I used to work a lot with email marketing and retargeting and it worked pretty well for a while. I’m talking about ecommerce marketing specifically. But these days it feels like that approach is kinda dead. Emails get ignored and retargeting just feels noisy and expensive. What’s actually working now in 2026? I'm thinking of influencer collabs or something elike that?
I don't know what you're selling, but AmritaTA is right. You should focus on a specific audience. You won't be able to please everyone. That's something you should never forget. If Mercedes pleased every tastes, BMW, Toyota and Ford would never sell anything... With that in mind, you must create one or a few personas based on the best selling products of your online shop. What are your best-sellers? What kind of profile is converting ? Age, hobbies, occupation, status, lifestyle, etc... Use as much info as you can in order to know to who you are talking to. Once you get it, you can customize your offers to only speak to these people.
Dude email and retargeting fatigue is real in 2026 everyone's inbox is nuked and ad blindness is brutal Switch to influencer collabs + short-form video. Micro-influencers 5-50k followers in your niche give authentic pushes that convert way better than cold pixels. Pay em product + small fee and track with unique links esp if you're in a dropshipping business like wix or ecomzy
Try AI-powered SMS and gamified popups. Hit abandoned carts with texts like " Your cart misses you. Claim 20% off in 10 mins! " Add spin the wheel popups on your store for instant discounts hooks impulse buyers. It's not fair maybe but it's just business
What’s actually working now feels less like finding the next channel and more about how brands get other people to speak for them. Influencers still help, but only when there’s real trust between them and their audience. A lot of ecommerce brands are getting better results now by pushing real customer content, reviews and referral loops instead of just paid reach that disappears once the budget stops.
What works is building an email list by giving a freebie to your desires audience like a guide or a product/service that solves a problem of theirs and keeps them coming for more. After that when they opt in to being sent emails frlm you, you can game them with your emails and turn them to paying customers or even the email list for money.