Getting traffic to your Shopify store: marketplaces, social media and email

Most sellers who open a Shopify store hit the same problem in the first month: the store is ready, the products look great, but there are no visitors. On Etsy or Amazon, buyers find you by searching; on Shopify, your store stays invisible until you promote it. Driving traffic is at the heart of the Shopify business.

In this post we explain how to set up three main traffic sources for a POD store, marketplaces, social media and email, so that they feed each other.

The three sources of traffic

These three sources are not independent. A customer who buys on a marketplace gets to know your brand; they look for a design they saw on social media in your store; once they join your email list, they make their next purchase directly from you.

1. Use marketplaces as a storefront

Selling the same designs on Etsy, eBay and Amazon supports your Shopify store rather than competing with it. Marketplaces let you reach ready buyers, see quickly which designs work and get your brand name heard. Promoting a design that already sells on a marketplace with Shopify ads is far more efficient than testing from scratch.

The thing to watch here is each marketplace's own rules: directing buyers from inside a marketplace to another website is generally prohibited. On marketplace orders, put your brand name and quality product front and center; buyers will look you up on their own.

On Custombull, products are transferred in bulk between your connected stores: draft first, published on your approval, SKUs preserved. Orders from every channel arrive in one dashboard. Plan pricing is fixed per store: 5 stores for $29.99 on Bronze, 10 stores for $99.99 on Gold; the price does not go up with the number of products.

2. Social media: regular and audience-specific

For a POD store, the social media content that works is content that speaks to the audience more than product photos do. If you sell t-shirts for divers, showing products among posts about diving humor, gear tips or dive spots works better than constantly saying “buy now”.

• Short videos: 10-15 second clips showing the product being worn and the design up close.
• Seasonal content: posts prepared in advance for Father's Day, graduation, Halloween and similar periods.
• Customer photos: real customer images shared with permission build trust.
• Shopify sales channels: with Shopify's social media and Google sales channel apps, you can list your products on those platforms too.

Producing images and videos takes time. Custombull's AI product photos turn your design into sale-ready images (5 photos for 3 credits); a 10-second product video from a photo costs 5 credits. The same images are prepared for all your channels.

3. Email, SMS and WhatsApp: the most profitable traffic

Shopify's biggest advantage over marketplaces is that the customer data is yours. You can reach customers who bought once and agreed to receive marketing messages directly with a new design, a seasonal collection or a discount. You don't pay for ads to get this traffic.

The real power of email is that it's measurable: when you know which campaign brought in sales, you repeat what works and drop what doesn't.

Custombull Marketing Center

Custombull's Marketing Center lets you send email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns to your own customers. Ready-made campaign templates, customer segments and a report showing who bought what from which campaign (last-touch attribution) are all in one place. So you answer “did this campaign work?” with sales data, not guesswork.

4. A campaign calendar for repeat sales

Regular campaigns get better results than emails sent at random. A simple yearly calendar for a POD store can look like this:

1. Welcome series: your brand story and best sellers for customers who just joined the list.
2. Post-purchase: after delivery, a new collection or a complementary product (a hoodie for the customer who bought a t-shirt).
3. Seasonal campaigns: Mother's Day, Father's Day, back to school, Halloween, the holidays.
4. Win-back: new designs for customers who haven't shopped in a long time.
5. Personal dates: birthday or anniversary campaigns using data customers have agreed to share.

5. Store details that lift conversion

Driving traffic is only half the job; visitors also need to buy. In a POD store, the most important factors for conversion are clear product images, a clear size chart, clearly stated production and shipping times, and a return policy that builds trust.

Custombull checks and guarantees the quality of every product; if a defective item ships, you get a no-questions-asked refund or a free reprint. With that guarantee, you can write a confident return policy. After the order, the customer follows it on a tracking page that opens with your store name and logo, which becomes one more place your brand touches the customer.

6. Measure and decide

• Sales by channel: what did each marketplace and each campaign bring in?
• Sales by design: which design works across every channel?
• Repeat customers: the share of customers who buy a second time after their first purchase.
• Ad cost: spend per order that came from ads.

On Custombull, sales from all your connected channels appear in one dashboard and can be compared year over year; the Marketing Center also shows sales by campaign.

Frequently asked questions

Will selling on marketplaces reduce my Shopify store's traffic?

Usually the opposite happens: marketplaces introduce your brand to new buyers and show you which designs sell. What matters is following each channel's rules and managing all channels from one place.

When should I start advertising?

Once it's clear which designs get attention on marketplaces or in organic social media. Starting ads with products that have sales data, instead of untested products, uses your budget more efficiently.