Announcing your free shipping offer, discounts, new items and seasonal offers with a Shopify announcement bar could boost your sales significantly.
Especially for free shipping or low shipping rates, this could be a game changer for your Shopify store.
And you know why? Because as per the statistics, the highest abandonment rates have been recorded during check out due to unexpected shipping costs. By informing your potential clients on your shipping rates or free shipping offer with an announcement bar has been proven as a superb sales tactic.
The announcement bar is basically a floating banner that sits at the top of your website and is the first thing your potential clients will see once they visit your Shopify store.
In this post I will show you how to use one of the most effective conversion rate optimization tools to easily implement a Shopify announcement bar on your ecommerce website to boost sales.
Just 5 steps and 12 clicks
Using OptinMonster and its announcement bar feature you can setup an announcement floating bar for your Shopify store in just 5 steps.
Watch the video below on how you can have a Shopify announcement bar in around 3 mins using OptinMonster.
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The 5-step process requires 12 clicks:
- Click the create a campaign button
- Choose the floating bar type of campaign
- Choose a template among the variety of announcement bar templates
- Name your campaign
- Choose Shopify store
- Click on Start building
- Edit text and add your announcement bar message
- Disable the email button
- Create a SHOW NOW button
- Add the URL of your offer
- Set the display rules to determine where the bar will appear
- Click PUBLISH
Do note that depending on the customization of the display rules your campaign might require more clicks to be setup.
More Shopify announcement bar hacks to boost conversions
*the best hack is the last one !!
Further to setting up a free shipping announcement bar there are some other simple ways you can use a floating bar to increase the visibility of your marketing campaigns.
Content Upgrades
“Content upgrades” act as lead magnets and when used effectively they can boost conversions by 845% according to Syed Balkhi, one of the founders of OptinMonster who tried and tested content upgrades tactics himself.
Content upgrades is when you offer to your audience additional reading material (in any format) if they fill out an email form.
I’ve tried and used such tactics in the past by adding a “content upgrade” announcement bar at the end of a page.
Why at the end of the page? You see, if the reader has taken the time to read your post and went to the end of it, that means you have successfully managed to engage this reader with your post. The chances of converting this reader by “signing up for more” are much higher than placing the announcement bar at the top of the page.
At this point I’d like to mention that with OptinMonster you have the option to place the announcement bar at the bottom of your website too.
Here are some ideas for your Shopify store:
- If you have an apparel online store and your post was about the latest fashion trends use the announcement bar to offer “more posts like this” through your weekly e-newsletter. (Remember the higher conversion marketing tactic is email marketing) Check my recommended email marketing tools list
- If you are selling the latest gadgets you could have them sign up for your monthly e-newsletter that includes all the latest tech staff.
- If you are into nutrition and health you could prepare a PDF or infographic with health tips.
There are many ideas that could help you convert your readers to email subscribers and eventually clients.
Click here for 30 content upgrade ideas to grow your email list
Countdown Timer
Talk with sales experts and they will tell you that creating urgency for your offers is the best sales tactic in increasing your sales conversion rates.
It works the same way online.
Don’t just add an offer on your website. Create an offer with an expiry date and create an announcement bar promoting at the top of your page.
With OptinMonster you can use a countdown timer to promote your exclusive limited-time deals.
You have 2 different types of timers to use with OptinMonster, the Static and the Dynamic.
The Static Timer shows the same countdown to everyone visiting your Shopify store. You set the deadline and is universal to every website visitor.
Foe example you start a 7-days special offer today it will expire in a week even for the user that will visit your site after 6 days. The user will have only 1 day to take your offer.
The Dynamic Timer on the other hand, could be customized for every visitor to start running the moment they visit your website. In this case running the 7-days offer will be different. The user will have 7 days from the day he/she has visited your website.
Promote your Social Media accounts
If you utilize social media properly you should know by now that they can help in building a very loyal fan base.
Using social media to add value and promote your latest offers is a very effective way to build your brand but also have a high client retention rate.
Using therefore a floating bar to promote your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter page is a great idea to increase your “followership” but most importantly to keep your website visitors engaged with your brand and not lose them after they leave your Shopify store.
Give them a strong reason though why they should follow you. Use ideas such as the following:
- Follow us on Instagram for daily fashion inspiration
- Like us on Facebook and never miss an offer
- Monthly Giveaways for all our Facebook fans. Like our page
Personalized promos
Do you know which e-commerce feature changed the game for Amazon? “Personalization”.
Promoting to your target audience and potential clients relevant offers based on either their location, likes, wish lists, previous purchases and generally based on their profile is what distinguishes a professional e-commerce website and Shopify store from the rest.
While before such technology required huge investments and hundreds, if not thousands of hours of programming, today is part of the best conversion rate optimization tools.
OptinMonster’s smart tag feature enables you to increase the conversion rates of your Shopify store by promoting through an announcement bar promos that address the needs and behavior of your website visitors.
click here for all the details on smart tags and on Personalization with OptinMonster
This super powerful feature allows you to place dynamic content in your onsite marketing campaigns with the click of a mouse.
OptinMonster includes a drag-and-drop builder which you can use to create personalized content delivery. For example date or day of the week; city, state, zip code or country; and any information the visitor submits including their name, email, or phone number.
Like the example in the image above you can use OptinMonster’s smart tag to display exclusive and relevant deals that are personally targeted just to them.
OptinMonster pricing start from $9 per month (paid annually) for unlimited campaigns. Once you sign up you get access to the OptinMonster University which includes a bundle of courses (worth almost $2000) on conversion optimization, growth hacking, lead generation, customer acquisition and more!
