SamCart Review [Read This Before Choosing It]Are you considering SamCart to sell products online? It's a powerful tool, however, is better suited for certain businesses than others. In this SamCart review, I'll provide an overview of the kinds of businesses SamCart is for, and not for, plus go over the key features, integrations, pricing, and alternatives.  Who is SamCart for?SamCart is primarily for businesses looking for a robust tool for accepting one-time or subscription payments for digital products. Since SamCart does not provide full websites, it's ideal for businesses that already have a main site, plan to get one elsewhere, or don't need one. For example, let's say you already have a website about playing the guitar, various social media accounts on the same topic, and an email list. Now, you want to sell an online course about playing the guitar. With SamCart, you can easily create a sales page for the class, share it with your audience, and accept payments. SamCart has a free, 7-day trial. If you believe it may be right for you, I highly recommend you take advantage of the trial: Who is SamCart not for?SamCart is not for businesses looking to create a large e-commerce store for physical products. For instance, let's say you want to start selling clothing online, and have hundreds of different shirts, sneakers, hats, etc, in various sizes and colors. SamCart wouldn't be ideal. Though you can sell physical products on SamCart, it doesn't let you build a full website with category and sub-category pages, or manage the shipping of items. For a large e-commerce store with physical products, you'd need a specialized content management system (CMS) to bulk-handle product photos, descriptions, shipping addresses, etc. For this, consider a system like WooCommerce, with a plugin for shipping management.  SamCart major featuresSales landing pages You can browse a collection of pre-built landing page templates, select one that's a fit for your product, then easily customize it via a drag-and-drop editor. Launch these landing pages on your own domain. Online checkout SamCart's core capability is online checkout. With this feature, you can do all this and more:
Think your business can increase revenue with these features? Then try SamCart for free. IntegrationsThough SamCart is mainly an online-checkout tool, it integrates with many other platforms, enabling it be part of a connected, holistic marketing funnel. Connect SamCart with tools for email marketing and CRM, such as: Online courses Though you can sell any item on SamCart, the platform is particularly popular with content creators who sell digital education products, such as online courses. So, SamCart launched its Course App, which provides additional, specialized capabilities for online-course creators. Do all this and more:
Customer management When customers buy from you - whether with one-time or subscription payments - you can view their contact details and manage their payment information via a dashboard. Customers even have the ability to log into their own portal to view and update their information, which can save you a lot of time. Affiliate selling Increase your sales by allowing verified partners to sell your product on your behalf, for an affiliate commission. Manage access and payments from one dashboard. Ready to try these features? Start your SamCart free trial today. SamCart pricingIf you're paying annually:
If you're paying monthly:
SamCart also offers the Scale plan, which is custom-priced for custom features. The more advanced a plan, the more features and higher limits it has. To learn more about each plan, visit the SamCart website: Visit SamCart SamCart alternativesIf you're aiming to build a large e-commerce store with physical products, I suggest you look into WooCommerce - with a shipping plugin - instead of SamCart. If you want to sell digital products, alternatives to SamCart would be payment-processing platforms that have email-automation and CRM capabilities built in, such as ClickFunnels. Though a tool like ClickFunnels has a wider range of features than SamCart, it is more expensive. In addition, it lacks SamCart's feature depth for payment processing. To learn more, check out my comparison of the two systems. If you'd like to take advantage of SamCart's top-tier payment features, while also tapping into email marketing and CRM capabilities, you can do so via SamCart's extensive list of integrations. SamCart - frequently asked questionsIs SamCart good for beginners?Yes, SamCart is good for beginners. You do not need to have a background in computer programming or graphic design to start accepting online payments with SamCart, design landing pages, or use any of its other features. What is the use of SamCart?SamCart's primary use is enabling businesses to accept online payments for digital products. Unlike other payment providers, SamCart offers many checkout features, such as "buy now, pay later," subscriptions, Apple Pay, Google Pay, popup forms, and more. Can I use SamCart to sell physical products?Yes, you can sell physical products on SamCart. However, SamCart does not have built-in capabilities for shipping management. If you're planning on selling a high volume of physical products, and overseeing the shipping, SamCart may not be your best option for e-commerce. Can you sell courses on SamCart?Yes, you can sell courses on SamCart. The platform offers a Course App, that not only lets you sell courses, but create them and allow students to access your material via an online portal. Build course lessons with hosted videos, images, text, and more. What is the difference between ClickFunnels and SamCart?ClickFunnels and SamCart both offer sales funnel features, such as landing pages, however, ClickFunnels has a wider range of capabilities, while SamCart has more depth with payment processing. On ClickFunnels, you can build a full website, set up email sequences, and more. Can you sell digital products on SamCart?Yes, you can sell digital products on SamCart. Easily accept one-time or subscription payments for digital products such as online courses, training programs, and PDF guides. Create high-converting sales pages for your products, and manage customer information. Does SamCart do email marketing?Though SamCart does not have built-in capabilities for email marketing, it directly integrates with leading platforms that do, such as ConvertKit, GetResponse, and ActiveCampaign. With an integration, you can enable email marketing with prospects and customers. What payment processor does SamCart use?SamCart offers its own payment processor, known as SamPay, however, users also have the option to integrate SamCart with other leading payment processors, such as Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net. Does SamCart have memberships?You can sell memberships on SamCart, however, it is not designed for creating a membership site that customers can access once they've made a purchase. With SamCart's Course App, however, you will be able to deliver an online course to students in a portal. Ready to start selling a product on SamCart? Begin your free trial today. This post contains affiliate links.
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Paid Traffic - How To Boost Online SalesAre you hoping to increase online sales for your business? Paid traffic - ie, online ads - is a powerful tool. Unlike organic traffic, which can take several months to kick in, paid traffic can start working the day you turn it on. However, unless you know how to properly use paid traffic within a broader marketing funnel, you're at risk of spending a lot of money, without getting sales in return. In this article, I give you tips on how to run paid traffic for strong results.  What is paid traffic?Paid traffic is the visits a business's website receives from online advertisements the business has purchased on other websites. For example, if a business buys an ad on Facebook, when users click it and land on the business's website, the visits would be considered paid traffic. What is the difference between paid and organic traffic?Organic traffic is the visits a website receives that did not directly come from advertisements. For example, if a business sends a website link to its email subscribers, when people click the link and land on the website, the visits would be considered organic traffic. Paid and organic traffic - examplesPaid traffic examples Website visits from these sources, among others, would be considered paid traffic:
Organic traffic examples Website visits from these sources, among others, would be considered organic traffic:
Paid vs. organic traffic - which is better?Neither traffic source is purely "better" than the other. Many successful businesses leverage both paid and organic traffic together, to serve specific purposes within their broader funnel strategy. For example, a business may use paid traffic to generate leads, then email those leads links to blog articles for several weeks, creating a steady flow of organic traffic. Paid and organic traffic each have pros and cons: Paid traffic - pros
Paid traffic - cons
Organic traffic - pros
Organic traffic - cons
 How much do online ads cost?Not all paid traffic costs the same, or is it paid for the same way. Different advertising sources have different rates and charge models. What determines ad rates?Some key factors that ad rates are based on:
How are you charged for ads?Different platforms charge for ads in different ways. The three major charge models:
How can you boost sales with online ads?Before you invest in online ads, you should first map out a funnel strategy for your business. In case you're unaware, a funnel is a series of marketing tactics that turn people who've never heard of your brand into loyal customers...  To learn more about marketing funnels, I suggest you take an online course from Skillshare. Paid ads can be effective at all four levels of the funnel. Here's an overview of each level and how paid ads can be leveraged at it:
Below, find some tips on how to effectively apply paid ads to your funnel to boost sales and generate a great ROI. 1. Know your key funnel financial values Are you selling a high-ticket item with many potential customers? If so, you have quite a lot of flexibility for paid ads. Even if you spend a lot of money within the awareness and/or consideration phases of the funnel, as long as you can get a solid amount of customers to convert (ie, make a purchase), your ROI can be positive. On the other hand, are you selling, for instance, an item that only costs $2, and would only be relevant to 1,000 people? If all of them purchased it, you can make $2,000. Spending $3,000 on paid ads wouldn't make sense, unless you had other items for sale and could tap into repeat purchases in the loyalty phase. 2. Identify your funnel strengths Are you already thriving at a certain funnel stage? For instance, possibly you have a large social media following and are already driving a ton of awareness about your brand. Investing your advertising budget into awareness ads may not have a large impact on your business. When you're first starting out - and may not have an enormous budget - you should be selective with your budget. 3. Identify your funnel obstructions Are you noticing an obstruction within your marketing funnel? For example, whenever you get people to land on your product pages, you tend to convert a high percentage of them into buyers. However, you're only getting a few dozen people to these pages, every month. A business like this is solid with conversion, yet lacking with awareness. A paid campaign aimed at driving awareness can make a lot of sense. As more leads enter the top of the funnel, more sales will naturally emerge at the bottom. 4. Choose an effective advertising platform Once you've identified where in the funnel you want to improve performance via paid ads, you'll need to select a platform to advertise on. Though you can experiment with multiple platforms at once, if you're first starting out, I'd suggest focusing on one at a time. When picking a platform, consider the following:
5. Create a landing page and follow-up sequence In the vast majority of cases, a business shouldn't simply send paid traffic to its home page. Instead, you should create a specialized page, designed to prompt an action that's relevant to the focused-upon funnel stage. These pages are known as landing pages. For example, with an awareness ad, you'd pay for traffic to your website. Once those visitors arrive, you want to advance them to the next stage of your funnel, consideration. You can of course pay for a consideration ad next, targeted at these visitors. However, by collecting their email addresses, you can avoid this second cost. Visitors from your awareness ad can arrive at a landing page, where you offer them something of value for free, in exchange for their email address - this free item is known as a lead magnet. Once you have their email address, you can send them messages - without paying for another ad - that encourage consideration. You can take advantage of various funnel-builder software tools that let you easily create high-converting landing pages, follow-up pages, and follow-up email sequences. FYI, I put together a detailed list of these software systems. Want to learn more about paid traffic? |