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MarketingCharts: Retailers' Facebook Updates Aren't Being Ignored by Online Shoppers

Written by Guest contributor

Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from MarketingCharts, a Watershed Publishing publication providing up-to-to-minute data and research to marketers.

A study of online shoppers by UPS and comScore reveals that the vast majority of those who have "liked" a retailer on Facebook pay either a little attention to its updates (i.e., briefly skim for information — 52 percent) or a lot of attention (i.e., by reading the update as if it were from a friend — 34 percent). That leaves just 14 percent of respondents either skipping over the updates (8 percent) or claiming to not notice them at all (6 percent).

Among the two-thirds of respondents who reported having liked a brand on the site, the top reasons given were because the retailer occasionally offers special promotions for its Facebook fans (60 percent) and because the retailer incentivized the respondent to like its Facebook page/application (47 percent).

Scoring lower as a reason to like a brand or retailer was to stay up to date with a brand or retailer, 36 percent. Thirty-two percent indicated they're a fan of all or most brands they're associated with while 25 percent said they liked a retailer or brand on Facebook because they want to actively voice their opinion to a brand on Facebook.

The UPS study analyzed data from a survey of more than 3,000 U.S. online shoppers conducted in February 2013.

The findings come as the latest quarterly report from Monetate covering Q1 activity indicates that these updates don't seem to be leading to much direct downstream traffic. According to Monetate, search (31.4 percent) is easily the primary driver of direct e-commerce traffic, dwarfing social media (1.6 percent) as well as e-mail (2.8 percent). Share of e-commerce traffic coming from both social and email actually decreased in Q1 compared to a year earlier. But the researchers made a valid point that is bolstered by other recent studies: these findings are based on a last-touch attribution model, which typically undervalues social's role significantly.

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