In recent years, automation has become one of the most powerful marketing strategies for increasing online sales and customer loyalty.
To fully exploit the potential of marketing automation on PrestaShop (as on other CMS, for that matter), it's essential to rely on a reliable, efficient site. Fast loading times, fluid navigation and enhanced security are all crucial to the effectiveness of your automated campaigns.
In this article co-written with our partner Profileo - THE service specialist dedicated to the maintenance of your PrestaShop - we give you some really useful advice that you should follow to improve the security and performance of your PrestaShop e-commerce site AND ensure the implementation of an effective and profitable marketing automation strategy.
Marketing Automation in a nutshell
A multitude of channels are available to you to develop your communication strategy. As an e-merchant, you're probably aware that e-mail is the preferred channel for Internet users. In fact, 61% of them prefer to be contacted via e-mail by their favorite brands (Statista, 2023). So why not capitalize on this channel, which has the added advantage of being less expensive than SEA strategies or social networks?
To ensure the long-term profitability of your emailing strategy, it's essential to communicate effectively with your customers. You need to be able to segment your database effectively, so that you can send the right message at the right time, to the right person.
Now, you're probably thinking that segmenting your customers takes time. What's more, you're going to have to think about a precise schedule and make sure that each e-mail goes out at the right time according to your visitors' behavior...
That's where marketing automation comes in. It's defined as the automation of your marketing campaigns, and therefore of e-mails to your customers! It should AB-SO-LU-MENT not be confused with mass e-mailing, which is a single e-mail sent to all your contacts.
In marketing automation, actions are targeted and triggered according to a specific event, such as a shopping cart abandonment, or a specific behavior, such as a visit without purchase, carried out by each of your visitors.
This means that one visitor = 1 100% personalized e-mail. Don't forget: personalization is the cornerstone of a long-term relationship based on trust. In effect, you're showing how each of your visitors is an individual with his or her own behavior and actions. We think you see the undeniable advantage of this!
Strengthen the security of your PrestaShop e-commerce site
As we've seen, marketing automation is all about automating a wide variety of actions. To do this, you need access to rather sensitive information: e-mail addresses, purchasing preferences and sometimes even payment data...
You need to make your site as secure as possible to limit the risk of vulnerability to cyber-attacks and data breaches. Here are 4 key tips to ensure the security of your PrestaShop site and create a worry-free environment for your customers.
- Update your PrestaShop version (and modules)
Make sure you keep your PrestaShop site up to date with the latest trends, by regularly installing the various security updates and patches. New versions often include security enhancements, reducing the risk of potential vulnerabilities and strengthening your site's protection against threats.
And of course, do the same for the various modules running on your PrestaShop. As for those you don't use, uninstall them and delete them from the server!
- Choose a reliable marketing automation module
PrestaShop offers a variety of marketing automation extensions to help you automate your marketing tasks. However, not all modules are created equal.
Choose a tool developed by a certified PrestaShop partner and check user reviews and ratings regularly.
Our solution, created in 2018, gives you access to a truly effective and profitable marketing automation strategy in less than ten minutes.
Thanks to its native artificial intelligence, i.e. 100% designed by the Owl technical team (Kiliba's emblem), e-mail content is completely personalized and REALLY corresponds to the recipients. Thanks to the addition of artificial language intelligence, Kiliba is also able to contextualize the text of your e-mails to offer a real experience to each of your contacts.
If you'd like to find out more, we'll let you get in touch with one of our experts.
By the way, have you heard the news? Profileo is providing technical and evolutionary maintenance for the Kiliba module on PrestaShop! As a reminder: Profileo is your ultimate technical ally for a high-performance, secure PrestaShop site!
Development bugs, functional evolutions, system configurations, server caching, security vulnerabilities... All these technical terms give you a headache and you don't know how to deal with them?
Good news for you! Profileo supports you from A to Z in the ongoing maintenance and technical optimization of your PrestaShop, while you concentrate on your core business.
- Performance: targeted interventions to accelerate your site's display speed
- Security: comprehensive security solutions to ensure the long-term future of your business
- Efficiency: precise audits to ensure your store's compliance
- Scalability: from module configuration to bug-fixing and custom development for greater peace of mind on a daily basis.
- Securing sensitive data
Make sure that all sensitive data (e.g. payment data and personal customer information) is stored securely. Use an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate to encrypt data transmitted between the customer's browser and your server.
Remember: the processing of sensitive data is governed by the RGPD (General Data Protection Regulation). Make sure your site complies with the law (you don't want to be a criminal!).
- Adopt best practices in safety management
In addition to the security tools offered by your hosting solution (firewalls, intrusion detection systems, DDoS protection solutions, etc.), reinforce the security of your site by following these best practices:
- Protect access to your back office with a URL
- Requires strong passwords for administration accounts
- Create personalized access profiles for each stakeholder on your site
- Encourage your customers to create complex passwords using a combination of letters, numbers and special characters.
- Enable 2-factor authentication
Boost the performance of your PrestaShop e-commerce site
Optimizing the performance of your PrestaShop site plays an essential role in the success of your marketing automation strategies. For your automated interactions to be effective, your site must be able to react quickly to visitors' actions. Otherwise, you risk a poor user experience and high bounce rates. Here are 5 key tips to speed up your PrestaShop and increase your conversion rates:
- Choose a hosting provider optimized for PrestaShop
High-performance hosting is essential to ensure a smooth user experience on your site. Opt for a trusted hosting provider offering powerful servers, a fast network connection and an infrastructure optimized for PrestaShop. Make sure your hosting can handle traffic efficiently, including the peaks generated by your marketing automation campaigns.
- Uses a responsive, lightweight theme
Select a PrestaShop theme designed for performance. A lightweight theme reduces page load times and improves the user experience, whatever their connection device. Make sure your theme is compatible with your marketing automation module.
- Cache static pages
Caching static pages is an effective technique for reducing response times and lightening the server load. Use caching extensions optimized for PrestaShop, based on Varnish technology, to temporarily store static versions of your web pages. The result: your visitors access your content faster, improving your site's overall performance.
- Optimize images and videos
Images and videos can also slow down the loading of your online store pages. Optimize these files by compressing them, while preserving their quality (after all, your e-commerce site has to be gorgeous, darling). Use web formats such as JPEG or WebP for images, and host your videos on external platforms to reduce the load on your server.
- Reduce redirects and 404 errors
Unnecessary redirects and 404 errors can cause slow page loading. Check your site's links regularly to make sure they're working properly, and avoid unnecessary redirects. If you move or rename a page, use a permanent 301 redirect.
Strengthen your customer relationships with Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is a powerful tool for improving the effectiveness of your efforts and strengthening your relationship with your customers. Here are 4 recommendations to follow for an effective and profitable strategy:
- Segment your contact lists
To be effective, marketing automation relies on the relevance of your communications. Segment your contacts according to their buying behavior, preferences and previous interactions. This will enable you to send ultra-targeted, personalized messages, boosting your chances of conversion.
- Use smoothly-running automation scenarios
Create scenarios based on your users' behavior. For example, a new contact could be automatically included in a welcome scenario, containing different emails to keep them interested. Other scenarios exist, of course, so that each behavior or action generates emails that are relevant and useful to your contact.
- Personalize messages with dynamism
Automation doesn't mean impersonality. Leverage contact-specific data to personalize your messages. Include their first name, recommend products based on their past preferences and adapt the tone based on their engagement. We can help you do this, thanks to our super artificial intelligence.
- Continuously test and optimize
Marketing automation offers an opportunity for continuous improvement. Test various elements such as subject lines, sending times and message content. Analyze the results and adapt your approach accordingly. That's precisely why we're offering you a dashboard that proudly displays all your key performance indicators (KPIs), essential to the success of your email campaigns!
To effectively develop your marketing automation strategy on your PrestaShop, it's more than necessary to use a global approach combining security and performance. By keeping your site up to date, using reliable extensions, backing up your data and strengthening the security of your e-commerce site, you protect your online store from potential threats.
This assiduous monitoring guarantees an optimal user experience! It contributes significantly to improving the performance of your marketing automation campaigns. As you can imagine, your success in the competitive world of e-commerce depends, to a large extent, on your diligence in following this advice! It would be a shame not to take full advantage of the potential of marketing automation on PrestaShop.
You are on the verge of making a killing
