How your online advertising and eCommerce site are driving sales

At StrategyBox, we help ecommerce, SaaS, and tourism companies understand how their marketing activities drive sales—and what to do next to boost revenue and efficiency. We've worked with dozens of customers to generate millions in additional sales, backed by thousands of hours of testing and analysis.

To uncover actionable insights, we examined and scored 8,800 ecommerce sites on user experience and conversion rates. The result: three straightforward, high-impact recommendations that work across industries. What surprised us most? Common fixes—taking just a couple of hours to implement—can drive substantial sales growth.

Include shipping costs on your site to reduce cart abandonment

The biggest reason customers abandon their carts

Unexpected shipping costs and taxes are the leading cause of cart abandonment. When the final price exceeds a customer's expectations, they leave. You can solve this in two ways: display estimated shipping costs upfront and show prices in the customer's local currency.

Add estimated shipping costs

Most ecommerce platforms limit dynamic shipping displays on product pages. Shopify doesn't calculate shipping until checkout; Magento and WooCommerce require plugins. The simplest solution: add a line below your price that reads: "Estimated shipping in Canada is $X and in the US is $Y."

When customers know the total cost before committing to their cart, they set expectations. They're far less likely to abandon the purchase once they see the actual product cost.

Display prices in your customer's currency

Show product prices in your customer's local currency to eliminate surprises. For Shopify stores, the Auto Currency Switcher app (nominal cost: $9.95/month) handles this automatically. Alternatively, you can modify your Shopify theme code to display multiple currencies, though this approach is more time-consuming.

Recover lost sales with cart abandonment emails and remarketing

Recapture nearly two-thirds of your abandoned carts

Sixty-seven out of every 100 customers who add items to their cart will close the window without completing the purchase. The good news: two strategic actions can bring those sales back. If you make only one change to your checkout process, implement a multi-email cart abandonment sequence paired with ad remarketing. We've observed this combination drive hundreds of thousands to millions in additional annual sales.

Send multiple cart abandonment emails

Shopify and WooCommerce allow one cart abandonment email by default. Increasing frequency to two or three emails using automation software like Jilt or Recapture (for Magento) can double your recovery rate.

Optimize your email timing

Thousands of email campaigns show that timing matters. Adjust this schedule to your audience, but use it as a starting point:

• First email — Within one hour of abandonment. Keep it simple: "Hey, you've got an item in your cart waiting for you!"
• Second email — 24–48 hours later. Focus on helping, not selling. Ask if they encountered technical issues, a slow checkout, or a declined payment.
• Third email — 24 hours after the second. Create urgency: "Your cart expires soon, and we can't guarantee this price and availability later."
• Fourth email — 48–72 hours after the third. Now offer discounts or free shipping. This timing prevents customers from abandoning carts solely to trigger a discount.

Track email campaign performance with data

Today's best marketers use data to measure what resonates with their audience. Data-driven email marketing goes beyond metrics—it shows how campaigns contribute to key business goals like revenue, average basket size, and average order value.

Monitor your email success with this email marketing dashboard, which combines email client data (sends, clicks, opens) with web analytics and CRM data (visitors, leads) to clearly show ROI.

Amplify recovery with remarketing ads

Have you ever browsed a product on Amazon, left the site, and then seen ads for that product across the web? That's remarketing. Research shows 70% of website visitors exposed to remarketing campaigns convert to buyers.

Remarketing campaigns are straightforward to set up. Use AdRoll to run cart abandonment ads on Facebook and Google Display. We've observed cart abandonment remarketing campaigns return 900% ROI—well worth the few hours of setup and ad spend.

Double down on your best-performing campaigns

The 80/20 rule applies to advertising

The Pareto Law is real: 20% of your actions drive 80% of your results. Find the one to five campaigns actually bringing customers in, then reallocate budget from underperforming campaigns to your winners.

Calculate performance and reallocate spend

This process requires basic spreadsheet work—mostly division—but takes only minutes.

Download three months of campaign data. Gather results from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Ads, and any other advertising channels. Include impressions, spend, and conversions (where applicable).

Group campaigns by their goal. Most customers don't buy on their first brand encounter. Judge campaign success accordingly:

• Awareness campaigns attract attention to your brand or content (think lifestyle imagery with no explicit product).
• Consideration campaigns educate customers on what makes you different in the marketplace.
• Purchase campaigns include explicit calls to action—cart abandonment remarketing ads or sale promotions.

Calculate return on ad spend or customer acquisition cost. Use a spreadsheet to automatically rank campaigns at each stage. To track return on ad spend in real time, add a customer acquisition cost Klip to your dashboard. For overall marketing ROI, check out this return on marketing investment Klip.

Reallocate spend from lowest to highest performers. You'll now see which campaigns drive the best results. Move budget from underperformers to your top one or two campaigns at each stage.

By implementing these three strategies—transparent shipping costs, multi-email cart recovery, and data-driven campaign optimization—you'll recover lost sales and focus your budget where it matters most. Start with one change, measure the impact, and build from there.