What is content marketing for ecommerce?

If there is one thing that has always been at the heart of both traditional and modern marketing, it is content. While the platforms have evolved, from print and TV to search engines and social media, the way brands attract and influence purchase decisions still relies on persuasive content.

For ecommerce brands, content is their digital salesperson. It powers the entire marketing funnel, building brand awareness, educating shoppers, addressing objections, gaining trust, and guiding customers from discovery to purchase.

This guide will explore what content marketing for ecommerce is, its different types, common distribution channels, and some tools to help along the way.

What is ecommerce content marketing?

Ecommerce content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, engaging content. Each piece of content serves a specific purpose, such as attracting new audiences, nurturing relationships, or encouraging conversions.

Depending on the overall marketing strategy, the intent behind the content may be promotional, educational, informational, or entertaining. When executed effectively, it supports customers throughout their buying journey and turns visitors into loyal customers.

What are the types of content used in ecommerce marketing?

Unlike common thought, content is not just text. It includes videos, emails, social posts, product reviews, and everything that helps customers understand, trust, and choose your brand.

Here are some of the content types used across ecommerce marketing:

• Blogs

• Guides

• Social media content

• Podcasts

• Webinars

• Ebooks

• Checklists

• Templates

• Visual content (For example: infographics)

• Advertisements

• FAQs

• Free resources or tools

• Case studies

• Tutorials

• Email newsletters

• Whitepapers

All the above content forms are majorly used under the three stages of the digital marketing sales funnel: top of the funnel (TOFU), middle of the funnel (MOFU), and bottom of the funnel (BOFU).

Top of the funnel

The content types that come under top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) content aims to educate and inform the audience. Rather than direct promotion, these types focus on providing value and positioning the brand as a trusted authority within the industry.

TOFU content also plays a crucial role in building brand awareness, improving search visibility, and increasing discoverability. Along with that, it helps address customer questions, establish credibility, and lay the foundation for long-term trust.

Common examples of top-of-the-funnel content are:

• Educational blogs, guides, and ebooks

• Informative videos and posts

• Podcasts and webinars

• Free resources or tools

Middle of the funnel

Middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) content often acts as a bridge between sparking the initial interest and pushing the final conversion. At this stage, the audience knows and recognizes the brand and have moved from discovery to considering it as a viable solution.

MOFU content is still in a way educational, but is more specific to the product or service. For example, providing detailed information as to why your brand is better using comparisons or data-backed proof.

Some of the types of MOFU content are:

• Product-specific articles

• Tutorials

• Product overviews

• Comparison guides

• Email newsletters

• Whitepapers

Bottom of the funnel

Finally, bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) content aims at convincing the audience to become a customer. BOFU content targets a much narrower audience, majorly including people who have previously shown an interest towards the brand.

Compared to the other types of content, BOFU content is fully promotional and has to work towards removing final objections within the audience, reinforcing trust, and pushing through for a conversion.

Here are a few examples of bottom-of-the-funnel content:

• Conversion-focused landing pages

• Advertisements

• Customer reviews/testimonials

• Case studies

• Sales-focued social media posts

How do you distribute content for ecommerce?

Creating high-quality ecommerce marketing content is only half the battle. The other half is ensuring it reaches the right target audience. For that, brands need to distribute their content through different channels. Here are some of the most effective content distribution channels for ecommerce.

Owned channels

• Website
  Your ecommerce website is the foundation of content distribution. Using it, you can publish SEO-driven blog articles, landing pages, or product pages. In these, you can embed videos, webinars, podcasts, and internal links to drive traffic.

• Email newsletters
  Email is an effective channel for distributing blog content, product updates, video highlights, and exclusive offers. Email newsletters can be sent to existing customers as well as subscribers who are acquired through organic content.

• SMS/Push notifications
  SMS and push notifications help deliver time-sensitive updates such as offers, product launches, and important announcements directly to users.

Social & community channels

• LinkedIn
  LinkedIn is a professional social community where people share thought leadership posts and insights. For ecommerce businesses, it is a powerful place to establish their credibility and expand their network.

• Instagram, TikTok, and X
  Famous for their visual content and short-form videos, these social media marketing channels can be used for brand and product awareness, demand generation, and direct conversions. A wide variety of content can be posted through these channels, like product demos, UGC, trending videos, and behind-the-scenes content.

• YouTube
  YouTube is ideal for publishing long-form videos such as tutorials, podcasts, product walkthroughs, comparisons, customer reviews, and educational content. You can use these videos to link back to your blogs or ecommerce store, and vice versa.

• Reddit/Quora
  These community-driven platforms allow brands to participate in discussions and answer high-intent questions. By linking relevant resources when appropriate, ecommerce businesses can redirect traffic to their blogs or online stores.

Earned channels

• Guest posts
  Guest blogging is when you write an article and post it on another person's or company's website. This can be relevant industry or ecommerce publications that have a good domain authority. This aids in brand awareness, gaining backlinks, and reaching new audiences.

• Influencer collaborations
  Influencer marketing has become a staple in ecommerce businesses' content marketing strategies. Brands partner with creators to distribute content, spread awareness, and build trust among their followers.

• Podcast guest appearances
  Appearing as a guest on relevant podcasts to share your expertise and insights helps position you and your brand as a trustable authority while directing listeners back to your website.

Paid distribution

• Social media ads
  By promoting your high-performing or promotional content, you can reach a larger, more targeted audience in a shorter time than it takes organically. This ensures your content reaches users who may not yet follow your brand but match your ideal customer profile.

• Search ads
  Search ads help distribute high-value content such as comparison pages or landing pages to users actively searching for related topics. These ads appear at the top of search results, making way for high visibility and click-through-rate (CTR).

• Retargeting campaigns
  Retargeting distributes personalized content, such as product recommendations and abandoned cart reminders to users who have previously interacted with your website or ads. This keeps your brand top of mind and nurtures prospects toward conversion.

Platforms or tools to help with ecommerce content marketing

AI SEO

Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO uses AI for on-page optimization to help ecommerce brands create content that ranks. It analyzes top-ranking pages for a target keyword and provides data-backed recommendations on content structure, keyword usage, headings, and length.

Frase.io

Frase.io is a platform that analyzes search engine results pages (SERPs) and user intent to help create content that is optimized for featured snippets, AI answers, and generative search results.

Content readability

Grammarly

Widely used for checking grammar, Grammarly is a tool that also goes above and beyond by ensuring your content aligns with the desired tone, readability, and clarity. It also suggests improvements and scores your content for precise criticism.

Flesch reading ease

The Flesch reading ease score measures how easy your content is to read based on sentence length and word complexity. For ecommerce businesses, this helps ensure blog articles and product pages are scannable, user-friendly, and accessible to a wider audience.

Analytics

Google Analytics

Powered by Google, this platform tracks user behavior, traffic sources, content performance, and conversions. It helps ecommerce teams understand which content drives visitors, keeps users engaged, and contributes to revenue. Based on that, brands can focus on creating content that contributes to traffic and revenue.

Zoho PageSense

Zoho PageSense provides visual insights into how users interact with your content through heatmaps, scroll depth, and time-on-page analysis. This helps identify which sections of a page perform well and where users drop off, allowing for data-driven content optimization.

Social media management

Hootsuite

Allowing ecommerce brands to schedule, publish, and monitor content across multiple social media platforms from one dashboard, Hootsuite helps maintain consistent content distribution. It ensures teams can save time and track engagement performance.

Zoho Social

Zoho Social helps schedule posts, track brand mentions, analyze performance, and measure audience engagement. By using Zoho Social, ecommerce businesses can easily manage their social presence while precisely gauging which content works well with their audience.

Content ideation

AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic visualizes real user questions, comparisons, and search phrases related to a topic. This helps ecommerce marketers generate content ideas that align closely with actual customer search intent and buying behavior.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo identifies top-performing content by topic, keyword, or competitor. It helps ecommerce brands understand what type of content gets the most engagement, making it easier to create relevant, shareable, and high-performing content.

Final note

When executed consistently, content marketing has the potential to bring even the smallest brands into the spotlight and position them alongside larger competitors.

Large brands like HubSpot or GoPro are great examples of this. They rose to fame rapidly owing to their extensive content marketing strategies, which showcased industry expertise, powerful UGC, and real impact.

By combining high-quality content with the right distribution channels, ecommerce brands can leverage content marketing to drive sustainable traffic, generate qualified leads, and build long-term authority.