In no time we’ll be in Q4, with BFCM and Christmas right around the corner. It’s common knowledge that Q4 in the world of e-commerce is an extremely high volume, competitive time of year where many companies drive a significant portion of their annual revenue.
However, an often overlooked period of time for e-commerce businesses is Q3. Successful e-commerce businesses know the importance of planning the road ahead, and leveraging periods of the year with lower acquisition costs.
Being aggressive in Q3 with customer acquisition can make our Q4 performance significantly better.
We’re going to touch on 3 main reasons why that’s the case, and how it’s not too late to be aggressive in the lead-up to Q4.
Higher Acquisition Costs
We all know it, Q4 is competitive. Acquisition costs are high, and discounts are plentiful. While the volume of sales in Q4 and higher convertibility can outweigh the increase in acquisition costs for many brands, taking advantage of lower costs in Q3 to acquire a surplus of customers can be beneficial in many cases.
This is brand-to-brand dependent, as it’s subjective to historical data. Make sure you go back and look at the efficiency of your paid acquisition during this time last year to truly determine if this period of time is the best to over-allocate ad spend.
Maximizing the 90-Day LTV Window
The second and biggest reason why being aggressive in Q3 can significantly help you in Q4 comes down to LTV.
After someone buys from you are they more likely to buy from you again in the 90 days following their first order, or day 91 and beyond? The answer for most brands is within that 90 day period. The faster you can get them to re-convert, the more they’re going to remember your brand and be an engaged customer as well.
If you look back at your 30,60, and 90 day LTV for customers acquired in September and October of last year heading into the depths of Q4 you’ll likely see that this period of time provided some of the highest 30, 60, and 90-day LTV metrics throughout the entire year.
The Competitive Q4 Email Inbox
The email inbox is one of the most crowded and competitive spaces during Q4. Your customers/subscribers will be getting a large influx of emails from every brand that they subscribe to making it more difficult to break through the noise than in other periods of the year.
One of the reasons why being aggressive in Q3 is beneficial relates to this point.
If you are overly aggressive in Q3 from a customer acquisition perspective it gives you the ability to not only build trust and engagement with your newly acquired customers/subscribers but also warm them up for what’s to come as you head into Q4 to foster interest.
By doing so, when BFCM rolls around and the inbox is incredibly crowded you’ve got the advantage of already engaging these customers/subscribers beforehand, therefore, increasing the likelihood that your email stands out in their inbox.
Additionally, this relates to the last point about 30, 60, and 90-day LTV metrics. For those customers that you’ve acquired leading up to Q4/BFCM, the chances of them remembering your brand and having your email stick out in the inbox in comparison to brands they’ve recently subscribed to is heightened. As a product of this, their chances of converting are also heightened. This is why when you look back and analyze those LTV metrics mentioned above, you often will see that they’re the highest throughout the year.
Not every brand is the same, but more often than not being aggressive in Q3 can significantly improve your performance throughout Q4 and into the New Year.
Interested to learn more? book a call with us!
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