March 4, 2020
Direct marketing channels are the most effective at driving ecommerce site traffic. Image courtesy of Oribi
Email and search are the most effective digital marketing channels in driving visits to an ecommerce store, but social media is far less effective, suggesting luxury retailers should consider classic forms of online communication.
Forty-nine percent of all ecommerce’s direct traffic comes from email and 35 percent comes from Google, according to a new report from Web analytics site Oribi. Facebook’s organic and paid content generated only 9.6 percent of site traffic and Instagram’s combined organic and paid content only led to 1.5 percent of sales.
“Google paid is higher, meaning that a larger portion of the marketing budget is allocated to Google,” said Iris Shoor, founder/CEO of Oribi, Tel Aviv, Israel.
“Another surprising finding is that Instagram, organic and paid, is responsible for less than 1.5 percent of traffic, even for fashion stores,” she said.
Oribi is a Web analytics platform.
Shopping cart abandonment
The Oribi research covered the digital behavior of 5.2 million people between October and December 2019 who bought 22,459 products in 204 online shops.
Organic search accounting for 20.6 percent of site visits and paid search generating 14 percent, according to the report.
Google’s paid ads had a 2.7 percent conversion rate, followed by direct traffic at 2.5 percent.
Google’s organic ads generated 2.1 percent conversions, Facebook paid and organic had 1.5 percent, and Instagram paid and organic saw 0.8 percent.
Once people did visit an ecommerce site through one of these marketing channels, the average conversion rate per store was just 2.2 percent.
Interestingly, 11 percent of the visitors added items to their carts, but only 39 percent went to checkout, and 48 completed the purchase.
“Bringing traffic is only part of the hard work,” Ms. Shoor said. “Converting visitors into buyers is the key to building a successful store.
“Visitors from different channels behave differently as they come with different intent,” she said. “While visitors from Google -organic or paid - arrive at your store after actively searching for something, visitors from social media usually have a much lower intent.”
Mondays and Tuesdays saw the highest conversion rates, and the average conversion rate drops as the week progresses.
Iris Shoor is CEO of Oribi
Social price points
Oribi’s report noted a difference in conversion rates among visits from social media platforms based on product price.
For products that cost less than $100, the conversion rate is 2.6 percent. Items that cost more than $100 only generated a 0.4 percent conversion.
“It’s interesting to see that the behavior of visitors who buy in the $100 range is very similar to visitors who buy products that cost over $500,” Ms. Shoor said. “The main difference here is in the percentage of visitors who start the buying process and add products to their cart.
“The lower conversion rate for Add to Cart signals that consumers of high-end products are more likely to give it a second thought,” she said.
“As Facebook and Instagram ads are on the rise, a new category of online shopping has emerged. Instead of intentional buying, which used to be the primary buying pattern, today there are many more window shoppers, with Facebook leading the trend.”
The report also found that the average conversion rate for visitors on desktop devices is 2.7 percent, while it is only 1.9 percent on mobile.
In other words, desktop visitors are 50 percent more valuable to stores than mobile shoppers, the report surmises.
The conversion rate for low-priced products was around 2.3 percent, whereas medium-priced products had a conversion rate of 1.3 percent and high-end products were 1.5 percent.
Fifty-one percent of visitors buy on their first session, 19 percent purchase on the second session, 10 percent purchase on the third session, 14 percent on sessions 4-9 and 6 percent buy beyond their 10th visit.
“While the same amount of visitors start the checkout process, mobile visitors are less likely to complete it,” Ms. Shoor said.
“While the rate of people adding items to their cart does not differ between desktop and mobile, the rest of the funnel shows bigger gaps,” she said.
“Fewer visitors pass from the 'Add to Cart’ stage to checkout, and out of the ones who do, even fewer complete the checkout process.”
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