty and sales for continued growth.

Smart Sellers Need a Smart Marketing Platform

In an omnichannel environment, it is vital to reach customers on their non-linear purchasing journey and deliver personalised messages based on their tastes and habits. Klaviyo speeds up segmentation significantly by creating a consistent experience across customer touchpoints to drive sales. 

Why Klaviyo is the Preferred Choice:

1. Improved Marketing Effectiveness and Sales Growth:

By consolidating all customer data and channels into one platform, Klaviyo’s automated hyper-targeted marketing messages deliver more powerful results. This consolidation helps scale faster by ensuring that messages reach the right audience in the right places at the right times.

2. Improved Data Accuracy and Reporting:

Without the need for manual tagging, Klaviyo offers greatly improved data and reporting. Klaviyo leverages any combination of data, including all-time historical data, third-party events, website activity and predictive analytics. Unlike Mailchimp, Klaviyo segments update in real-time, providing a more precise and comprehensive view of your marketing performance.

3. Labour Savings:

Klaviyo’s powerful, flexible segmentation in real-time allows e-marketers to target forms, trigger automation, and generate segment-level reports efficiently. This live capability is a significant improvement over Mailchimp, where clunky channel-level reporting and time-absorbing segment updates can take up to two hours. 

With Klaviyo, say goodbye to endless workarounds. The platform is designed to save you time and effort, allowing you to focus on what matters most—growing your business. Klaviyo integrates seamlessly with major eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce, making the transition smooth and hassle-free.

4. Integrated Multichannel Marketing:

Klaviyo excels in integrated multichannel marketing, offering seamless campaign and flow capabilities for email, SMS, and mobile push. Unlike Mailchimp, which offers limited SMS and no mobile push options, Klaviyo provides a comprehensive suite of integrated marketing tools, including review collection and syndication.

5. AI Capabilities Built on Comprehensive Data:

Klaviyo’s AI tools are built on the most comprehensive dataset in the industry. The platform uses clean, organised, and historical data to learn, predict, and recommend actions. This breadth and depth of data drives AI efficiency, enhancing engagement with features like optimised content blocks, A/B testing, guided warming, and enriched SMS copy.

6. Superior eCommerce-Centric Integrations:

Klaviyo offers superior eCommerce-centric integrations, pre-built to ingest and use shopper data from over 300 platforms and eCommerce-focused apps. This includes detailed data on items, collections, catalogues, variants, and coupons, combined with third-party data like loyalty points and quiz results. This integration capability allows for more targeted messaging, driving higher engagement and conversion rates.

7. Advanced Reporting and Insights:

Klaviyo’s reporting capabilities are unmatched. The platform provides benchmarks, revenue-centric reports, customisable attribution settings, and tailor-made reports that offer a full picture across all channels. This level of insight is not available with Mailchimp, which lacks the ability to create custom reports or gain insights based on specific customer actions.

8. SMS Marketing Excellence:

Klaviyo is a leader in SMS marketing, offering sophisticated SMS automation based on nearly any eCommerce trigger, A/B testing in SMS content flows, SMS order notifications, and more. Unlike Mailchimp, which offers basic SMS capabilities, Klaviyo provides advanced SMS marketing tools that drive higher engagement.

In the overcrowded online shopping space, identifying viable methods of winning customer conversions, brand awareness, and long-term loyalty requires constant vigilance. But what if you could “set and forget” a winning strategy that brings new customers to your eCommerce store more affordably and with a greater chance of purchasing?

Our recent partnership with the innovative Shop with Friends aligns seamlessly with our dedication to client success. By installing Shop with Friends from the Shopify App Store, eCommerce websites can tap into the growing phenomenon of social shopping to do “all of the above” while winning new customers and reducing cart abandonment. 

Shop with Friends founder Kevin Hanna believes his company is a good match with LION Digital because both have proven eCommerce victories and the flexibility to meet client needs. 

Kevin says polls are a “no-brainer” for eCommerce businesses, from start-ups to major brands. It’s easy to install and offers a wealth of opportunities. Shop with Friends mainly partners with Shopify stores with over 100K monthly visitors. The platform can be up and running within 3 minutes, and polls take users 2-3 seconds to create—1 tap to create, 1 tap to share.

What Polls Can Mean for Your Business Growth

Shop With Friends results in 20% lower customer acquisition cost (CAC), with the app’s customers averaging 26% YoY growth and more than 6 million voters engaged. Votes come from shoppers who rely on input from friends before purchasing. Shopify stores that have installed the polls have seen an increase in 4x conversions and 5x user LTV (lifetime value). 

Users can send polls anywhere on all social media platforms using the Shopify Shop with Friends app. It takes seconds for an online shopper to create and share a poll with friends, transforming it into instant viral marketing for your brand while the poll creators become your brand ambassadors. Each poll, on average, acquires 2 new customers for your eCommerce store and often proves the power of social validation for influencing hesitant shoppers.

The app’s Analytics menu tracks useful data to help identify buyer behaviour. The dashboard itemises sales orders, product engagement and performance, how many people are voting, and on which products, what type of devices customers use, customer location worldwide, and revenue gained directly through polls. These insights can help you tailor your inventories to match user demand.

Key Benefits and USPs

Compared to other customer engagement tools on the market, Kevin says, “We’re the first tool to tap into the social shopping behaviour of the younger generations”. Generations Z and Alpha do “most of their shopping from their phones and like to get input from their friends from their phones, too. 

“We’re also 100% performance-based. Shop With Friends is a ‘set it and forget it’ widget that, once installed, lives on the site and will continue to help eCommerce brands grow at an exponential rate.

Shop with Friends benefits include:

• Increase Conversion Rates: Shoppers who send a poll have a 12.5x higher conversion rate due to buyer confidence in their purchase.
• Improve New Customer Conversion: The poll recipients see that their friend trusts the brand, initiating a conversion rate 3-4 times higher for new visitors than on other channels.
• Reduce Cart Abandonment: Poll senders are 19% less likely to abandon their cart than other shoppers.
• Boost AOV (average order value): Poll senders spend about 45% more on average than other customers.
• Grow Word-of-mouth Expansion: Each poll drives about 2 new visitors to eCommerce sites.

Shop with Friends: How it Works

Especially popular with 18 to 30-year-olds, users create polls from your Shopify website’s inventory styled to your brand. Shop with Friends founder Kevin Hanna explains that the polls have been very popular for jewellery, shoes, sunglasses, handbags, and apparel, but they could apply to anything. 

The user experience for creating polls is like an online version of real-time shopping for a party dress with your bestie at a brick-and-mortar store, then taking a photo and sending it to your mum and sister while asking all three opinions. Except, Kevin discovered some astounding data from Shop With Friends, which was that in the eCommerce landscape, the users being asked to vote on the items would often purchase from the Shopify store as well.

“The Shop with Friends app appears over the Shopify website in the background, so the poll creators and voters think the poll is simply a cool feature on the site itself,” says Kevin. But, as he explains, apart from increased engagement and purchasing, once poll recipients “vote on the app, they’re left on the Shopify site. So voters who may never have visited the site before will now decide to buy something from the site” as the inventory has been given the ‘thumbs up’ by their friends. 

Some brand examples showed a 36% increase in sales from the person who posted the poll, with another 33% of their friends buying from the same site. 

Polls Prove the Potential for Social Validation

Polls are yet another initiative sparked by the drastic shift towards online spending that grew out of the pandemic. The polls users create can muscle up your brand with their virality, as they’re social and designed to be shared with friends.

As the 2020 lockdowns pushed people indoors and out of traditional shopping trips with friends and family, shoppers were still relying on opinions from the people closest to them to decide which item to buy: for an upcoming event, a social occasion, or simply to add a new piece to their wardrobe, often via group chats and sharing wish lists on shopping sites. 

Kevin has a long-established career foundation in digital marketing, focusing on customer acquisition. He started the Shop with Friends company with his co-founders as an app to take advantage of this trend of sending polls to friends, focusing on a few verticals, including travel and eCommerce. However, they noticed that eCommerce polls were obtaining the majority of engagement, at about 30-40%, and were “about what to buy, from Amazon, Shopify sites, Etsy, etc”, says Kevin.

Two years ago, the team white-labelled their app to focus on eCommerce but found the development integration quite complex. About 8 months ago, they produced the app specifically for Shopify sites, which was the “game-changer”, according to Kevin. “We went from 20 customers to 200, and instead of taking an hour to add polls on a site, we got it down to 2-3 minutes.”

Performance-based Fee Structure Delivers Less Risk

The business operates on a 100% performance-based model that is free to use for the first month. Best of all, the initial 30-day free trial is extended unless the Shop with Friends App is driving at least USD$500 a month from the app, and you can cancel at any time. 

So, if your business hasn’t generated revenue from the Shop with Friends widget, you don’t pay anything, “as opposed to user-based or subscription-style apps”, says Kevin.

Kevin explains that Shop with Friends operates across 6 pricing tiers, starting from Free and increasing in incremental amounts that a business is charged each month after the 30-day assessment. “Most of our clients make 15x to 20x ROI based on our tier structure,” he says.

“There is greater flexibility in a performance-based fee structure as it’s calculated every 30 days, based on your revenue for that month. So you’re paying for the next 30 days in advance”, which future-proofs your business, “in case you experience a slow month of sales, you won’t continue to pay the higher tiers”, says Kevin.

While polls are geared towards increasing traffic and driving sales, you can have peace of mind knowing that your business can recover without suffering losses based on peak performance, which in turn has created improved client loyalty.

The Social Polls Are Just Like Shopping With Friends 

The trusted word-of-mouth referral method makes up 82% of Americans’ purchasing decisions, while 77% value their inner circle’s opinion when buying something they’ve never bought before. 

Shop with Friends has grown brand awareness and profitability for many stores, especially in America, where it was originally developed. These include 12th Tribe fashion label, Ever-Pretty US and UK wedding and formal gowns, Little Trouble children’s clothing, Erimish stacking jewellery, and Fresh Sends gift boxes.

“We are obsessed with the user experience,” says Kevin, “So we make it really fun for the shoppers themselves.”

Brands can align with new ways of shopping that bring virality to their brand via cost-effective engagement with an exponential reach, boosting sales and rapidly growing brand awareness.

At LION, we only collaborate with businesses that help you amplify your offer and increase your ROI. Install Shop with Friends from the Shopify App Store and contact us about further increasing your reach online. 

Talk to the team at LION and go from ordinary to extraordinary today!

Article by

JENNIFER MCCARTHY –
DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER

As a seasoned eCommerce marketing agency, LION Digital strives to stay on top of industry news and follow best practices. Yet decades of team expertise in digital marketing and thousands of hours of fieldwork in SEO dictate that it’s unwise to count solely on certain universal approaches in attempts to cut corners. The recent info explosion in the form of the most massive Google Leak and subsequent disputes that it provoked in May 2024 has demonstrated how important it has been to maintain healthy scepticism, curiosity, and testing to determine the subsequent unique insights from that testing. 

A lot has been written and stated within the global SEO community regarding Google’s search documentation leak. Some went as far as to call this occasion “the greatest leak of the century.” Considering the magnitude of the leak and the professional forensics going over the information, even more will be explored and shared. At LION, our stance is: 

SEO has always been and will always be about common sense centralised around creating a quality internet environment with the best user experience. In this article, we want to highlight and support this concept.  

Now, let’s start from the beginning. 

Did Google representatives lie?

Direct communication between Google representatives and the SEO community started in 2005. The first initiatives were launched to create a place for webmasters to learn more about crawling and indexing websites and find helpful tools in one single place. Enthusiasts needed direct communication with Google to understand the best practices, and Google needed SEOs’ requests and recommendations to create a friendly environment for further efficient collaboration. Simultaneously, the market filled up niches, where Google’s reaction was not agile enough or unsatisfactory from the search engine professionals’ points of view. 

We are far from advocating in favour of Google. Still, neither the initial nor subsequent Google direct communication initiatives’ objective was to disclose fully or even partially Google’s proprietary information, which consists of the search engine’s core. Instead, they wanted to gently nudge the community in the right direction and facilitate proper thinking. Following numerous Google’s “Webmaster Hangouts”, “Office Hours”, other videos and podcasts, we presume they wanted to clarify some insights from the observations by answering questions like “Why did this happen?” but not to indicate how to manipulate the search engines flourishing at the dawn of SEO. If we look at the recent event from that angle, the significant part of the “lies” accusations in the leak-revealing statements appears in a different light. 

For instance, consider one of the most frequently applied accusations that Google denied numerous times the usage of click logs of user behaviour in the ranking. Let’s leave the PR disputes behind the brackets and presume that Google representatives assuringly confirmed that Google algorithms use clicks for ranking. What else would have prevented the appearance of the abundance of grey-hat services that imitate clicks in SERP?  

Another considerable discussion was around a sitewide authority score similar to Moz’s domain authority or Ahref’s domain rank. One could claim that Google spokespeople played semantics, denying the existence of such ranking factor as the SiteAuthority score appearing in the leak. However, a relatively rational view allows us to conclude that these indicators have very little in common despite similar names. Google’s site authority score seems to be a much more complex concept that doesn’t rely solely on backlinks as DA and DR. Yet again, let’s imagine if Google reps had confirmed Google’s domain authority could be proven as a ranking factor in the way that the general public understood, the surge of the link purchases would be phenomenal. 

These are just two examples to give you the general idea.      

Why is the leak not fully reliable?

The API documentation described two thousand five hundred ninety-six modules with 14,014 attributes (features). There are a raft of reasons to question the reliability of the findings derived from the leak observations, and in honour of the authors, they have also been named:

• The context is limited because the modules and attributes are merely described, but there is no source code about their application, what exactly triggers them, and why.
• What is the purpose of the data? It could be equally used to generate the actual search results as well as for internal data management, search on the web or other verticals, or to train a model to predict outcomes. Originating from Google doesn’t necessarily mean originating from Google Search.
• There is no information regarding the stages in which the modules are activated and the features are used.
• There are many references to deprecated features or others with specific notes indicating not to use them further. Google’s search engine continuously evolves, and until the market is granted another leak, no one can be sure what was actively used in the Google ranking systems at that time and what was not.
• Although the signals and their nuances are somewhat evident, scoring functions are not available, and therefore, outtakes regarding the weight of the features are unknown. 
• The documentation leak contains links to Google’s corporate network assets requesting personal credentials to access additional details about the system’s nuances. Hence, the picture is far from complete. 
• There is a clear risk of falling victim to confirmation bias — searching for, interpreting, and favouring the data through the lens of pre-existing theories in a way that confirms or supports these theories rather than objectively assessing them.

Best Practices for SEO

From Google Search Central: “Google’s automated ranking systems are designed to present helpful, reliable information that’s primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings, in the top Search results.”

Good content is, by definition, already aligned with all of Google’s requirements. Yet the outlook becomes more challenging for black- and grey-hat SEO-technique followers. They should imitate the quality: consider and manipulate the ranking factors. Even based on the scale of the modules and features that the leak revealed, it is barely possible.  

Understanding the algorithm and how it might impact search efforts is important, though not by paying the price of competing with industry players who prefer an unfair game. It is possible to not focus on the algorithm itself and instead develop sites, content, and experiences that it will reward.

Considering all that has been said and with all respect to efforts to retrieve useful data from the Google leak and interpret it, search engine optimisation was and remains about common sense, and the latest findings don’t contradict it: 

1. Understanding the target audience, identifying their pain points, aligning the content with the obvious challenges, making it technically accessible, and promoting it to audiences that resonate are key to long-term success.
2. Content that has the potential to rank continuously should be of quality — relevant, unique, and valued. It is an apparent negative signal if pages are indexed and appear in high positions in the SERP with many impressions but don’t attract user clicks. 
3. Good content is tailored, deep and original and anticipates the user’s demand.
4. The authors should have expertise and credibility to guarantee quality content.
5. Fulfil the various types of information-consuming and their representation options in SERP formats.
6. Maintain quality, order and consistency in all website elements, including content design, images, fonts, metadata, markup, alt-texts, etc. 
7. Reinforce SEO with UX. SEO is focused on attracting people to the page, while UX is about guiding them to take action on the page. It’s important to carefully consider how components are organised and presented to help users find the content they’re searching for and to encourage them to remain on the site. 
8. Google has evolved in its ability to understand the real-time world stage and evaluate credibility and authority. Ensuring understanding, credibility, and deliverability establishes a clear identity for all related entities.
9. Link building and digital PR strategy should be centred around relevancy, which guarantees interest, and around high-quality publications.
10. Don’t try to manipulate ranking through questionable techniques. As experience demonstrates, all these actions will be penalised — it is just a matter of time.  

Google spokespeople strive to support and provide value to the community within their allowed constraints. Nevertheless, the SEO Community should take Google communications as input and continue to experiment to see what works best for specific cases. 

The ranking systems are variable. To stay ahead of the competition, not only the website but also the SERP should be tested. When all critical aspects have been assessed, the best practice is to have a personalised experimentation plan for SEO, implement it, learn from it, try to replicate the success and test it once again. Therefore, the cycle remains infinite. 

The momentum of eCommerce is evident all over the world, reaching households in both developed and developing nations and providing a bountiful playground for scam organisations. Recent fraud statistics from the Australian Payment Network revealed that Australians spent $1.055 trillion online in 2023, marking a 15.4% increase compared to the previous year. 

This growth was largely attributed to contactless card payments becoming mainstream, as consumers favour contactless cards for low-value day-to-day transactions. Backing from banks and financial institutions has made contactless payments widely accepted among most retailers in Australia. However, with the surge in card transactions and continued growth in online spending, eCommerce has become a lucrative target for fraudsters. The report also noted a 35.6% increase in card fraud, totaling $675.5 million for the year.

With $73.5 billion of eCommerce revenue lost to payment fraud globally and the cost of chargebacks (or friendly fraud) set to rise to $179 billion this year, businesses must be vigilant. Data breaches caused a 79% increase in account takeovers, while friendly fraud makes up 45% of all scam payments, with some merchants claiming it’s more like 80%. 

The rise in younger customers shopping online using so many methods of payment, including various devices and social media, makes them easier prey to scammers. Cybercriminals are targeting younger shoppers by creating fake accounts and using other nefarious methods as a lucrative pool to steal funds.

While the influx of online shoppers is a boon for eCommerce enterprises, it has heightened the need for quality fraud prevention. Protecting clients from scams is now a top priority for eCommerce business owners. Fake transactions and hacked shopping carts not only impact profitability but also damage brand equity, including reputation and overall customer experience.

For your valued customers, too frequently, online shopping carts provide prolific opportunities for hackers to infiltrate eCommerce websites. Skimming software is used to intercept transaction data at checkouts and payment gateways. So, it’s vital to protect the people who shop with you to foster increased customer loyalty.

In our recent article supported by our partner Kount, an Equifax company and global leader in eCommerce fraud solutions, the LION Digital team delves into the definition of eCommerce fraud. We outline its most common types, review primary prevention principles, and identify tools for detecting and preventing attacks.

DEFINITION AND TYPES OF ECOMMERCE FRAUD

The term “eCommerce fraud” refers to any intentional deception by cybercriminals or fraudsters during an online transaction aimed at financial or personal gain, which negatively impacts businesses. 

There are several types of eCommerce fraud, each with its distinct characteristics and conditions:

1. Credit Card Fraud: Scammers use stolen card information to purchase products or services. The merchant bears the loss since refunds to the cardholder occur after the product has shipped or services have been used.
2. Card Testing Fraud: Criminals test stolen card information on websites by making small test purchases, using bots and scripts to try different data combinations, and making larger purchases when the tests are successful.
3. Friendly Fraud or Chargeback Fraud: Con artists make a legitimate purchase and then request a chargeback from their bank or credit card company, claiming their account was hacked or their credit card details were stolen. Thus, they obtain a refund while keeping the purchased item.
4. Identity Theft: Hackers use data breaches to steal personal data, adopt victim identities, issue credit cards in their names, and make online payments.
5. Account Takeover: Cybercriminals use stolen login details to access eCommerce platforms. These details are often acquired through phishing, where fake emails or messages imitating legitimate companies trick users into entering personal and login information.
6. Interception Fraud: Fake customers place orders with shipping and billing addresses that match the authorised card, then attempt to intercept and change the delivery address.
7. Triangulation Fraud: Scammers create false online stores offering high-quality goods at low prices, attracting victims who unknowingly provide personal information and card details, believing they are making a legitimate purchase.
8. Refund Fraud: Criminals attempt to receive a refund for their purchase by claiming the order never arrived, the box arrived empty, or items arrived with defects, often by sending junk items back or using stolen card details.
9. BOPIS Fraud: Fraudsters exploit buy-online, pick-up in-store (BOPIS) services, making it difficult for retailers to detect fraud since the shipping address is typically not matched with the cardholder’s billing address.

DETECTING ECOMMERCE FRAUD

While each type of fraud has its criteria, there are common warning signs to indicate potential fraud:

1. Multiple orders by the same buyer in a short period.
2. Multiple payment attempts with similar data patterns.
3. Payment attempts from a country different from the shipping address.

PREVENTING ECOMMERCE FRAUD

Ensure PCI Compliance

Follow Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards to guarantee secure online transactions.

Enhance Security During Peak Seasons

Increase vigilance during high-traffic shopping periods to avoid overlooking suspicious activity.

Study Chargeback Data

Analyse chargeback data to understand and address underlying issues that lead to chargeback disputes.

Educate Customers

Ensure your customers are familiar with data security and phishing, and use secure payment methods to prevent fraud.

Assess Fraud Risks for New Procedures

Evaluate potential scam threats before introducing new business processes or expanding into untried markets.

Partner with Fraud Prevention Experts

Work with trusted fraud prevention partners like Kount to protect against scams and recover losses swiftly and efficiently.

Protecting your eCommerce business from scammers is crucial for maintaining profitability and ensuring a positive customer experience. By understanding the types of fraud, being vigilant for alert behaviours, and implementing preventive measures, you can safeguard your business and customers from cybercriminals.

Kount: eCommerce fraud prevention that is easy, effective, and accurate

Article by

JENNIFER MCCARTHY –
DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER

In the fast-paced digital realm, the way eCommerce customers search for and consume information is evolving more and more rapidly. Gone are the days when traditional search engines were the sole gatekeepers of online information. Today, there are so many more ways to target what you’re looking for online, which impacts the search experience and how organisations implement their campaigns. In the Second Part of our blog series on the evolution of online search, we’ll explore the shifting landscape beyond traditional search engines and how you can leverage these changes for your business.

The Rise of Social Media as a Search Engine

Social media has transformed from mere tools for social interaction into powerful search platforms in their own right. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter are now hubs for news, reviews, recommendations, and real-time information. Users no longer just connect with friends; they search for products, services, and answers to their eCommerce enquiries on these platforms. Savvy eCommerce businesses and entrepreneurs can leverage social media to showcase their offerings, gather customer feedback, and engage with their audience more meaningfully.

User-Generated Content: A Game-Changer in Online Search

User-generated content, such as reviews, ratings, and comments, has become a cornerstone of online search. Platforms like Yelp, Trustpilot, and TripAdvisor aggregate user reviews to provide valuable insights for consumers. Clever retailers and entrepreneurs can use this feedback to improve their products and services while building confidence and loyalty with potential customers. By actively managing their online reputation and encouraging customers to leave reviews, businesses can enhance their visibility and credibility in the eyes of consumers.

Vertical Search Engines: Niche Markets, Targeted Results

Vertical search engines cater to specific verticals such as products, services, jobs, and local business listings. These specialised search engines, like Amazon, Google Shopping, SEEK, and Expedia, offer highly targeted and relevant search results tailored to the user’s intent. Smart eCommerce organisations and business owners operating in niche markets can optimise their presence on these platforms to increase their visibility among their target audience and drive conversions.

Artificial Intelligence: Advances in Information Retrieval

While AI is not a straightforward alternative to Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and other search engines, there is search potential in large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Bert, and others as they can enhance user experience. Depending on what the user is searching for, AI can deliver more intuitive, conversational responses that are easier to digest when searching for large chunks of information or explanations. Google still dominates real-time search results, as AI uses stored data to deliver results. 

Search engines are designed to crawl, index, and scour web page indexes to deliver relevant, up-to-date search results from the internet based on keywords and query relevance. Whereas ChatGPT relies only on its knowledge base and training data to generate human-like, contextually relevant, and natural language responses based on input. For example, ChatGPT cannot tell when the flight departs, but it can provide summaries and explanations of aircraft and airport logistics. 

The natural next step in search evolution is integrating LLMs into search engines. In May 2024, Google announced the planned global rollout of “AI Overviews.” The goal is for billions of Google users to see an AI-generated summary at the top of their search results, which Google representatives claim is only the beginning. Thus, rather than replacing search engines, large language models employing AI and Natural Language Processing algorithms would help improve the user’s search experience.  

Points to Consider: Maintain Your Business Focus

Engagement is Essential: With social media and user-generated content, engagement is crucial. E-tailers and entrepreneurs should focus on creating compelling and shareable content that resonates with their audience.

Consistency is Key: Consistency in branding and messaging across all platforms is necessary for building a strong online presence and brand identity.

Analytics and Insights: Utilise analytics tools to track the performance of your campaigns and comprehend what resonates with your audience. This will help you refine your strategies and improve your results over time.

Keep Abreast of AI Advancements: Follow field updates and integrate AI into your business strategy in the early stages. 

To stay ahead, retailers need to be flexible enough to adapt rapidly to the latest developments in online search. By leveraging social media, user-generated content, vertical search engines, and AI tools, eCommerce brands can enhance their online visibility and audience engagement to drive business growth.

At LION Digital, we understand the challenges of the eternally evolving online search landscape. Our team of experts can help you develop and implement strategies to optimise your digital presence across all the abovementioned platforms. From content creation and social media management to search engine optimisation and AI, we have the eCommerce expertise to help you achieve your digital marketing goals.