How can online retailers use microsites?

Specific campaign messages can often be lost amid masses of product pages and navigational options within a retailer’s main website.

One way to avoid this cannibalisation of content is to create a microsite that allows retailers to augment their web presence with a particular platform for a specific campaign, message or product push.

The co-founder of digital creative agency Smack Aalia Walker says: “The major benefit of a microsite is that it allows you to showcase your brand and deliver engagement but without the focus ever deviating from a particular message.”

By providing a separate site retailers can experiment with gamification without having to implement new technology across their wider online platform.

Aside from being an excellent way to boost sales and build brand engagement, microsites confer many practical advantages.

“It may seem counterintuitive, but often a comprehensive microsite can be created quicker than changes to a retailer’s own website can be implemented,” says Walker.

Once set up, these microsites can also be used to segment your market and collect finely tuned analytics about your customers.

 “Microsites also mean that you don’t have to work within the confines of any one social media site and their often restrictive rules, which is one reason we’ve seen a push away from the use of Facebook apps,” says Walker.

“Microsites are simply a much more effective way for retailers to do something a little different while still retaining full control.”