Liat Karpel Gurwicz has amassed great experience as a branding and marketing expert, having held different positions related to strategic marketing and communications, where she led B2B and B2C products to the market. She specializes in “building and positioning brand identities, packaging products for go-to-market, and implementing product growth strategy.”
As Head of eCommerce Marketing at Wix, Liat Karpel Gurwicz focuses on “strategic marketing at the product or product line level.” She has shown excellent capabilities to analyze markets and customer needs so that they “refine the business objectives, define the target market, and develop competitive differentiation.” Among her other tasks, which she does to great results, are devising strategies for product launches, which include the positioning tactics, messaging, business models, and pricing strategies. She also develops and implements product growth strategy.
Through her work experience, Liat Karpel Gurwicz has left a successful track record in terms of promoting brand awareness, product adoption, and return on investment in both online and offline spaces. She has been successful at a variety of tasks, which include “product marketing, growth marketing, performance marketing, content marketing, community, public relations, branding, events, partnerships,” among many others.
Prior to joining Wix, Liat Karpel Gurwicz has served as product marketing manager at dbMotion. She has also worked as marketing director for Conduit, and then moved up as VP of marketing of the same company. At Wix, she is also the Head of Strategic Marketing.
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Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: Hi — I’m Liat and I lead eCommerce Marketing at Wix.
I joined the company in 2014 and have led various strategic marketing efforts for Wix.com since then, including growing Wix’s creative, professional and business audiences.
Prior to joining Wix, I previously led marketing for tech companies including Como, Conduit and dbMotion.
Jerome Knyszewski: What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: I met Wix CMO Omer Shai one evening in late 2014 for an impromptu job interview over coffee.
While we were waiting for our order, Omer called his team to let them know that he had decided that Wix would be doing their first Super Bowl ad. I obviously overheard this conversation, and as a marketer immediately understood what an exciting opportunity that was for Wix and the team. Then Omer looked over at me, grinned and said “Well, are you coming or not?”
I was definitely coming! I started at Wix a few weeks later and was privileged to be part of the team that worked on our first Super Bowl campaign.
And I never looked back. Since then, I’ve led strategic marketing efforts for Wix’s creative, professional and business audiences. I’m dedicated to helping businesses grow and succeed online, and sometimes I’m still surprised that my passion for online shopping is also my job these days.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: I think that hard times are unfortunately just part of life and part of growth.
I come from a long line of strong women, and something that both my Grandmother and my Mom instilled in my sister and me is that when it comes to the really hard things in life, you can either be a victim or a survivor.
I truly believe that your ability to grow as a person is directly related to the amount of discomfort you can handle.
So, in both my personal and professional life, it’s never been about giving up for me — it’s always about how I get through and come out on the other side.
Jerome Knyszewski: So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: 2020 has required us all to dig deep and be more resilient than ever before. I’ve always found success being surrounded by smart and resourceful teams. With a heavy dose of collaboration and willingness to build trust, me and my team are unstoppable due to our ability to learn from our mistakes and find the opportunity in those crucial moments. When someone falls down, if you’ve got a great team they’ll help each other stand up and get back on track.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: A couple of weeks after I started at my first online marketing job, our department VP (so my boss’s boss) asked me to create a landing page for a new product we were launching.
I had no idea what a landing page was, but I wasn’t about to say that to him. So I said sure, did some speedy research on Google and then proceeded to awkwardly guide an entire creative team in creating that LP.
That LP had 3 different CTAs, a pretty bizarre layout with lots of dead space at the bottom, and a very distracting background pattern. I had to create another version a week later because it was so bad.
But I’ve made killer landing pages since.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a few examples of tools or software that you think can dramatically empower emerging eCommerce brands to be more effective and more successful?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: Make sure your site appears in potential shoppers’ search results when they are searching online.
- Optimize your product page titles and descriptions (meta tags). This will tell Google that these pages are part of an online store and give them the best chance of ranking in the search engine results page (SERP).
- Use SEO patterns to instantly update your page titles and descriptions across all product pages.
Help customers browse and shop by making it easy for them to quickly find and buy the products they’re looking for on your site:
- Add a ‘Wishlist’ for shoppers to keep track of their favorite products before they buy.
- Add an ‘Add to Cart’ button to your product galleries to help increase the number of products that customers add to their carts.
- If you only sell one product, let customers skip the cart and go straight to checkout from the product page with a ‘Buy Now’ button.
- Add a search bar to your site for better product discovery.
- Add sorting and filtering options on your product gallery pages.
- Add a related products gallery to your product pages to show customers what other products you have to offer and help them browse the store in a more seamless and intuitive way.
- Add a product gallery to your cart page and populate it with low cost items so shoppers can instantly add them to the cart without leaving it.
- Add cross-sell recommendations to your checkout so shoppers can instantly add them to the cart without leaving it.
Jerome Knyszewski: As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies an eCommerce business should use to increase conversion rates?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: Conversion optimization is usually made up of many small tweaks that, over time, can have a big impact on your bottom line.
Bringing shoppers to your online store requires investment of both your time and budget. Turn potential shoppers into paying customers with remarketing:
- Recover abandoned carts by setting up automated abandoned cart emails to re-engage with shoppers and encourage them to complete their purchases. Wix sites with active automations, like abandoned cart emails, get 2.7 times more visitors and up to 29% higher sales.
- Make sure your Facebook Pixel is properly connected so you can remarket to your store visitors and shoppers who don’t complete checkout.
- Customize and add a form to your site to collect subscriber information, like names and email addresses, to communicate future sales and promotions to them.
- Create an automated Welcome Email series or any other drip campaign that will encourage the shopper to make an additional purchase.
Engage shoppers and provide real-time customer support with Live Chat:
- Connect with your customers while they shop and answer questions, helping to increase sales.
- See who’s browsing on your site, reach out and offer recommendations and send coupons via chat or email in real time.
- Wix sites that offer live chat get 8 to 12 times higher sales revenues, and those that recommend products to customers via chat generate 71% more sales.
Identify your best-selling items:
- Identify your best-selling items and work on making those pages the best they can be. (Conduct A/B testing so you don’t risk making negative changes!)
- Identify products that have many page views, but low conversions. These are products that your customers view often but don’t buy. Maybe your pricing is off and an adjustment or sale could help.
Jerome Knyszewski: Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that an eCommerce business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: Building trust for your online store really matters because it will help you bring value to your customers, it will impact shoppers’ buying decisions, it will help build brand loyalty, and ultimately it will create brand advocates for your business.
We like to say that you should focus on the 3 R’s:
- Be Reliable: Provide quality goods and services. Deliver on your promises every time.
- Be Respectful: Put the customer first. Focus on bringing value. Always look for ways to improve the customer experience.
- Be Real: Speak to your customers in an authentic, human voice. Keep it conversational, in a way that feels personal and trustworthy.
You can build trust on your online store by making sure to:
- Clearly communicating seasonal offers and holiday deals on our site. Accurately describe the offer or discount and make coupon codes easily available.
- Invest in your product pages. Provide accurate and tempting product descriptions, including features, specifications and benefits, and display your products with high quality product photographs or videos.
- Be upfront about shipping fees and return policies. Don’t surprise shoppers with unexpected fees or shopping terms.
- Include reliable product reviews and testimonials. These can be great drivers in converting buyers, but make sure that they are valid and authentic.
- Create an FAQ page on your site to proactively respond to common customer queries.
- Include all relevant contact information to make it easy for customers to connect.
Jerome Knyszewski: Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful e-commerce business? Please share a story or an example for each.
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: For any business, whether they want to start selling online or up their eCom game — there are 5 key parts of eCommerce marketing and sales strategy:
- Audience & Channels — how you reach relevant shoppers and get them to your Online Store. You can’t expect the right people to just show up at your website because you have a product they might need or want. You need to let them know about your business and get them to notice your products. So the focus here is on defining target audience and selecting the best marketing and sales channels to reach them.
- Buyer Journey — how you turn shoppers into buyers. In eCommerce, potential customers don’t get to physically interact with your business or products before they buy them, but they do engage with your website and online channels. Your online store needs to convince shoppers to buy from your site and not somewhere else. So invest in your product images, product pages, cart and checkout. And offer the right payment methods for your customers — credit cards, mobile payments, pay over time, whatever they use.
- Fulfillment Cycle — whether that’s shipping, delivery or pickup. I’m going to skip past all the logistics here and say that on the marketing side, think about how you give the best experience on your website, like clearly communicating cost rates and timing. And then make a plan for how you update customers about their orders and preferably automate that process, from shipping and delivery emails and SMS updates, package tracking and so on.
- Customer Loyalty — so for any business I truly believe that your customer is your greatest asset. You invest in acquiring every new customer, both time and money, but the real reward is not just closing the sale. Instead, it’s your potential to continue earning from that customer for a lifetime. Some of the most effective ways to keep customers coming back include email marketing, retargeting ads and automations like abandoned cart recovery, customer service, loyalty programs and special offers.
- Analyzing & Optimizing: across all these areas, a healthy dose of testing, analyzing and optimizing. Selling online is an endless process of trial and error, testing and optimization.
Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?
Liat Karpel Gurwicz: You can follow me on:
Jerome Knyszewski; This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
