A growing number of consumers are shopping online. In 2022, online spending reached €147 billion. For businesses, it’s important to have a strong online presence and to lead users to their website.
That’s where a drive-to-web strategy comes into play. Here’s what you need to know.
What is drive-to-web?
Drive-to-web is a marketing strategy that’s the inverse of drive-to-store. Drive-to-store aims to attract consumers to a physical shop using digital channels. By contrast, drive-to-web uses marketing efforts to encourage consumers to visit a company’s website in order to:
- Make a purchase or sign up
- Get more information about a product or service
This usually happens after an initial contact — for example, after seeing an ad online, on social networks, in a magazine, or on TV. Drive-to-web is often used to generate traffic to a website, boost brand awareness, and ultimately increase online sales.
Variations of drive-to-web
Different forms of drive-to-web include:
- Drive-to-app: encourage consumers to download or launch a mobile app
- Drive-to-call: generate as many calls as possible to a highlighted phone number
- Drive-to-social: grow an online community
Good to know: what are the channels that drive traffic to a website?
Traffic sources can be grouped into three categories:
Organic traffic
- Direct search in the address bar
- Search engines (SEO, SEA)
Paid marketing channels
- Social media ads
- Display or retargeting campaigns
- Affiliate platforms
- Blogs
- External newsletters
PRM/CRM traffic
- Email campaigns
- SMS campaigns
Why implement a drive-to-web strategy?
Drive-to-web is valuable because it offers:
- Fast implementation
- A powerful way to engage prospects and customers
- A cost-effective solution — for example, SMS messages cost just a few cents each or less than €100 for 1,000 messages
Techniques to drive consumers to your website
Email campaigns
Emailing is an effective communication channel to inform customers about promotions, new products or services, or to send regular newsletters. To encourage online purchases, you can send promotional emails with links to your website.
To maximize performance, structure your email strategy around strong fundamentals.
Prospect Relationship Management (PRM)
The goal is to convert prospects into real customers. In the prospecting phase, your emails should provide useful information without being too forceful — helping establish a trusting relationship.
Performance email solutions from Dataventure
Distribute your campaigns across exclusive opt-in databases from the Cardata Group and Dataventure’s partner ecosystem. Dataventure’s experts handle tracking and lead delivery according to your needs.
To fully control your acquisition model, a range of economic models is available: CPC, CPL, CPM, CPV, CPCL, and hybrid formats. Because design matters, Dataventure also provides an in-house creative studio to design, integrate, and host the visuals for your email campaigns.
Opt-in optimization
A well-planned email campaign can benefit your brand in several ways: driving traffic to your site and increasing newsletter sign-ups so you can nurture prospects until they become customers.
Best practices include:
- Structuring your emails clearly
- Crafting strong sender names, subject lines, and preview text
- Not neglecting the footer
- Adding clear calls-to-action (CTAs)
- Using A/B testing to improve performance
- Finding the right sending frequency to build anticipation
SMS marketing
SMS is also a fast and effective way to communicate with customers and encourage them to act — such as visiting your website. You can send push notifications about current or upcoming promotions on your online shop. In SMS messages, include links to your website to make it easy for users to navigate.
Dataventure offers a drive-to-web SMS marketing solution designed to generate traffic to your website. Targeting is done at a national level using socio-demographic and behavioral segmentation.
Examples of use cases for enriched SMS acquisition include:
- E-commerce stores
- Online services
- Recruitment campaigns
- Charitable initiatives
RCS (Rich Communication Services)
RCS is a modern messaging technology that allows brands to send rich, interactive, and personalized messages to their customers. Unlike traditional SMS, RCS messages can include:
- Images
- Action buttons
- Videos
- Maps
This technology can be used to drive consumers to your website — simply include a clickable link. RCS also improves prospect and customer awareness and engagement.
Social media
As part of a drive-to-web strategy, you can use social networks to promote your products with the goal of redirecting users to your website for purchase.
Build strong relationships with your followers
This encourages them to want to learn more about your brand, products, or services. When followers feel connected and trust your brand, they’re more likely to trust your products and make online purchases.
Choose your calls-to-action (CTAs) carefully
CTAs encourage users to take specific actions. For example: request a quote or order a product. CTAs should be clearly visible and attractive to encourage clicks.
Pick CTAs that match your drive-to-web goals and audience expectations:
- For selling products: “Add to cart,” “Buy now”
- For collecting information: “Download our guide,” “Sign up to our newsletter”
Include plenty of links to your website in social posts
Your followers will want to visit your site to find needed information. Links must be relevant and add value. When your social content is interesting and useful, users are more likely to click and visit your website. Providing additional information on your site helps convert visitors into potential customers.
Create engaging, original, and shareable content
Your posts should position you as an expert in your industry. Vary the type of content you post, and use user-generated content (UGC) to amplify reach.
Online advertising
Here, the goal is to run targeted online ads that attract consumers to your website. It’s an effective way to generate visits quickly and reach a large audience.
Google Ads
Google Ads allows you to create online ads that send users to your website to:
- Increase online sales
- Boost reservations
- Maximize registrations
With Google Ads, you control your budget.
Another powerful lever is display advertising. This format includes various types of online ads displayed on third-party sites or platforms. In 2022, 22,585 advertisers used display — placing it ahead of paid search, paid social, and digital audio.
Loyalty programs
You encourage consumers to visit your website by offering rewards. Mobile wallets are useful here — push notifications can inform customers about promotions on your online store.
Exclusive online offers
Another way to bring traffic to your site is to offer special deals for online purchases, such as:
- Promo codes
- Discount vouchers
- Free gifts
- Price reductions
- Coupons
Paid search (SEA)
Run paid ads on search engines to attract as many consumers as possible to your website or online store.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Use search engine optimization techniques to improve your ranking in search results. Increasing visibility encourages more visitors to your site.
The role of TV in digital acquisition
About 1 in 5 visits is paid, independent of any advertising messages. To measure the impact of television on digital performance, marketers use metrics such as:
- Number of visits
- Number of downloads
- Combined revenue
- Revenue per spot
- Average basket value
- Number of orders or buyers
TV remains a powerful acquisition channel. At equal cost, it can offer greater reach than digital alone. What used to be separate channels are now more interconnected than ever.
Conclusion
Drive-to-web is a crucial strategy for businesses that want to attract consumers to their website. Offline and online tactics work together to encourage online purchases and increase engagement with your brand.
To get support building your drive-to-web strategy, contact a Dataventure expert.
