7 marketing strategies to boost your online store

An online store with no marketing is like a physical shop in the middle of the desert: nobody will find it. Even before thinking about paid ads, there are free or low-cost strategies that can generate steady traffic to your store. Here are 7 concrete, tested strategies for the Algerian market.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means optimizing your store so it ranks near the top of Google results for searches like "buy clothes online Algeria" or "buy a phone online Algeria." Done well, SEO can generate free traffic for years — unlike ads, which stop the moment you stop paying.

Focus on: clean URLs, unique titles for each page, original product descriptions (never copy-pasted from the supplier), JSON-LD structured data (shopsdz does this automatically), and a blog that answers your potential customers' questions.

With over 16 million active users in Algeria, Instagram is the number-one social network for e-commerce. Post Stories daily (behind the scenes, new products, promotions), Reels (demos, unboxings), and use your bio to link to your store. Reply to every comment and DM within 30 minutes to boost engagement.

Bonus: create a professional Instagram account to access statistics (peak audience days, follower demographics, per-post performance). This data should guide your content calendar.

Identify 5 to 10 Algerian micro-influencers (5,000 to 50,000 followers) in your niche (fashion, beauty, tech, food) and offer them an exchange: a free product for a post. Micro-influencers have an engagement rate 3 to 5 times higher than macro-influencers, often at zero cost.

Prefer several micro-influencers over a single big account: you diversify your reach and lower your cost per conversion. Track each partnership with a dedicated promo code (e.g. "INFLU10") to measure exactly the ROI of each influencer.

WhatsApp is used by 90% of connected Algerians. Activate WhatsApp Business to create a product catalog synced with your store, set up automatic welcome messages, and use labels to organize conversations (new customer, order in progress, delivery).

Broadcast your promotions through WhatsApp broadcast lists (max 256 contacts per list, but you can create several). The open rate of a WhatsApp message is 95%, versus 20% for an email. It's by far the most effective channel for retaining your Algerian customers.

Email marketing has an average ROI of €36 for every €1 spent — the most profitable channel in B2C. Collect emails through a newsletter sign-up form (with a discount coupon in exchange) and send one campaign a week: new products, tips, exclusive promotions.

Avoid overly sales-y emails: aim for 80% useful content (tips, guides, news) and 20% promotion. Use a tool like Brevo (free up to 300 emails/day) or Mailchimp. shopsdz automatically syncs your customers with your email marketing tool via the available webhooks.

Paid advertising on Meta (Facebook + Instagram) remains affordable in Algeria. Target your audience by age, wilaya, interests, and purchase behavior. Start with a small daily budget to test several visuals and audiences, then scale up the campaigns that convert.

Use retargeting for visitors who abandoned their cart: a targeted ad with a discount coupon can recover 10 to 15% of abandoned carts. It's one of the most profitable campaign types in e-commerce.

Running a blog on your store attracts free SEO traffic. Write articles that answer questions your customers are asking: "how to choose running shoes," "what are the best budget smartphones in 2025," etc. Each well-ranked article can bring in several hundred visitors a month — for free.

Publish at least one article a week, optimize them for specific keywords (use Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest), and link each article to your products. The blog is also a great source for your social media: every article can become an Instagram post, a Story, a TikTok video.