“You want fries with that?” If you’ve ever been asked this, then you’ve experienced a cross-sell. Cross-selling is offering related or complementary products to what the customer bought. For example, offer a jacket and shoes to go with a coat, or a sleeping bag and socks to go with a tent.

There are many tactics for cross-selling products. For instance, you could offer related products on the product page like Amazon does with their ‘frequently bought together’ section. Or you could show product bundles on the checkout screen. Experiment with everything to see what works best for your store.

Growing your online store with Carro lets you reach more customers than ever before and have complete control over their shopping experience. With Carro, you can partner with thousands of brands and offer complimentary products with a simple download and click. With all those new products, you’ll need to promote them. In this article, we’ll go over how to promote and cross-sell by using email, Instagram, and paid social ads.

First, the fundamentals. Why is good marketing important? Succeeding with an online business requires sustainable growth. That means:

Carro enables you to do all 3. In just a few clicks, you can partner with thousands of brands and expand your catalog with their products. There’s no physical inventory or extra costs required. That’s pure margin! Try free for 60 days.

Email continues to be one of the most effective cross-selling tools in eCommerce. Once a customer makes a purchase, it doesn’t have to end there. A post-purchase email keeps customers informed and excited about your store.

It costs a lot less to keep an existing customer than to acquire a new one, and email marketing is one of the strongest tools for retaining customer interest. With a few clicks, you can email thousands of users with a better chance of being seen than paid advertising. There are several kinds of email, but the post-purchase email is a great place to offer complimentary products.

Strategize ways to collect as many email addresses as you can. For example, try using a pop-up window on your website to prompt users to enter their email. Offer 15% off their purchase or free shipping in exchange for their email. Once you gather an email list, keep a steady flow of communication. Announce a sale, product launch, or giveaway on Instagram.

Carro lets you instantly partner with thousands of brands and fill your online catalog with various products from trusted suppliers. Carro retailers can fill their current product categories or add new ones in just a few clicks. An expanded inventory enables you to provide unique bundling and personalized combinations, and email is a great way to let your customers know about everything you have to offer.

Email can be used for a variety of purposes. Want to increase customer loyalty? Keep them up to date with the latest product launches. Want to reach more customers? Your emails should lead to a specific call to action, such as getting people to sign up, continue reading, or adding to their cart. Effective email targets multiple personas for different initiatives. For instance, one campaign may showcase new products. Another may announce a Black Friday sale.

Here are a few other examples of email marketing tactics:

Every day, over 200 million people on Instagram visit at least one business profile. Profiles with the most views are ones that create content that resonates with their audience. To figure out which kind of content performs best, regularly post vibrant images and engaging, bite-sized videos.

Although Instagram is great for promoting products, it is still first and foremost a place to share experiences. Customer photos are a gold-mine for brands because they double as a testimonial and advertisement. Showcasing on Instagram Stories lets you skip the algorithmic line and appear front-and-center on your customers’ feeds, plus you can load your stories with multiple posts without seeming spammy.

Another way to increase engagement is to cross-promote with complementary brands. Instagram has plenty of room at the top, and partnering with brands with similar target audiences gives you both a whole new relevant audience. Carro makes this easy by providing you access to the largest curated network of brands.

Other ways to promote Carro products on Instagram include:

Effective advertising requires buying space where your audience engages. Investing in social media can quickly turn profitable if that’s where your customers spend their time. Try creating targeted lists of past buyers and remind them why they chose you.

Social media makes it easy to remarket and incentivize customers with personalized offers. If you have an idea of what past customers bought, try remarketing similar products that are now a part of your inventory, thanks to Carro.

In a few clicks, you can partner with thousands of brands and expand your online offering. This means a wider audience pool and more sales. By accessing new audiences across Carro’s network, you lower your advertising budget’s cost per acquisition. This is good news for your bottom line.

Paid social ads can also turn a missed opportunity into a future sale. If a new customer sees your ad but doesn’t want to buy right away, they can still like the post or follow your account and become a customer later. It pays to use paid ads.

Try using these paid ad strategies:

One simple way to think about promotion strategies is to divide your customers into three groups:

Email marketing helps you maintain a direct line of communication with the first group. Access the second group with high-quality content like social media videos and free educational articles. Reach the third, and largest, group by running paid ads on social platforms and search engines.

Now that you know how to promote your online store, let us help you partner with thousands of brands.