Shopstory software vs. agency: The marketing alternative for online stores

December 13, 2022

Digitization has long been unstoppable and many areas of life would be unthinkable without it. One example of this is the purchase of a wide variety of products and services over the Internet. Online trade, also known as eCommerce, has recently experienced strong growth as a result of the Corona pandemic. As a result, many retailers have set up a second digital pillar using online shops.

However, with the increasing number of online shops, the competition in this segment also became more intense, which is why simply owning a web shop is no guarantee of success today. Visibility on Google is highly competitive and resembles a race for ongoing optimization, which in turn requires expertise in search engine marketing and search engine optimization. This know-how is often outsourced to agencies by many SMEs (but also partly by corporations), as the majority of all available time resources are often taken up by daily business.

This results in two options for online store owners:

  • Agency: the expert knowledge is outsourced or purchased. Ads are designed and managed externally (high cost factor, but no work with online marketing itself and no control).
  • Software: the knowledge of SEO & SEA is located internally. In just a few steps, ads are effectively placed using intelligent software (low cost factor, low effort for effective marketing, full cost control).

Certainly, both models have their advantages and disadvantages. If someone absolutely does not want to deal with any aspects of their online marketing, then agencies definitely offer advantages. But if someone wants to have control and full transparency on their side, software is a cost-effective alternative that continuously optimizes campaigns 24/7 and proactively provides suggestions for improvements.

What’s behind our software

Shopstory is an intelligent online marketing software for online shops. It takes you by the hand and guides you through the SEA and SEO jungle. With recommendations specifically for your online shop and your ads, it increases your organic visibility and your sales through ongoing optimization. Based on your shop’s profitability metrics, such as margin and average basket size, Shopstory analyzes keywords that are likely to be profitable for your online shop’s marketing activities. You can either use our recommendations to guide your ad creation or let Shopstory automatically run ads for you. While the ads are running, our intelligent algorithms optimize them around the clock. Your ad budget will be spent on high performing keywords to increase your ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).

How does the Shopstory software support your online marketing?

Shopstory is designed for online shops that want to increase their sales with little effort through search engine marketing. By giving you personalized recommendations, we show you where to set the right parameters for optimal performance. This way, marketing for your online shop is not only fun, but you also acquire knowledge on an ongoing basis and do not have to pay for this know-how externally. In addition, there is a synergetic combination of your product expertise as an online retailer and the online marketing knowledge of the Shopstory software.

In summary, our software supports you in the following points:

  • Run profitable ads
    Campaigns are managed in a simple way – you can start new campaigns with the click of a button, receiving texts directly from the tool or customizing them yourself.
  • Automate campaigns
    You have the option of fully automated campaigns. This way you get new ads with just a few clicks, but always keep full control and transparency regarding their performance.
  • Visibility on the web
    Get tips and recommendations for your shop on the topic of search engine optimization and search engine marketing.
  • Transparency
    With automatically generated reports, you can use common metrics to check what worked well and make adjustments accordingly.

A comparison of Shopstory, agencies and other tools shows the following points:

Figure: Comparison between Shopstory, agency and other tools

While other tools can handle some of the mentioned functions, Shopstory covers everything mentioned in one software. Nothing is more annoying than using multiple tools to solve a problem. With Shopstory, everything comes from a single source: this makes it easier to use and gives online shop owners centralized control with full cost control and transparency.

If you are still unsure, our whitepaper “Do-It-Yourself, Agency or Software?” might be something for you. If you want to learn more about the Shopstory software, just follow the button: