Outstanding ecommerce copywriting can propel your brand through the noise of today’s highly competitive environment.
On the flip side, a poorly done ecommerce copy can tank your website in a matter of days.
Here are the key HOWs, WHYs, and DONTs of ecommerce copywriting, along with straightforward explanations on how to promote content, sell goods, and retain customers consistently.
What Is Ecommerce Copywriting?
Ecommerce copywriting when copywriting is used for an ecommerce business.The goal is to usually drive more product purchases. Examples include:
- Product descriptions
- Discount or clearance copy
- Product category pages
- Display ads
- Landing page copy.
Ecommerce Copywriting Tips and Best Practices
Follow these five tips to write attention-grabbing, punchy, and persuasive ecommerce copy that will turn even the staunchest detractors into loyal brand ambassadors.
1. Use existing frameworks like PAS or AIDA
Copywriting frameworks such as PAS (Problem, Agitation, Solution), AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action), and BAB (Before, After, Bridge), are popular for a reason: they’ve been proven to work time and again over the years. Crafting ecommerce copy, however, is a slightly different endeavor, as it’s not always structure and logic that persuades visitors to convert. Sometimes, you also have to appeal to people’s emotions to achieve a desirable outcome—repeat conversions.
In other words, you need to use these frameworks selectively, not just copy them point-blank and hope for immediate results out of the blue. For example, you can pluck the Attention stage from AIDA with a catchy headline, use the Agitation stage from PAS to exacerbate the pain point with a bold claim, and, finally, nip the problem in the bud with a strong CTA to leave a lasting impression. Additionally, you can also pepper the copy with a contextually relevant “before-and-after” example from BAB to amplify its message, creating a hybrid structure from the backbone of three effective copywriting formulas.
2. Utilize effective product page design strategies
Product pages should be designed for the visitor’s convenience, prompting them to browse, read, and convert quickly before they lose interest in the product or service they clicked on in the first place.
One way to achieve a higher-converting product page is by making your copy easily scannable, with short paragraphs, clean language, and descriptive subheadings complementing the remainder of the page’s design.
In terms of element positioning, consider displaying the product image at the top center, top right, or top left in relation to the copy, with a small gallery below that shows the product from multiple angles. The product title should be descriptive, but not overly optimized for SEO to avoid confusing prospects. Cramming in every keyword imaginable would have the opposite effect on customers, making them think it’s a scam or a faulty offer and possibly losing them for good.
Next, write between two and three descriptive sentences next to the product image, explaining what the product actually is. Beneath that, demonstrate how it helps solve your target audience’s major pain points, outlining its key features and the benefits each feature leads to in an easily discernible cause-and-effect format.
Lastly, display the Add to Cart button prominently on each product page, making it hard for interested prospects to miss. You can place the CTA above the fold on standard screens (13-17 inches), or below the fold (Manscaped comes to mind) if you’re confident in your overall product page design.
This is simply one of many ways you can structure your product pages, so consider implementing a web design strategy that works well with your brand, and keep using it until it falls out of favor with your visitors. If resource allocation isn’t an issue, consider running A/B tests on different product page variants to identify the top performer sooner rather than later.
3. Optimize for SEO, RAG, and AI overviews without sounding stale
While it may seem like search engine optimization (SEO) is on its way out in favor of AI-generated search summaries, it’s still something to be seriously considered when it comes to organic search rankings. Add to that retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), the process of retrieving information from external sources during a live large language model (LLM) prompt, and it becomes clear that any serious marketer must optimize for these search eventualities to stay relevant in the SERPs.
To optimize for SEO, use theme-relevant keywords for your ecommerce products or services without going overboard. Think of it like writing for humans in mind, all while exploiting natural synonyms of your foundational terms to keep Google and other major search engines happy over the long haul. Implement schema and structured data where appropriate, and write copy that’s equally as useful as it is enjoyable and captivating to read.
Optimizing for RAG and AI-overviews is a smudge trickier. Allegedly, popular LLMs such as Grok and Perplexity use the Brave Search API as their underlying source for live information retrieval. This fact makes it hard to track and attribute the most optimal ways to appear in RAG summaries.
However, one possible way could be to reverse-engineer the top-ranking sources for specific keywords and analyze their evolution over time. Platforms like SEMrush and Ahrefs are excellent at analyzing keywords at scale. Additionally, asking questions and immediately following them up with relevant answers is an effective approach to get picked up by RAG-generated AI summaries for related search queries.
4. Create organic scarcity and urgency
Manufacturing fake scarcity and overblown urgency can backfire spectacularly if you’re not careful. In contrast, creating genuine signals of organic demand and limited availability is a reliable way to boost conversions—if and when presented the right way.
For example, consider highlighting real-time inventory levels with phrases like “Only 5 left in stock”, or try mentioning seasonal clearances such as “Winter sweater collection selling out lightning-fast!” to prompt faster buying decisions without succumbing to shady practices. This combination of transparency and FOMO inspires customers to act quickly while still honoring their ability to make rational decisions.
Strong ecommerce copy doesn’t rely on fake prompts to sell effectively. Instead, it makes urgency and scarcity part of the overarching story. One winning strategy would be to link product or service benefits to an upcoming event, like “Get wacky with our costumes—just in time for Halloween.” You can also emphasize an item’s popularity by saying something like “Mira’s fragrance is currently being restocked due to exceptionally high demand.” Try tying these promotions to real data whenever possible. Otherwise, consumers might notice the discrepancy and simply avoid the offer indefinitely or until certain changes are made to reflect more grounded marketing scenarios.
5. Inject personal flair in your copy
Many established ecommerce sites are, to borrow a euphemism, severely limited in the copywriting flavor department. Reading a product description on Amazon or Best Buy often feels like you’re dealing with a faceless corporation whose sole raison d’etre is maximizing quarterly profits. The copy isn’t emotional, inspiring, or original: it’s simply there to get the job done. The ironic part? It works, and it’s mostly because these ecommerce giants were the first (and, arguably, still the best) to do it, leaving little to no room for aspiring competitors to catch up. In that sense, they can get away with bland, depersonalized copy (excluding copy written from individual or non-affiliated sellers on the platforms), because they can.
For smaller brands, though? That’s a no-go right from the get-go. Avoid sounding like a corrupted Guy Fawkes impersonator, and instead strive to write copy that speaks directly to real shoppers. Let it brim with personality to capture people’s attention on a deeper, more individual level when the context allows it.
How to Balance SEO with Copywriting in Ecommerce
Balancing your marketing approach between two drastically opposed extremes is a delicate tightrope act. In copywriting, ecommerce copy tends to be goal-oriented, i.e., crafted to influence prospects toward taking action. SEO, on the other hand, is structure-oriented, trying to optimize an entire website for speed and smooth user experience (UX), while rigidly utilizing titles, headings, and keywords to signal high relevance to (mostly) Google’s search engine.
And that’s not even taking into account the relatively recent SERP disruption caused by AI, specifically LLM summaries and RAG prompts, which threw a wrench into how both experts and novices perceive organic search.
To that end, competing for high-volume keywords might not even be worth it anymore if you’re an up-and-coming brand. Instead, consider identifying a smaller niche and start optimizing your content for a tighter subset of your core audience. If you’re bullish on AI tools, use them to brainstorm ideas and to perform light edits or spell-check, but never as a replacement writer or an automated content slop machine.
As an ecommerce shop, implementing structured data markup is a must. It enables a finer way to display reviews, ratings, and product availability while staying true to Google’s guidelines. Your site should be responsive or support a dedicated mobile version for a seamless UX. Use clean and appealing fonts like Seb Neue, Roboto, Open Sans, or Montserrat to deliver an outstanding visual experience to readers—and to dodge unnecessary misunderstandings along the way.
Lastly, try including client testimonials and user-generated content where appropriate. Doing so signals you have trust in your audience and helps to further cement your brand’s credibility and reputation. Include relevant keywords in your meta descriptions, product headers, and alt tags, but don’t overdo it. Make sure that all web elements load quickly (under two seconds is the recommended benchmark) to avoid undermining your written content due to poor performance.
Top Tier Ecommerce Copywriting Examples To Use as Inspiration
Let’s consider three crafty examples of ecommerce copywriting to help inspire your own copy.
1. Happy Socks
As its brand name suggests, Happy Socks leans more into the fun side of ecommerce copywriting, featuring colorful titles and subheadings, playful messaging, and positively radiant style all throughout the site.
Its subscription CTA is short, straightforward, and honest, staying true to the brand’s tone.
Lastly, Happy Socks sidesteps the lengthy, comprehensive product descriptions in favor of tight and lighthearted summaries that don’t take themselves too seriously, while still showcasing the product it describes in its full glory.
2. Haus
Haus, an aperitif manufacturer and seller with a prominent ecommerce branch, does very well to integrate its discounts into the heart and soul of its copy. It proves that marketing and copywriting can exist in unison, instead of fighting against each other for attention and dominance.
The brand’s minimalist approach creates intrigue, encouraging customers to learn more by picking their favorite Haus flavor.
Speaking of flavor, any potential customer concerns are answered in a confident and laidback tone. The reason? To avoid scaring off shoppers while also nipping any objections in the bud before they sour the experience.
3. TOMS
TOMS shoes brim with style, with copy that exudes confidence, novelty, and a forward-thinking mindset. All of that comes to the store’s forefront via its masterfully picked headline typography.
The following subheadings reflect the brand’s main premise loud and clear: TOMS stands for unique fashion, effortless comfort, and strong purpose, each line tactically delivering just as much information as it’s needed and no more.
Even at its most straightforward, TOMS isn’t afraid to use a subtle pun to capture the observant mind (“Fashionable Shoes for All Walks of Life”). The rest of the company’s blurb mostly serves a descriptive role, anchoring the company’s voice in clarity while still leaving ample room for the copy‘s personality to shine through.
Embarrassing Ecommerce Copywriting Mistakes to Avoid
Occasionally, copywriters get so taken in by their own workflow that they overlook the things, both trivial and major, that actually make their copy worse. Here are five key mistakes to avoid if you want your ecommerce copy to perform well in the long run.
1. Writing for a non-existing audience
Non-targeted copy, even when composed with the best of intentions, has one major flaw: it doesn’t speak to a specific customer group, and so barely anyone is incentivized to read it. Without knowing who you’re writing for, your message will come off as scattered and forgettable, lacking a strong emotional pull to convert readers into paying customers.
Solution: Consider performing detailed market research to identify your ideal customer persona, then write with that reader in mind to produce a flagship, conversion-focused centerpiece.
2. Inundating visitors with jargon-heavy copy
Using too much jargon, technical terms, and industry-specific language might alienate visitors who simply want to make an informed decision about buying a product or acquiring a service. It’s a common mistake many mid-level copywriters make when dealing with ecommerce copy, thinking that flowery prose will elevate their offer, when, in reality, it tanks the chances for a successful conversion.
Solution: Be as clear, upfront, and straightforward as possible. Confusing your readers or obscuring the real value of your offer is not the strategy you want to be implementing down the line.
3. Overhyping your products and services
Aggressively exaggerated claims have no place in ecommerce copy. Authenticity builds positive rapport, while overpromising invites skepticism into the equation. Also, don’t mistake the Agitation phase in PAS as free rein to write whatever you feel like writing. The claim needs to be bold and elevated, yet still feel genuine to people who experience the same pain point.
Solution: Be authentic, and avoid writing overblown or dishonest reviews about your products. Keeping your brand’s integrity intact is more important than any fleeting sales you might earn during that short-lived window, risking a total collapse.
4. Sounding bland, boring, and uninspired
Placing dry, uninspiring, and boring copy to serve as the welcome mat for potential customers is one of the worst offending actions you can make, period. Ecommerce copy should be a joy to read, sparking desire in visitors while helping them see eye to eye with the brand they’re engaging with. Otherwise, the copy’s blandness will bleed over to the shopping experience, prompting drop-offs instead of engagement.
Solution: It’s better to be captivating than dull, even at the expense of unwarranted sensationalism when nothing else works. If you can’t find inspiration no matter how hard you try, turn to legendary copywriters like David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, or Joe Sugarman, drawing from their work to shape your copy so it aligns with today’s ecommerce environment.
5. Churning out half-baked CTAs
Weak, missing, or confusing CTAs disrupt the buyer’s journey, causing prospects to bounce before converting. Even worse, without a cohesive web design strategy, an intuitive user interface, and a clear conversion scaffolding, even the best CTAs won’t cut it in the current hyper-competitive climate.
Solution: Use a single prominent CTA, complemented by a few well-placed secondary calls to action (if your website design supports it) to guide customers to their ultimate destination: completing a purchase.