Facebook Credits a Winning Incentive for Shoebuy

What do espadrilles and FarmVille have in common? Plenty, as far as Shoebuy.com is concerned. The online footwear retailer in November began giving away 50 Facebook Credits with each purchase, making it the first merchant to use them as a sales incentive.

“We’ve been positively surprised at how much attention the program has gotten in the marketplace,” says Shoebuy chief marketing officer James Keller, “and we’re seeing the volume grow basically with no advertising, so at this point, it’s definitely a win.”

Shoebuy has promoted the incentive via advertising on Facebook and other Websites; the ads mentioning the Facebook Credits had twice the clickthrough rates as ads that did not.

Facebook Credits are an online currency used for more than 200 Facebook games and apps, including the megapopular FarmVille game. Hosted solution Ifeelgoods manages the promotion for Shoebuy.

If you’re not one of the millions of social gamers out there, you might wonder that Facebook Credits would be a popular incentive, except perhaps for a younger audience. But as Ifeelgoods CEO Michael Amar notes, 53% of Facebook’s 500 million users worldwide play games online, and the average social gamer is a 43-year-old woman—a similar demographic as the average Shoebuy customer. “With this solution you can target social gamers, which nobody else is targeting for now,” Amar says.

Besides standing out as a different sort of incentive from the typical free shipping or discounts, Facebook Credits as an incentive can serve as an entry point into social media marketing for retailers. When they are redeeming their credits, customers are given the option of having a brief message about how they earned those points appear on their Facebook wall. Keller says that almost half of the Shoebuy customers have allowed the message to be posted on their wall.

“The fact that so many do want to share with their friends is something that we take as a great sign in terms of how they value the experience,” Keller says, “and getting the word out in this viral, word-of-mouth way is a great way to grow the program.”

Shoebuy settled on 50 Facebook Credits, which have a retail value of $5, for the incentive after testing showed that the figure “resonates well in terms of a meaningful call to action,” Keller says. To avoid losing money to people who make a purchase solely to gain the credits and then return their items, Shoebuy deducts $5 from the value of the return.

Besides offering credits as a gift-with-purchase, Amar says they can also be used as a “micro incentive, for small call to actions, such as ‘follow us on Twitter.’” The Golf Warehouse began giving away 25 Facebook Credits with the purchase of any gift card in December.