Report: Social Commerce Has a Long Way to Go; Pinterest Gains Ground in Terms of Site Traffic
“Social commerce is a unicorn.” That’s one of the main takeaways from Monetate’s latest quarterly e-commerce report (EQ1 2013), which found that Pinterest is accounting for more e-commerce traffic from social sites than it was at the end of last year.
‘The unicorn’
According to the report, social media drove just 1.55 percent of all traffic to e-commerce sites and had a conversion rate of 0.71 percent. According to Jay Baer, a guest contributor to the report, this makes social commerce “a unicorn, at least in terms of last-touch attribution.”
Baer also notes that direct URL entry and visits with no known referrer (site visits from a native app or traffic to HTTPS websites could be hidden in this group) accounts for nearly half of the more than 500 million visits analyzed for the study. Meanwhile, search referrals accounted for 31 percent of traffic to e-commerce sites in the first quarter of 2013.
Monetate found that in the first quarter, Facebook accounted for 55.18 percent of social traffic to e-commerce sites, down from 62.45 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. Meanwhile, Pinterest accounted for 24.96 percent of social traffic to these sites, notably up from the 17.51 percent share it had in the fourth quarter of last year.
Baer notes that social media and word-of-mouth marketing are “inherently additive pieces of the conversion funnel, rather than causative.” He cites a piece of research from Google showing that social media is more of an awareness-building channel than a purchase-driving tactic, and that it’s the second earliest step in the average U.S. consumer’s purchase path (clicks on display ads are first).
So maybe social media isn’t a good revenue producer. “Maybe that’s so. But I refuse to believe that all of our posting, sharing, and liking isn’t at least contributing to ecommerce traffic and sales, considering that we spend more time on social media than on web browsing and email combined,” Baer says.
The trick, of course, is proving it.
An infographic from AddShoppers offers some findings from an analysis of $5 million worth of e-commerce transactions. One of its highlights is that the average social share is worth $2.04, with Google+ shares worth the most of any social channel.
The strength of Pinterest
According to Monetate, the average order value (AOV) on Pinterest in the first quarter was $80.54, leading all social referrers. Facebook was second with an AOV of $71.26, followed by Twitter with $70.17, StumbleUpon with $49.78 and LinkedIn with $38.42.
Here are some other findings of note regarding social commerce from Monetate’s report:
Tablets and smartphones steal traffic
Monetate’s study also found that in the first quarter, 78.99 percent of e-commerce site traffic came from desktop or laptop computers, down from 88.62 percent in the first quarter last year.
So where did those other visitors flee to? Mobile devices, of course.
The lion’s share of tablet-originated traffic came from iPads in the first quarter, though Android tablets are gaining ground.
Interestingly enough, smartphones yielded the highest AOVs.
Salute to the military
In a timely tip o’ the hat to the military, Monetate also focuses on U.S. military personnel and their families living around the world. While a small percentage of overall traffic to e-commerce sites, these consumers boast significantly superior conversion rates.
Monetate recommends geo-targeting visitors who live on military bases by acknowledging their military status and offering personalized promotions.
