Optimizing your entire digital shelf — your virtual store where people find and buy your brand online — is essential for providing customers with a great shopping experience. It’s how your brand shows up online, stands out from competitors, and encourages shoppers to make purchases.

Chapters:

1. What is product page optimization?
2. 5-point product page optimization audit
3. Product page optimization examples
4. Take your product pages to the next level

What is product page optimization?

Product page optimization is the process of improving all aspects of your product pages so potential customers can find exactly what they’re looking for and make informed purchasing decisions. It goes way beyond just inserting keywords and some witty copy, it’s about displaying authentic imagery, writing compelling descriptions, and using the voice of the customer.

In essence, product page optimization is about enhancing the entire user experience to make the buying process as seamless as possible.

An optimized product page is a page that first and foremost meets customer needs and achieves company goals. Traditionally, this refers to a product page designed for higher conversions and/or search engine optimization (SEO).  You also need to factor in the technical side too. Page load speed for example — nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer. 

Think about the last time you bought something online. What did you need to know from the product page in order to make it all the way through to check out? Just the specs? No. You probably needed a lot of different information to make a confident purchasing decision. Most customers want to know: 

• Is this product good quality or value?
• How does this product look in real life?
• What do other people think about this product?
• Is there anything else I need to buy to make this product work?
• How are other shoppers using this product?

And with only 2% of e-commerce website visits converting into a purchase, it’s clear that online merchants can do a better job of providing information and experiences that meet shopper needs. 

5-point product page optimization audit

During the recent iteration of the Bazaarvoice Summit, Brandon Klein, Senior Product Manager at Bazaarvoice (and expert on all things product page), outlined a 5-point audit for perfecting your product pages. Here’s what he recommends.

1. Product page SEO optimization

You’ve spent a lot of company time and resources optimizing your product pages for higher conversions. But that’s all for nothing if shoppers can’t actually find your product pages through search — that’s where product page SEO comes in. Brandon highlights this point in this short clip from his Summit presentation below:

Expanding on that, product page SEO is the optimization of your product pages so the content on the page is found by search engines like Google. Search engine algorithms prioritize pages that are most relevant to the search query based on criteria like keyword matches and quality content. 

Here’s some of our favorite ways to use keywords naturally: 

• Include keywords in your page’s title tag and meta description, and make sure the page’s actual copy matches what you promise
• Use headings to break up copy and organize your page. Try to include a keyword in at least one of the headings, but only if it makes sense
• Include keywords throughout the page, like in product names, descriptions, and reviews 
• Incorporate keywords into an image’s alt-text if it naturally flows with the rest of the alt-text copy 
• Add internal links to any other related content on your site

The easiest way to boost your SEO though is by featuring user-generated content (UGC) like customer reviews, which can increase page traffic by nearly a third.

Customers writing reviews typically use long-tail keywords. So when someone else searches for the same terms found in product reviews, product pages linked with them appear in search results. Petco for example utilized UGC to boost their SEO standings and guess what happened? They saw a:

• 67% increase in number of pages ranked organically
• 140% increase in impressions from organic search
• 80% increase in clicks from organic search

In total, this led to a 48% increase in revenue per visit.

Product page SEO optimization isn’t just about ranking higher on Google and getting more site visits. The main goal here is to create a better user experience and give customers the exact information and visuals they need to make a confident purchase.

2. Put UGC front and center 

We know UGC is great for product page SEO. But it’s also what shoppers want to see when they’re browsing your digital (and physical) touchpoints. According to our recent survey, 74% of shoppers say they trust UGC more than branded content on product pages, and 55% are unlikely to buy a product without shopper content to inform their purchasing decisions.

UGC works because it provides the social proof shoppers need to inform decisions. According to Sabine Kaufmann, Head of e-commerce Operations Dining & Lifestyle, Villeroy & Boch, “user-generated content is one of the most trustworthy types of content a brand could show to their customers.”

Best Buy does a great job of displaying star ratings and review counts at the top of its product pages to help customers make confident purchasing decisions. On this listing for an iPad, shoppers will see that more than 3,400 customers have reviewed the product, and it has an average rating of 4.8 stars. 

Seeing an overall positive customer sentiment right away takes some of the risks out of buying an expensive item.

When it comes to collecting this UGC, diversifying your efforts is key because you’ll need a lot. You should consider leveraging review request emails and text messages, social media sweepstakes, and community requests. The most effective method for collecting UGC is product sampling, where you provide product samples in exchange for honest reviews or images. We surveyed 6,000 sampling recipients, and of those:

• 63% purchased the product they sampled
• 97% purchased at least one additional product from the brand

But according to Brandon, your best bet is using a range of solutions. These different strategies can kick-start your collection efforts, ensuring a constant supply of UGC across various methods simultaneously.

3. Respond to negative reviews and proactively address product shortfalls

Customers don’t mind if you have a few negative reviews for a product. They actually prefer it. We’ve seen that products with one or more negative reviews are perceived as more authentic and have higher conversion rates than those with a perfect 5-star rating or zero negative reviews. 

People also like responses to their negative reviews too — 54% of shoppers expect a response from the company if they write a negative review. The most successful e-commerce retailers use negative reviews as an opportunity to engage with customers, and identify potential product page improvements. The latter part is something Brandon called out specially in his presentation.

Negative reviews provide insights for improving products, which you can then update your product pages with. For example, several shoppers may leave a review saying that a pair of pants they ordered in their normal size ended up being too big. This negative feedback would allow your brand to update that product’s description to include helpful language like, “for a perfect fit, many customers prefer to size down.”

Children’s toy manufacturer KidKraft are pros at this. Watch Heather Stables, KidKraft’s Director of Consumer Engagement, explain how they use customer feedback to improve products and market messaging:

After recognising insights, the brand works on product page optimization to ensure copy matches the new product updates. They’ve since seen product improvement leading to an increase in sales.

Not only does utilizing customer feedback help consumers feel empowered to make better purchase decisions, but it can also prevent future negative reviews related to product description accuracy.

4. Distribute your content everywhere

Shoppers want a seamless transition as they engage with your brand through multiple channels, whether online, mobile, or in-store. 75% of shoppers expect a consistent brand experience regardless of channel, according to our Shopper Experience Index. Taking an omnichannel approach integrates your various channels to provide a consistent brand experience, letting you interact in the most convenient way.

Not having a robust omnichannel strategy is now a key barrier to success

Ainslie Fincham, Marketing Director, Urban Barn

An omnichannel strategy allows for quick adaptation to changing consumer preferences. It lets customers switch between channels without friction or loss of service, improving customer satisfaction and fosters loyalty.

Once you have this valuable content, it’s crucial to showcase it in all the right places — on social, in ads, on your product pages, and even in-store. You can do this by working with the right content syndication partner. By syndicating your content across all digital touchpoints, you ensure that customers can see it wherever they shop, maximizing your content ROI.

5. Make social content shoppable

Lastly, but certainly not least. Making your social content shoppable is by far one of the most important ways to increase your product page optimization. Social media is often the first place most shoppers will discover your brand, with 54% of consumers saying they often discover a product or service through social media. (That number rises to 73% for 18-24 year olds!)

They aren’t just scrolling past your products either, they’re making purchases. While the younger generations are leading this charge, even a quarter of shoppers aged 65+ purchased through social last year.

50% of all shoppers have purchased products through social media in the past year. So make sure that you’re turning social content into shoppable experiences that drive sales wherever your shoppers are. 

Shoppable content tools such as Like2buy turn your Instagram and TikTok Feeds into sales channels and Bazaarvoice Galleries brings authentic visual content from social into your website for you. For example Dreams, the UK’s leading bed specialist, uses Bazaarvoice Galleries to bring social UGC into its product pages and beyond, and has since seen a 200% lift in conversion rate.

Social is a great way to curate fresh, original, and authentic content that already exists, and has been created for you. But a recurring point Brandon makes around product page optimization is that channels shouldn’t be siloed. Put your social content across all channels and encourage purchase decisions everywhere your shoppers are.

4 product page optimization examples 

Let’s take a look at some of our favorite examples of product pages that convert. Note: Your product descriptions need to be easy to digest, especially because most customers are shopping from their mobile devices. By 2025, mobile e-commerce sales will account for 44% of retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. 

Iconic London

When it comes to makeup, authenticity reigns supreme. Shoppers want to see how different shades look on people who look like them, not in heavily curated brand imagery. Iconic London knows this and so brings in carousels of visual UGC from their community right onto their product pages.

Why it works: 

• The average star rating and number of reviews at the top of the page provides proof that this is a well-loved product
• Large imagery puts more social proof front and center
• Authentic visual UGC from real customers using the product(s) at home helps shoppers understand what the product is and how it fits into their existing skincare routine

Neutrogena

Cosmetics is a product category that really requires detailed product pages because customers can’t see or swatch the item in person. On this product page for Neutrogena’s MoistureSmooth Color Stick, the company takes a UGC-first, product-second approach.

Why it works: 

• A prominent design element halfway down the page includes a star rating and a quote from a customer about how the product feels in real life and how it works for their skin texture
• The gallery of social media images from real customers provides more information about how the product works in action
• The gallery encourages customers to “Share Your Glow” by tagging Neutrogena on Instagram or Twitter to be featured on the website
• The “Most Helpful Reviews” callout highlights one positive and one negative review that other shoppers have found useful

Nourison

Buying an area rug online can be a challenge because it’s difficult for shoppers to understand how it will look and feel when it arrives. Rug brand Nourison helps ease customers’ minds by incorporating a lot of great UGC on its pages. 

Why it works: 

• A gallery of social photos shows how customers have used this rug in their actual homes 
• The brand encourages future customers to share how they styled their rug at home by posting a picture on social media with the hashtag #Nourison
• The page displays the average rating for the product and number of reviews at the very top to signal that hundreds of others have bought and loved this rug
• The company uses short but detailed product descriptions and includes specs that tell customers where this rug would be best in their homes (a heavy-traffic area vs. a less-trafficked area)

Under Armour 

Our last example is a product page for an Under Amour shoe. The brand uses several tactics to help shoppers choose from the hundreds of shoes on its site. 

Why it works: 

• Shoppers get a complete, 360-degree view of the shoe, so they know there won’t be any surprises when they receive the product 
• Shoppers can filter reviews by rating, athlete type (casual or avid), size, and locale to see reviews that are more personalized to how they may be using the shoe 
• When a shopper starts to scroll on the page, the “Add to Bag” CTA becomes a sticky banner so customers can quickly put the item in their cart once they’ve made a decision 

Take your product pages to the next level

Product page optimization may seem like a tedious task, but in the end, it will be well worth it. If shoppers have all the information they need to make a successful purchase, you’ll set yourself apart from your competitors and see much higher conversion rates across your digital shelf.

With the rise of digital, product page optimization has become critical for consumer attention and conversion. Watch our full on-demand masterclass outlining the 5-point audit for optimizing your product pages, covering key topics like organic search, social commerce, user-generated content, and insights.

FEATURED RESOURCE

Perfecting your product detail page: A 5-point audit

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Community commerce, or content commerce, refers to entertaining content on platforms like TikTok, that also happens to feature products and connects viewers to brands. Thousands of brands are already benefiting from community commerce and there’s plenty of room for yours to join that list.

TikTokkers spend about 3% of their month on TikTok(!), giving ample time to spontaneously discover new brands. And they’re not just discovering brands, they’re buying from them too.

Last year, consumers spent $6.2 billion on TikTok and it recently became only the 5th app to ever gross $10 billion revenue. So if you haven’t jumped on the community commerce trend, here’s an overview of what it is, and why you should incorporate it into your marketing strategy. 

Chapters:

1. What is community commerce? 
2. How to get started with community commerce
3. Community commerce strategies 
4. Community commerce examples
5. Win community commerce with social commerce

What is community commerce? 

Community commerce is a type of word-of-mouth marketing driven by creators, characterized by entertaining, compelling content that features products or brands. Also referred to as content commerce, community commerce is embodied by the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag, which has 7.5 million posts and literally billions of views at the time of writing.

A shopping journey that might have taken 19 days before now takes 19 seconds

Ajay Salpekar, Head of Beauty & Personal Care, TikTok Shop

It works like this. You open up TikTok and stumble upon something on your For You page, and you’re inspired by it. You realize this cool new product exists. So you buy it right there in the app. A shopping journey that might have taken 19 days before now takes 19 seconds! Hear Ajay Salpekar, Head of Beauty & Personal Care at TikTok Shop expand on this below.

Shopping has always been a social- and community-driven event. But it’s shifted from shopping with a handful of friends at the local mall to TikTok and other social media platforms with virtual communities, composed of billions of members. 

Now creators — anyone with a phone and TikTok account! — are posting about your brand, adding hashtags, and tagging your products. And the key part is shoppers are discovering these products. 79% of users have discovered new brands through TikTok.

Through community commerce, you have a unique opportunity to build deeper connections with consumers by leveraging creators and their communities. You have a shot at authentically reaching a vast network of users looking for new things or discovering things they didn’t even know existed.

The rise of community commerce is rooted in the acceleration and widespread adoption of social commerce — the buying and selling of products on social media and everywhere social reaches. Social media has disrupted the purchase journey, which is now led by spontaneous discovery and inspiration, and no longer follows the traditional path.

How to get started with community commerce

During the recent Bazaarvoice Summit, Ajay Salpekar (reminder: Head of Beauty and Personal Care at TikTok Shop) talked about content commerce in the age of TikTok, where he outlined his recommendations for brands looking to join the community — whether enterprise level or a smaller team. Here’s his five main priorities for brands that see success:

1. Be willing to experiment. In Ajay’s own words, when it comes to nailing shoppable content, “brands who have a learning mindset or a learner’s mindset tend to do better a lot faster.” By that he means you need to actually be open to testing and implementing new features and journey paths, and have an analytical mindset that can guide you on what’s working and what isn’t
2. Relinquish control. One of the hardest aspects of getting started with community commerce is taking a step back and allowing creators to create in your name. Let creators create — they’re the experts after all! Besides, 67% of TikTokkers say they feel closer to brands that post humanized, unpolished content
3. Partner up with a mix of creators. Creator content is the lifeblood of community commerce but every creator will suit different needs. The mega and celeb creators will have a massive reach for building brand awareness, but tend to see lower engagement. Whereas micro-influencers are fantastic at building authentic, relatable content for their niche audiences. To catch that full myriad of shoppers, work with a good mix of both
4. Develop a holistic content plan. For the brand stewards out there, don’t stick to one content type. Build out your content supply chain with a mix of in-house, agency, and branded content. Don’t just assume one type will work best, use all of the above. And coming back to point #1 above, down the line you can use analytics to decide where to lean into more
5. Don’t work in silos. The final point Ajay makes is an important one — media is still a brand’s greatest amplifier. Community commerce hasn’t changed that. The expertise of agency, brand, marketing, and e-commerce teams all apply but most teams still work in silos. In reality, brands see the most success in the content commerce world when they all partner together for shoppable content

Community commerce strategies 

Social media continues to be a source of inspiration, where consumers learn about new products. The social media community drives product awareness, purchase consideration, and conversion. And it doesn’t just apply to younger generations like Gen Z either! A common misconception, as research shows.

So, it’s no longer enough for brands to simply have a social media presence. You need to engage with consumers, tell a story, and establish your brand as likable. That’s where community commerce comes in. Here’s how.

1. Put authenticity on display 

Community commerce works best when brands and consumers share a sense of belonging and emotional connection. By blending community, entertainment, shopping, and brand messaging, you can inspire authentic but unique product discovery and influence purchases. 

Authenticity is crucial in community commerce. Even the cool kids with sleek branding need to jump down a level or two. On Instagram, you may add highly stylized photos to attract attention, but that doesn’t work on TikTok.

Community commerce is about being real. It’s a chance for your brand to be its authentic self — whether that’s silly, playful, or vulnerable. 

2. Entertainment drives action 

On platforms like TikTok, users don’t want to be advertised to. Instead, they’re looking for unique experiences that are fun and entertaining! Whether it’s a game, funny dance, or a quirky contest or challenge, let your creativity run wild and jump on the latest trends.

Consumers want to discover new content that comes to life — and they don’t care if that content also contains products or showcases brands. That’s the beauty of community commerce content.

Remember when Ocean Spray, the 90-year-old brand, got a big boost after a viral TikTok video a few years back? It showed a man lip-syncing the Fleetwood Mac song “Dreams,” while riding a longboard and swigging the brand’s cranberry juice. 

The more entertaining you are, the more authentic you are. Low-cost airline are well known for this and have amassed a massive following on TikTok with their funny vids.

@ryanair Is your friendship worth €8 #pascal #nicolascage #ryanair ♬ original sound – ghoulia

Their content gets people talking. And more buzz means higher awareness and product discovery, which translates to purchases and consumer engagement. 

3. Tap into creator- and user-generated content  

We’re in a a creator economy. With TikTok’s reach growing, the best way to reach these consumers is by partnering with creators and influencers who are already on the platform. Working with creators (NB: a mix of different types!) will drive awareness of your brand and help you come across as more relatable.

Let your everyday fans be your creators, too. Encouraging user-generated content (UGC), such as videos of consumers using your products, heightens the authenticity factor. Most consumers appreciate the chance to get creative and engage with their favorite brands.

Over half (53%) of shoppers identify themselves as UGC creators, according to our research, and 70% are happy to share their social content with brands when asked.

This approach will help you build new communities. Just encourage everyone to use hashtags related to your brand and product sector, like #beauty or #fashion. Community commerce content is quick to create. TikTok was designed to make content creation easy and expensive, and videos can be uploaded within minutes.

4. Make your content shoppable 

All of the above is pretty superfluous if users can’t purchase directly through the app. Remember, as consumers are watching funny dance or outlandish challenge videos, they’re discovering new products and being inspired to purchase. 54% of TikTok users have purchased a brand after seeing it on the platform. That’s the spirit of community commerce and why #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has billions of views. But they can’t do that if your content isn’t shoppable!

TikTok Shop, for example, lets brands link their Shopify product catalogs, which will show up in the Shopping tab on your profile. Other e-commerce platforms, like Square and OpenCart, will be on board soon. You can also add product links to videos that feature your items. 

And link-in-bio solutions such as Like2Buy make all of your TikToks (and Instagrams!) shoppable without leaving the app.

5. Amplify your message beyond social

Social media shouldn’t be restricted to social! Towards the end of his Summit presentation, Ajay went on to explain that brands that do really well with media on TikTok are the ones that partner deeply with creators, and then very quickly turn on the taps for their media spend to amplify the messages that work well for the brand.

That means syndicating your creator content to everywhere else your shoppers are. Think product pages, emails, paid ads, and even in-store! Getting your content in front of shoppers everywhere they are means purchases can happen anywhere, anytime, instantly. Your bottom line will thank you for it.

Community commerce examples 

Brands are tapping into community commerce, energizing their customers, and driving sales in the process. Here’s three examples of community commerce in action.

Benefit Cosmetics

Benefit Cosmetics is a global beauty brand that decided to partner with TikTok Shop for their launch of Fan Fest Mascara, which was their biggest launch of the year. It was an exclusive launch with TikTok Shop, and they were the first brand to go live for 24 hours.

@gabriella__andrea @Benefit Cosmetics Fan Fest Mascara 9/10 • @Charlotte Tilbury magic cream & setting spray @loréal paris usa lumi glotion @Estée Lauder double wear foundation @tarte cosmetics sculpt tape & pressed powder deep tan (its broken lol) @e.l.f. Cosmetics @elfcosmetics monochromatic blush stick & lip stain @Milani berry amore blush & lip oil @maccosmetics @maccosmeticsusa stufio fix pressed powder @Laura Mercier loose setting powder @NYX Professional Makeup brow pencil @L.A. Girl Cosmetics lip liner @Too Faced an ancient highlight, bronze, blush palette im obsessed with! @Gisou hair oil @Gucci bloom perfume • #grwm #trending #gucci #guccibloom #makeuphacks #benefit #benefitcosmetics #fanfest #fanfestmascara #benefitfanfestmascara #benefitfanfest ♬ hits different speed up – elly

Since launch, they’ve had over 500 videos made featuring Fan Fest, with upwards of 63 million views. But more importantly, sales of the Fan Fest Mascara even outpaced their own e-commerce site with 48,000 units sold.

Maybelline 

In an effort to boost its brand image and emotional connection with Gen Z shoppers, Maybelline worked with TikTok beauty creator @jessica.eid_ and others to promote its Lash Sensational Sky HIgh Mascara and other products. The overall campaign brought in:

• 20 million impressions
• 553,000 engagements
• 20% increase in sales

Not only that, but the mascara went viral, with a 49% increase in sales during the week of the promotion and a 190% increase month-over-month. The mascara also sold out on Ulta Beauty’s website four times over. 

American Eagle

Apparel brand American Eagle partnered with TikTok star Addison Rae on the #InMyAEJeans back-to-school branded hashtag challenge in 2020. The campaign asked TikTok users to make a video with American Eagle’s song while wearing their favorite jeans from the brand.

Using the hashtag #InMyAEJeans for a chance to be featured in a duet with Rae. After the campaign, American Eagle had:

• 432,000 TikTokkers making 800,000 videos
• 7 billion views for the campaign

In another campaign, American Eagle’s Aerie line saw its OFFLINE crossover leggings sell out multiple times after TikTok influencer @hannahschlenker posted a video about them to her more than 800,000 followers. The video went viral, attracting nearly 900,000 likes. 

Win community commerce with social commerce 

Social media offers the potential to reach billions of people and an infinite number of communities. Engaging these consumers depends on creating fun, entertaining content that shows off your products in an authentic, meaningful way. 

Brands are already demonstrating the benefits of community commerce on TikTok. These strategies can help you kickstart your own community commerce strategy — so that you can foster emotional connections with shoppers that inspire them to get to know your brand and make a purchase or two.

And that’s only the beginning. Want to turn social content into shoppable experiences that drive sales wherever shoppers are? Read The ultimate guide to social commerce conversion to discover how.

FEATURED RESOURCE

Masterclass: Content commerce in the age of TikTok

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The creator economy market size is already valued over $100 billion and predicted to reach half a trillion dollars by 2027. This shows how shopping is evolving, what people think about authentic voices, and how the people that most influence shoppers’ lives has changed. 

Let’s take a look at what the creator economy is, why creator content is valuable, how brands can leverage the creator economy, and the current and upcoming trends we’re seeing in the market.

Chapters:

1. What is the creator economy?
2. Benefits of the creator economy
3. Creator economy trends
4. How brands can succeed in the creator economy
5. Getting started in the creator economy

What is the creator economy?

The creator economy refers to the highly valued market of content creators — every day social media users who make content on social platforms. Really it’s any monetized form of content creation.

When we talk about the creator economy, we’re talking about a system of people who create content that’s shared and consumed by their peers, their friends, and in the media space. It used to be you’d only find a very small community that was engaged in a niche topic. But now that niche content finds a bigger community through these networks.

This is really changing how we think about what content is, and how you get your message to audiences that were never before possible. Some stats to put the creator economy into perspective:

• There’s over 200 million global content creators — these creators are typically operating on at least two platforms
• 44% of advertisers plan to increase spending with creators in 2024
• Brands are anticipating increasing creator content budgets by 25% in 2024
• 39% of consumers watch more creator content now than the year prior

This shows how quickly the creator economy is being legitimized. For example look no further than Addison Rae, one of the most popular influencers out there, who just starred in a Super Bowl commercial. It’s a huge opportunity for your brand to work with creators!

Benefits of the creator economy

The digital space is competitive and it’s getting harder to reach audiences purely with digital ad spend. Working with creators gives you an opportunity to connect with consumers, with more relevant and cost-effective content.

Hear Bazaarvoice’s own Global Head of Community Growth & Engagement, Terry Hurlbutt, outline some of these opportunities below in this short clip from her Bazaarvoice Summit presentation on creator economy trends and social shopping strategies.

Expanding on from Terry’s expertise, let’s look into other benefits of the creator economy.

Boost authenticity

Creators build their brand(s) on making genuine connections with their audiences. They’re bringing their followers into their success, pitfalls, and even their stories of vulnerability in their daily lives. And that builds real connection. A connection strong enough that when they do offer a product, even in a paid partnership, their audiences are still really interested in learning more about the product their favorite creators share with them.

100% of shoppers we surveyed have purchased products based on a creator’s recommendations, which circles back to that trust that the creator has built with their audience. If you follow someone who posts daily and you enjoy their content, you’re more inclined to go and get a product they enjoy.

So there’s a real authenticity (and sales!) boost when you partner with creators.

More relevant content

By its nature, the creator economy makes content more relevant to shoppers. What’s so helpful here is that this user-generated content, content created by creators, helps consumers see how products look in a “real world” setting versus branded content, which still has a place but doesn’t necessarily show you that same real-world experience. 

We tend to see higher engagement when visual UGC is integrated with branded content. According to our research, the majority of shoppers want to see both branded photos (83%) and shopper photos (76%) to make a confident purchase on product pages.

There’s also the amazing opportunity for creator content to help you increase your audience engagement and reach. Shoppers are more likely to follow their favorite brands. And so the more creator content you have in your social mix, that’s more likely to pay off because they’re already following you on social. 

Keep up with content demands

We need a lot of content.

Everyone working in the creator economy realm and social sphere knows how much time and effort is spent really trying to beat those pesky algorithms and stand out in a crowded social marketplace.

Over 500 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every minute, 34 million videos uploaded a day on TikTok, and on Instagram there’s over 66,000 photos uploaded per minute. By comparison, those couple of pieces of branded content you upload per week aren’t even a drop in the ocean.

Rather than increasing investment to produce more content in-house, partner with creators who can pack your content supply chain with a steady flow of authentic content for you. Tapping into existing communities of creators like the Influenster community ensures your brand benefits from an always-on source of fresh content.

Creator economy trends

The creator economy will continue to evolve, such is the nature of working in the social. It’s important to in the loop. With that, as experts in the creator partnerships space, these are the latest creator economy trends we’re most excited about!

Brand storytelling 

Do you ever find yourself a little worried sometimes because social media algorithms are just too good? Let’s say you’re a parent so you check out an account talking about parenting hacks. The next thing you know your whole Explore page is full up of parenting hacks and ideas.

Your Reels are full of tips and tricks for parenting, cooking, and staying organized in the midst of child-rearing. Whether it’s through memes or people sharing their tough moments of the day, they really resonate with you. You feel grateful for that connection. They make a significant impact on your life, and you’re deeply thankful for them.

This is brand storytelling in action. These trends that speak directly to your audience’s personal experiences and connect them to your brand. The power of social media and the creator economy recognizes the diverse voices and perspectives that contribute to your sense of community.

Video content

First it killed the radio star, now video is coming for your static images. 89% of consumers want to see more videos from brands this year. What video does that static images can’t is really show shoppers your products actually in use. Whether it’s how to build something, how a jacket looks in motion, how to assemble something, etc. Video provides a whole new avenue.

Let your analytics decide for you whether static images or video works best, but between IG Reels and TikTok’s boom, video is a trend that can’t be ignored for much longer. TikTok shops intend to grow the business 10x this year, hoping to get to about $17.5 billion revenue, so video provides commerce opportunities also.

Livestream shopping

Another potentially lucrative angle for the creator economy is livestream shopping. Still in its infancy, it’s one of the most closely followed industry trends. Already big in China and other parts of Asia, livestream shopping has been gradually making its way stateside and consumers are taking note.

Livestream shopping provides brands with a new, engaging way to get products in front of shoppers — who can purchase them instantly! 

How brands can succeed in the creator economy

Do you want to work with creators but you’re not sure where to start? Or maybe you’re experienced with influencer outreach and need a refresher? Here’s the best practices to follow.

Work with the right creator(s)

Not every creator will be the right fit for your brand. When you’re choosing creators to work with, influence (reach, engagement, brand values, and audience relationships) is more important than just their number of followers — 72% of consumers don’t actually care about follower counts and smaller audiences tend to see higher engagement anyway.

There’s a lot of different creators out there who may have smaller follower counts, but who will align more closely with your brand, and would make more impact. The priority should be finding creators who align with your brand values and style, and letting them go and create.

@bazaarvoiceofficial PSA: leverage the Creator Economy! Let creators create in their own authentic style #socialmediaweek #smw #smm  #creatoreconomy @adweek ♬ Taste It – TELL YOUR STORY music by Ikson

Lean into the expertise of your creators. You’re partnering with them because they know exactly the best way to connect with their audiences. And because they put out content every day, they have their finger on the pulse of what works best.

When you reach out to them, just be very honest and clear about what you’re looking for and what your expectations are. Working with high-quality, brand-safe creators is really important. Tools like Bazaarvoice affable.ai can help you find, identify, reach out to, and manage relationships and campaigns with these creators on a long-term basis.

Pick the right platform

TikTok is an entertainment platform first and a social platform second. So be entertaining. Brands can reach new audiences by engaging with this form of entertainment. A good example is Prose. The hair care brand went outside of their traditional creator demographic and partnered with a comedic TikTok influencer to endorse them, and they reached a whole new audience through this.

And large gaming communities already exist, which provide a natural platform for digital expansion.

For example, clothing giant Gucci teamed up with Rook Vanguard, a creator for online game platform Roblox. Together, they built the Gucci Garden Experience which allowed users to explore various boutiques of virtual items.

Use your everyday creators

Regular people are creating every day. If you have a phone and an Instagram account, you’re a part of the creator economy. Which is why at Bazaarvoice, we always advise that the most effective change you can make is using this user-generated content from everyday people.

Not only is UGC considered more trustworthy and influential, it also supports stronger brand storytelling as we mentioned earlier. Something a lot of brands struggle with on social media. Storytelling with UGC naturally leads to the community because you’re highlighting end users, and oftentimes those who were not paid, but just simply love your products.

And UGC doesn’t just tell a story, it drives sales too. 54% of shoppers say they’d be more likely to buy a product on social media if they could click the post and get product info right on the platform. Before, if you scrolled past a t-shirt you liked on Instagram, you’d then have to Google the brand and try and find the t-shirt manually. Now though, with an effective social commerce solution, shoppers can go directly from app to checkout. No fuss!

Sharing community content helps grow your social media presence and builds positive relationships with your customers. Leading to better advocacy, repeat customers, and increased sales. Creator-generated content is out there, you just need to go out and find it.

Have a budget

When you’re just starting out with creator outreach, budget can be as big or small as you want. It just depends on what you’re ready to do from an investment standpoint. If you’re treating it more like a pilot, maybe try to look for five, six creators and learn from that.

But there’s no benchmark answer. It depends on where you are in your creator marketing cycle and also just what your overall marketing budget for the year is. But 75% of brands and retailers spend over 60% of their budget on branded content — free up some space and costs with UGC creators.

Sample your products

If you want everyday shoppers posting content about your brand (reminder: you do!) you need to get your products in their hands. Product sampling is how you do it. A hyper-targeted product sampling campaign ensures you:

• Launch products with a bang by collecting reviews and imagery from your community pre-launch
• Give life core products by generating fresh reviews
• Learn valuable customer feedback to improve messaging and identify new market opportunities

Getting started in the creator economy

In the consumer-to-consumer era we’re living in, it’s creators who are your new storefront. They’re not only creating original content, but they’re influencing other shoppers. Consumers no longer rely on content or marketing from brands, they rely on authentic UGC created by their fellow shoppers. That’s what’s going to influence them to make a purchase, not you.

The creator economy is not a passing trend, it’s essential for the success of your business.

The first step to getting started with the creator economy is to leverage UGC, and those who are creating it. But not all content is created equally. You’ll want to make sure you find the right creator(s) for your brand and team up with a platform that can combine the power of creators with social commerce solutions.

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From pixels to profits: Creator trends and social shopping strategies

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Did you have a chance to attend the Bazaarvoice Summit 2024?

If so, then we hope you had the chance to catch an amazing presentation from our client, Army & Air Force Exchange Service, aka The Exchange. Both Monetate and Bazaarvoice have the honor of working with The Exchange.

At Monetate, we work closely with their team to provide personalized experiences and relevant content for their customers shopping at their online store at shopmyexchange.com.

During the Bazaarvoice Summit, Shane Binion, E-commerce Marketing Manager, The Exchange, shared with attendees how his team is leveraging Monetate Personalization to build personalized experiences for active military, retirees, veterans, their families, and other personnel across the entire customer journey.

We’re proud to play a role in helping The Exchange to make the customer journey easier and more personalized, featuring trusted information from other shoppers when making purchases online.

Here we’re going to talk about The Exchange’s mission and how we support them in their endeavor.

Chapters:

1. What is the customer journey?
2. Why personalization matters for the customer journey
3. How to serve up personalized content
4. The impact of personalization on The Exchange’s customer journey

What is the customer journey?

The customer journey encompasses all the experiences customers undergo while engaging with your company and brand. Rather than focusing solely on isolated transactions or encounters, it captures the entirety of the customer experience.

In essence, it’s the series of steps a shopper takes to them becoming a customer. Optimizing the customer journey through personalization provides a better shopping experience, which leads to more purchases — personalization can increase revenue by up to 15%. For example, let’s look at The Exchange.

Why personalization matters for the customer journey

Serving an eligible customer base of 33.4 million shoppers worldwide, The Exchange is the US Department of Defense’s largest retailer.

The Exchange provides goods and services for the Army, Air Force, Space Force, Navy, Marines, and the Coast Guard. If you’ve ever been on a military base, then you might be familiar with PXs and BXs – The Exchange operates those locations too.

Their website features goods and services from top brands, including Nike, Graco, Disney, Lego, The Home Depot, Lego, Samsung, and more. All purchases are tax-free, feature exclusive military pricing, and 100% of The Exchange’s earnings support the military community.

For Shane Binion and his team, they use automated personalization and product recommendations to provide a superior user experience when shopping online.

When it comes to an e-commerce strategy, the following initiatives are important to The Exchange:

• Build and maintain trust and loyalty in a highly competitive retail environment
• Deliver on customer expectation of personalization when shopping online
• Serve dynamic product recommendations depending on where the customer is on the site or in the sales funnel

Just how do they accomplish these e-commerce and personalization goals?

How to serve up personalized content

It’s important for The Exchange to provide the most personalized and smoothest experience for every customer across the whole shopping journey. Shane and his team use personalized content in several different ways to serve their customers.

First, it’s important to note that only active military, veterans, their families and other military personnel past and present can shop on The Exchange’s website. Therefore, to shop, customers have to login as members.

What makes this shopping experience unique is that The Exchange has a wealth of first-party data about each customer. By the nature of their business, they know who their customers are, their location, their military branch, and more.

Here’s how this data, alongside Monetate Personalization, leads to personalized content.

Branch specific banners

Thanks to first-party member data, The Exchange knows what branch of the military their customers belong to. Therefore, they can serve products by branch – Army, Air Force and Space Force, etc., for a truly customized shopping experience.

Weather specific banners

Are members expecting rain? Snow? Cold temperatures? With geolocation from Monetate, The Exchange knows where their customers are located and what the predicted weather forecast is for their region.

For customers expecting stormy weather, The Exchange serves targeted banners promoting rain gear. For regions expecting snow and cold weather, customers see banners promoting winter gear.

The banners are scheduled to start appearing two days before the predicted weather situation, giving members time to purchase umbrellas, coats and other supplies to prepare for the weather conditions.

Become a military star

Another service provided by The Exchange is the Military Star credit card. Thanks to customer data, The Exchange knows which customers have the credit card and who does not.

For customers that don’t have the Military Star credit card, they’re served with a promotion to sign up, increasing the number of members to get the credit card.

Testing web banners

As any marketer and merchandiser can tell you, testing is important and necessary when building out the customer journey online. With Monetate, you can continue to experiment and build out your findings for refinement.

The Exchange leveraged Monetate to test whether placing “Story Elements” above “Shop By Category Elements” would end up increasing customer engagement and the depth of the customer drive.

But what The Exchange found is that this theory only worked for Patio, Garden & Garage, where placing “Story Elements” above “Shop By Category” resulted in a boost in average order value by +13%.

For all other categories results were flat, suggesting that customers tend to respond better to “Shop By Category” being higher up on the page.

The Exchange also conducted some tests around their homepage banner.

They felt their current style was too cluttered and distracting. They wanted to test whether a new banner that would take the visitor to a PLP (product landing page), featuring multiple CTA banners would be more effective and result in more clicks.

But what The Exchange found was that the metrics between the two experiences were flat. Customers responded to the complex banner the same as the simpler banner. Armed with these findings, The Exchange can keep refining the UX and customer journey on the website and impacting key metrics.

Product recommendations help customers find what they love

The Exchange has also done some incredible work in product recommendations leveraging Monetate.

They currently have 10 containers that are live and expanding. They also target both new and returning visitors, with trending items and actively promote cross sell items towards the end of the conversion funnel. On top of that, they’re even working on building a Deal’s Page to recommend sale items to help customers get a great deal.

As we discussed earlier, The Exchange honors the individual military branches customers belong to when shopping online. This strategy also rolls over into product recommendations, with The Exchange targeting various product recommendations based on branch of service.

One other fun example is how The Exchange leverages product recommendations and sports fandom. The Exchange has a Fan Shop where sport items, like team jerseys, are recommended to shoppers based on their team preferences.

The impact of personalization on The Exchange’s customer journey

Through working with The Exchange and with Shane and his team, Monetate has been key in helping the team to deliver success.

In 2023 alone, the team delivered 53 million personalized experiences, influencing 7.1% of revenue. Shane and his team also launched 104 digital experiences through the Monetate platform. So far, in 2024, The Exchange is on track for even more growth, delivering 4.8 million personalized sessions in January alone, influencing 4.4% of revenue.

We look forward to our continued work with The Exchange as they continue their personalization of the customer journey. Eager to hear more? Watch Monetate and The Exchange’s full on-demand Summit session right here.

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Creating a connected shopping journey with social content

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You’ve been served retargeting ads before, some more effectively than others. Some sites (not naming names, Amazon) love to retarget you with ads for items you’ve already bought. These ads are useless when the item they’re showing is one you (hopefully) won’t need to repurchase soon, like a toaster or a pair of headphones.

But sometimes, you see that cute top you were waffling over, or those pants you love now come in another color…and they’re on sale. 

This is the kind of retargeting you want your company to do: the kind that reaches high-potential buyers with info that will convince them to convert. Campaigns that can do this are a great option for online retailers, especially small and mid-sized outfits. They have a fantastic ROI and can help you increase sales among newcomers as well as returning customers.  

Okay, but what if you’ve never done retargeting marketing before? It may seem like a big world to jump into, especially given the looming changes to third-party cookies. But you don’t need to feel overwhelmed. Here’s how to sell your boss (or your boss’s boss) on green-lighting a campaign — and how to launch and administer it so their investment proves itself worthwhile. 

Chapters:

1. What is retargeting in marketing?
2. Three benefits of retargeting marketing
3. Elements of a good retargeting ad campaign
4. How to get started with retargeting marketing
5. Win at retargeting marketing with contextualization

What is retargeting in marketing?

Retargeting marketing campaigns exist to reach out to prospects who have already shown interest in your company or products in the hopes of convincing them to buy. The clue’s in the name.

As a marketer, you probably know the rule of seven. This guideline tells us that most customers need to encounter a brand at least seven times before making a purchase. It’s a concept that was born pre-internet but has been reaffirmed multiple times in the digital age.

Retargeting helps your brand reach that magic number by tracking your online visitors across the web to serve them branded ads. You can use retargeting for display ads on any website or to reach your prospects on social media. 

And now that the modern e-commerce funnel has changed (read: collapsed) and purchases can happen anywhere at any time, retargeting marketing increases your chances of driving purchases even further.

Preferably, these ads call back to a shopper’s interactions with your brand and products. Even if your target doesn’t click an ad, seeing it will increase their familiarity with your brand while keeping their shopping (sorry, browsing) experience top-of-mind.

The idea is to build enough trust and remind your would-be buyers about your products enough times to finally earn that sale. 

Three benefits of retargeting marketing

Anyone can launch and benefit from a retargeting marketing campaign. However, the upsides are especially big for small and mid-sized retailers. National and multinational brands have more to spend on marketing and, therefore, have a much easier time staying top-of-mind with audiences.

Retargeting marketing allows your small brand to do more with less and reach niche audiences much more easily.

1. Generate (targeted) awareness for less

Because people typically need familiarity with a brand before they choose to buy, merchants have to do a lot of work upfront to woo potential customers. Large brands can plaster the web (and the physical world) with ads and other buzzy marketing campaigns. Smaller brands simply don’t have that luxury.

Retargeting allows you to build awareness on a budget by focusing on a narrower (and high-potential) audience. When you spend money to retarget people who have heard of your brand and products at least once, you’re speaking to an audience that’s already somewhat engaged.

You’re not spending money on thousands of views that won’t result in any interest, you’re being smart with your ad spend to find those who already are. 

2. Easily promote new items or collections

A successful product launch requires significant investment in marketing. As with your awareness campaigns, using retargeting allows you to make a smaller investment without losing your chance to make a splash. 

Done well, retargeting allows you to segment your audience by behavior and/or interest. You can use your existing retargeting lists to pinpoint would-be buyers who are most likely to care about a new product.

For instance, shoppers who have previously looked at women’s activewear might want to know about those new yoga pants in stock. Those who have been browsing your phone cases might be a good target for ads sharing your stylish new power banks.

3. Increase customer lifetime value (CLV)

You don’t have to limit your retargeting efforts to prospective customers — why not reach out to those who have already bought from you to see if you can entice them to return? You can share a new product as mentioned above or maybe to let them know your company’s having a sale. If you sell items that need to be replenished regularly, maybe showing a new series of ads every other month will remind them and bring them back to your store.

Retargeting gives you a way to do personalized marketing on a small scale and effectively reach audiences who are likely to make a purchase. 

Elements of a good retargeting ad campaign

A retargeting marketing campaign isn’t guaranteed to work just because you’re reaching out to customers who have recently expressed interest in your brand. Your ads still need to speak to your audience’s needs and desires and reach them in the right place and at the right time.

Keep your campaigns effective by following these criteria.

Highly specific ads

Retargeting campaigns aren’t just about reminding people your brand exists. It’s about reminding people why they were interested in your brand to begin with. That’s why these ads typically feature products rather than generic brand imagery or content.

The more your ad speaks to a target’s reason for visiting your site in the first place, the better chance it has of achieving its desired goal — to bring them back so they’ll complete the purchase. Display the exact item(s) your target viewed, products within the same category or that share a use case, or items you know are popular among the demographic your target is part of. 

Specific ads give viewers a concrete reason to check out your site again, and when they come to your store with that reason in mind, they’re more likely to make a purchase.  

Coordinated landing pages

This is a must-have for any ad campaign, and it’s no different in the world of retargeting marketing. Your ads are specific, so your landing pages must be, too. 

Ads that tout the product someone was looking at but then bounce them to your homepage will leave a bad taste in your audience’s mouth by wasting their time. They know what they are after — so take them straight to it, explain the benefits, and make the purchase easy to complete! 

Adequate longevity

Retargeting campaigns aren’t one-and-done. You’re looking to slowly build up familiarity with and trust in your brand. That means you should expect and want your audience members to view your retargeting ads more than once. You’ve caught them during a decision period, and you want to keep reaching them as they weigh your brand and product against other options.

The length of the decision period varies from product to product — someone who’s looking for a new TV is likely to spend more time browsing reviews than someone who just wants a fun new accessory for their summertime socializing. 

One thing to keep in mind is how often during the decision period a person sees your ads. Especially if they’re likely to spend a lot of time considering different options, constantly bombarding them with ads is more likely to annoy them than to win them over.

Most brands set frequency caps on retargeting ads for this exact reason, so no one feels like you’re following them around incessantly. 

Smart targeting

Retargeting ads are meant to go after potential buyers, but not everyone who visits your site is one of those. Don’t let these campaigns exceed their usefulness by casting too wide a net. 

For example, targeting everyone who hits your homepage will mean a lot of money spent on people who looked around and decided your brand didn’t match their needs. The same goes for targeting someone who spent ten seconds on a product page before bouncing. 

Make sure your retargeting marketing is aimed at individuals who have engaged with your brand. What that means may vary based on your industry and typical customer behaviors, but typically, it involves interacting with a product page by looking at product details or reading reviews, visiting multiple pages on your site, or signing up for an account. 

How to get started with retargeting marketing

Sold yet? If not, we’ll wait while you refresh yourself on the small percentage of buyers who actually make a purchase on any given visit to your e-commerce store. If yes, we hope you’re ready to get started — because jumping in doesn’t have to be a big deal. 

Don’t be afraid to start small with retargeting. Your initial campaigns can help you gather data and prove the effectiveness of the method. Here’s how to launch your very first one. 

Add a retargeting pixel to your website (and start gathering customer data)

The very first step in launching a retargeting campaign is finding ways to identify your audience so you can find them elsewhere online. You’ll want to add the Google Remarketing Tag and Facebook’s Conversions API to your site. 

Note that Google’s retargeting tag may not be helpful for long. In response to customer demands for more privacy (and governmental pushes for the same), third-party cookies like the tracking pixel are being phased out. Google is already blocking them for a small percentage of browser users and testing new advertising tools and techniques on that population. The company is still refining its new ad offerings, but it seems traditional cookie-based retargeting won’t have an analog in this new system. 

Therefore, you need to get something a bit more stable than a browser cookie. Facebook’s Conversions API is one example of a tool that will outlast this change — other sites may or may not release their own. You can take matters into your own hands by convincing visitors to sign up for your email list or share their phone number for text message marketing purposes.

Once third-party cookies are gone for good, customers’ contact information will be the best, if not the only, way to retarget them.

Link your pixel (and upload customer data) to retargeting ad providers

You can retarget ads through multiple platforms: Google Display Network, the Google SERP, and social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. (Note that the latter two also have their own retargeting pixels for you to install if you choose to use these platforms.)

The setup for each site is a little different, so we’ll let them explain best practices to you. 

For now, you may simply need to follow the steps on each site to set up your third-party cookies. However, if the option is available, we recommend you get used to uploading your email lists. You’ll have to start doing it someday, so why not build the foundations for your next-gen retargeting efforts now? 

As a plus, you can start learning how to best segment these audiences when cookies aren’t doing all the work for you.

Segment your audience by behavior and preferences

Personalized ads tend to work better, and the best way to personalize retargeting ads is by looking at what your customers do on your site. Of course, this type of retargeting marketing may become more time-intensive once third-party cookies are fully out of the picture. Still, let’s talk a little bit about what this kind of retargeting can do.

Even if your store has a very narrow niche, your shoppers likely came to the site looking for a specific item or type of product. The more you know about what they were after, the better; you can reach them with retargeting ads that promote the product or product category they were browsing. Ads that understand your audience’s needs will, of course, do a better job of bringing them back to your site.  

However, this type of retargeting requires the ability to track each user closely and then transmit their browsing data to an ad server, which will become much harder when third-party cookies are no longer allowed. It may be easier to build retargeting ad campaigns around your most popular products — the ones that your visitors are more likely to have looked at or at least know about.

You can then break out these ads by demographic, so you have a campaign aimed at millennial women, one for Gen Z women, one for millennial men, and so on.

Finally, sometimes audience behavior isn’t just about what they view on your site, it’s about how far they get in the customer journey. A person who browses your site for ten minutes has a different relationship to your brand than one who makes an account, and that person needs a different approach than one who put some items in their cart but then decided not to buy. 

To recap, here’s the ways you can segment your audience (and tailor ads accordingly):

• By product viewed: Serve ads that show the exact product(s) a visitor viewed on your site. This reminds viewers of the item they liked while building brand awareness and trust. 
• By product category: Serve ads that display the same type of products (for example, women’s going-out tops or healthy snacks) a visitor viewed on your site. This keeps your brand top-of-mind for any shopping your audience wishes to do in the same area.
• By audience demographic: Serve ads that speak to the various market segments you serve, whether that’s different generations or just “people who like running” vs. “people who like swimming.” These ads promote the demographic’s most-bought items to invite audiences to get in on a trend with your brand.
• By onsite behavior: Serve ads that target the most engaged customers — those who abandoned their carts (or, if your site has the capability, those who favorited items or added them to a wishlist). Use this campaign to remind shoppers of the items they almost bought and invite them to come back and finish the purchase.

Of course, there’s multiple ways to dice up audiences within each of these options. Choose one to get started with, and try different methods of targeting (or different types of ads) to see what works best. Or save time and work with a contextualization partner who can segment for you based on AI-powered insights.

Convince on-the-fence shoppers with UGC-based ads

Now, it’s time to create the actual ads! You’ve likely seen retargeting ads that follow you around the web with product pictures. They’re noticeable because of the familiarity, but this format doesn’t bring a lot to the table in terms of convincing audiences to give you a second look.

Ads that feature user-generated content (UGC) stand out and have a better chance of connecting with your audience. Imagine if, instead of seeing that set of dinnerware displayed against a white background, you saw an ad that showed the dinnerware in use at a fantastic party. Or, if the ad used reviews to tell you previous buyers thought it was “sturdy enough that you don’t have to worry about putting it in the dishwasher, despite the decorations.” 

These authentic product experiences can only be found in UGC, and they do a lot more to build trust because they show that other people trust you, too. 

Choose or create landing pages for your retargeting campaign

Whether you’re using existing pages as the target of your ads or creating new ones, make sure the content of the page matches what people saw in the ad. If your retargeting campaigns feature one item, you can probably just link audiences to that product page. Just make sure it’s easy for them to buy the item once they get there.

However, if you’re featuring more than one item in your retargeting ads, consider linking to a collection or product category.

The other option is to create a unique landing page with the item(s) you featured and a streamlined checkout — in other words, to save shoppers the hassle of doing the add to cart > visit cart > check out dance. You may see more conversions from this type of page, especially if you target it toward people who spent a long time on an item’s product page or denoted their interest in some other way. 

Either way, think about including UGC on your landing page as well. We’ll assume you already have reviews turned on, but do you share product videos or images, including the one(s) you used in your ad campaign? Showing that media again will make the interaction feel more cohesive and remind users why they clicked on your ad in the first place. 

Set your budget for your retargeting campaigns

You don’t have to spend a lot on retargeting campaigns to be successful. It’s possible to start off with just a few dollars a day when you’re only looking to reach a very small number of people. If you’ve never done retargeting marketing before, we recommend starting small. Retargeting tool AdRoll suggests smaller retailers can launch a campaign with around $50 per day. 

If even that’s a difficult sell to make, it might help to remind stakeholders that your budget will determine the quality of the results and data you gather. You shouldn’t build a campaign off “insights” you gathered from ten or twenty people. Likewise, hitting a larger number of people for a very limited amount of time (say, a week or two) is unlikely to show results because retargeting is about repeated exposure to your brand and products. 

Marketers who face budget constraints may consider limiting ads to one platform — try starting with your best-performing social site if you’re in this situation. You can also set frequency caps to make sure you don’t pop up in any one person’s feed too often. This allows you to keep the scope small without hampering your ability to retarget a good number of visitors. 

Track important retargeting metrics

The most important metrics in a retargeting campaign are your click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per conversion. You may track other data points as well to help you understand how many touches it takes to convince a target to return to your site and how many people come back even if they still aren’t ready to buy. But these are the big three.

• Click-through rate tells you how effective your ads are. You can compare your CTR across platforms to see which method is the best for reaching consumers, and across campaigns to see which ads are enticing the most customers to return to your site
• Conversion rate tells you how many of those clicks result in a sale. This is where you get the ROI from your retargeting marketing efforts, so you want to make sure you have these numbers on hand to prove your experiment is working!
• Cost per conversion helps you understand how efficient your ad campaign is. It helps you understand how retargeting ads perform compared to your other (non-retargeting) campaigns. This is another number that can work as justification to support continued retargeting efforts

Of course, not all retargeting campaigns result in someone clicking the ad and making a purchase — they may return to your site on their own accord after viewing a certain number of ads. While this behavior can’t be directly attributed to your ads (at least right now), keep track of when this happens. 

You may find your ad campaigns correlate with changes like a smaller gap between first visit and eventual purchase, visitors needing fewer site visits before they make a purchase, or other behavioral indicators that your ads are making a difference. 

Win at retargeting marketing with contextualization

The magic of retargeting marketing is that these ads directly respond to consumer actions, making personalization easy. You’re addressing a warm lead instead of trying to nurture a new one. Of course, this means you have to retarget your audience soon after their visit to your site.

Retargeting campaigns can’t be set up as a response to consumer behaviors, they have to be prepped and ready to deploy as soon as an individual shows sufficient interest.

You don’t have time to waste when setting up your retargeting marketing. Even if the first ads aren’t perfect (and when are they ever?), it’s more important to reach people while your brand and products are still top-of-mind. So, don’t let hesitation hold you back. Get started with a limited-scope retargeting campaign that uses UGC you’ve already gathered. Then, watch those customers who are “just browsing” come back and engage further with your brand. 

Retargeting is all about serving personalized ads based on user behaviors. Watch our new on-demand masterclass How contextualization is transforming online shopping to learn more tips that will boost your retargeting (and other marketing) campaigns. 

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How modern marketing strategies miss the mark for shoppers

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That’s pretty great for customers. But it’s also a huge opportunity for your brand. The average social media user spends 2 hours and 23 minutes a day on social platforms — that accounts for over a third of every minute spent on the internet. Because you now have the chance to engage with your audience in a more meaningful, direct way, you can turn literally every one of those minutes into a potential moment of conversion. 

Chapters:

1. Why does social shopping matter for brands
2. How brands in different industries win with social shopping
3. Access the full benefits of social shopping

Why does social shopping matter for brands

Social shopping addresses a shopper pain point by making it easier for people to connect with what they want to buy. Where social commerce focuses more on selling, social shopping focuses on research and purchases, and improving the whole shopping experience.

Our Shopper Experience Index, an annual report into consumer behavior, tells us that there’s no more debate about the importance of social media and shoppable content. Here’s why:

• Social media is the new search engine. Across the board, 58% of people are discovering products on social platforms. And before hitting the ‘buy’ button, 50% of shoppers are digging deeper, using social media to research their finds
• Young adults are leading the charge. Nearly three quarters (73%) of 18 to 24-year-olds find their next purchase through social media. It’s their mall, their catalog, and their wishlist, all rolled into one
• Buying is the new liking. With 50% of consumers making purchases directly through social media in the past year, the “double tap” has taken on a whole new meaning
• Voice of the customer is key. 78% of consumers feel more confident in a purchase when they view shopper content — that includes creator-, influencer-, and user-generated content

In short, social shopping allows you to meet your customers where they are and where they increasingly prefer to find, research, and buy products. 

How brands in different industries win with social shopping

At Bazaarvoice, we have the pleasure of working with brands across every industry under the sun. We’ve helped beauty, CPG, and hardware companies tap into the magic of social shopping and user-generated content (UGC), lift conversion rates, and increase average order value.

We learned a lot from helping our customers. Here, we distill the most important lessons and fascinating case studies to help you.

Health & beauty

The health and beauty industry thrives on visual appeal. Social media platforms are the perfect stage for brands that fall into these categories. They can showcase their products in action, with vibrant images and videos that do more than sell — they tell a story. 

UGC plays a starring role here. Rich visual content from customers offers authentic glimpses into real-life results and applications (e.g. is the eyeshadow patchy? Does this foundation look good on a complexion like mine? Is this shampoo the key to becoming the star of the live-action Tangled remake?). 

This authenticity is key in an industry where trust and transparency are as important as the products themselves. And if people like what they see, shoppable posts make it easy to click and buy on the spot, turning inspiration into action in mere seconds.

The Body Shop

The Body Shop, a decades-long player in the beauty industry, wanted to enhance its online customer experience. In the words of Indar Chanicka, the brand’s Vice President of E-Commerce, “we set out to fully utilize our social content to drive engagement and use it as a tool to educate customers through their purchasing decisions. We want customers to (…) see the actual products and their benefits through the experiences of real customers.”

To accomplish this goal, The Body Shop integrated social media UGC directly onto product pages. The results? A 28% conversion rate on product pages and a 13% increase in average order value. 

Iconic London

Iconic London is a shining example of how brands can bridge the gap between social media inspiration and e-commerce action. First, they recognized the disjointed experience between social platforms and their website. Then, they set out to create a seamless journey that maintained the authenticity and engagement of social media while guiding customers smoothly to the checkout page. 

Iconic London implemented Like2Buy, a tool that turns your Instagram pictures and videos into informative, directional, or shoppable posts. This approach allows customers to transition from social media to the website without feeling disconnected. 

By coupling UGC, Instagram, and Like2Buy, Iconic London was able to increase conversion rates by 126% and lift average order value by 11% in just 12 months. 

Apparel & accessories

Trying on clothes is a pretty important part of the shopping experience. How else will you know if that pair of jeans fits just right? In the context of e-commerce, apparel and accessories brands have found a savvy way to bring the fitting room to their audience, right through their screens. 

Social media brings fashion shows to every feed. Each scroll is an opportunity to show off the latest and greatest trends, pieces, and styles in action. 

Once again, UGC proves to be a valuable ally. Just like with beauty products, it offers a front-row seat to real-life product demos. Authentic, diverse, and oh-so compelling, this type of content turns everyday customers into the stars of your show, modeling the clothes in their own unique styles and settings. 

Isabella Oliver and Baukjen

Isabella Oliver and Baukjen acknowledge the value of showing their clothes on different bodies. The brand embraces visual UGC to enrich the virtual try-on experience and make online shopping feel as personal and engaging as visiting a store.

Their strategy is simple yet impactful: a monthly hashtag contest encourages customers to share their #BaukjenStyle, turning the competition into a curated display of real-world fashion. 

Bazaarvoice Galleries then takes these snippets and places them on product pages to create a digital window display that’s both beautiful and relatable. The feedback speaks for itself, with customers expressing newfound confidence in their purchases, inspired by seeing the clothes on bodies just like theirs. This confidence translates into tangible results: a 120% increase in conversion rates and a 10% lift in average order value.

We love Isabella Oliver and Baukjen’s approach because it proves that, in the online fashion world, the best way to know if those jeans fit just right is by seeing them in action.

Home improvement

In the home improvement sphere, the phenomenon of social shopping introduces a dynamic where the aspirational is instantly attainable. Instead of just sources of décor ideas, platforms like Instagram and Pinterest become marketplaces where inspiration seamlessly leads to transactions. 

And with a little help from UGC, facilitating this transition becomes easier. Shoppers don’t have to hesitate before buying because they don’t know whether that chaise longue would look good in their homes. You already have a library of relatable content showing them it will.

Dreams

Dreams took their success to new heights with UGC. The brand spotlights their bed frames, sofa beds, and furniture through the lens of real customers’ homes. The #mydreamsbed social media campaign (sensing a #theme here?) showcases customer-inspired bedrooms but also serves as a testament to the power of community in shaping brand perception. 

With high-quality, scroll-stopping images populating their homepage, Dreams has created an engaging first impression that draws customers deeper into their product range. Their strategic use of UGC has led to a 200% increase in conversion rate and a 62% rise in average order value. 

But perhaps more interesting is how the influx of customer photos has informed Dreams’ own creative direction. Octavia Benham, Dreams’ Head of E-commerce, explains how UGC inspires the team and helps them craft their own content. ”Previously, our own product images didn’t look very lived in, but we changed that based on the UGC content we were getting,” she says.

Consumer electronics

Let’s face it: the more expensive the purchase, the more we rely on other people’s opinions and the longer we consider handing over our money. Such is often the case for consumer electronics, where the price tags tend to be heftier and purchases less frequent.

Given social media’s role as the hottest rising star in consumer research and purchase, there’s an opportunity for brands in this industry to share social proof and nudge people towards purchasing in one fell swoop.

Midland Radio

Midland Radio, a leader in two-way communication devices, recognized the untapped potential of showcasing UGC to enhance their digital presence and boost customer engagement. The brand successfully curated UGC from Instagram, Facebook, and other social channels to enrich their site’s content and make it more relatable.

The results speak volumes: a 143% increase in conversion rate and a 27% increase in average order value. But Midland Radio’s approach didn’t stop with collecting and displaying UGC. With tools like Reveal, Showroom, and Like2Buy, they also enhanced their Instagram strategy, making it easier for followers to transition from browsing to buying. 

Food & beverage

Being able to taste a product on social might be a little ways down the road. Thankfully, humans have other senses that food and beverage brands can appeal to. When done right, visuals can almost convey flavors, aromas, and textures (drink if you’ve never “eaten” with your eyes!) 

Social media is the perfect place for storytelling. Food and beverage brands can get creative with their shoppable posts by sharing recipes that feature their products or partnering with food influencers and UGC creators who show the goods in action (yes, this does include eating said goods. There’s a reason mukbangs are still a popular type of content — some people just enjoy seeing other people eat. It is what it is).

T2 Tea

T2 chose to stir up their social shopping strategy with UGC and shoppable posts. They partnered with Bazaarvoice to amplify brand presence and cultivate a digital environment that mirrors the communal and sensory nature of enjoying a steaming cup of tea. 

“Our aim is to create a community of tea lovers,” said Sally Lennox, Head of Digital at T2. “UGC is a way for us to embrace our customers by hearing their unique perspectives and displaying that word-of-mouth content on our digital screens. It provides such powerful social proof when customers can see that others are loving our products.”

T2 celebrates its fans by capturing and posting social media UGC on its home and product pages with Bazaarvoice Galleries. The brand also implemented Like2Buy and shoppable posts on Instagram so browsers can immediately access the products that catch their eye.

Consumer packaged goods

The landscape of consumer packaged goods (CPG) is a competitive one, with direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies increasingly taking over a share of the market. Building trust and signaling safety is thus becoming more and more essential. 

Many CPG brands are turning to social media to push educational content highlighting how real people use their products to make their lives better/easier/more fabulous. And if there’s a direct path to purchase right there in the posts? That’s the cherry on top.

MAM

Understanding the concerns and desires of parents who want the best for their little ones, MAM UK harnessed the power of social proof. So the brand leveraged real-life experiences and endorsements from satisfied parents to reassure potential customers. 

To amplify their UGC strategy, MAM implemented social commerce solutions, effectively completing their full-funnel marketing approach. Bazaarvoice Galleries allowed MAM to curate and display authentic social photos and videos from advocates, creating beautiful product galleries on their website. 

The strategy made their products more relatable, which translated into engagement and profit — more precisely, a 258% increase in time on site, a 108% increase in conversions, and a 58% increase in average order value. 

Access the full benefits of social shopping

Social shopping isn’t a fad — it’s the new normal. And if you have the right tools and the right partners, there’s no reason why you won’t be able to adapt and thrive. 

Dive into the world of social shopping with the ultimate guide to social media conversion for more actionable tips on how to create captivating shopping experiences that impact your bottom line.

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How to define and measure social commerce ROI and value

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Marketing personalization gets the second date — or in this case, clicks and conversions.

Why’s that? Because personalized marketing is all about tailoring your campaigns to provide a customized experience for your e-commerce site visitors. And in the modern market, the majority of customers expect it, which means brands that design the same messaging for all their customers are so last season.

This is why Bazaarvoice partnered with Klaviyo — to help brands elevate their personalization strategies. It all starts with gaining knowledge about your customers and using it to provide them with an exceptional, tailored shopping experience.

Chapters:

1. What is personalized marketing?
2. Why is personalized marketing so important?
3. How to build a personalized marketing strategy
4. Personalized marketing examples
5. How to get started with personalized marketing

What is personalized marketing?

Personalized marketing uses information about your customers to create individualized, relevant messages and offers. For e-commerce businesses, this data-driven approach matches consumer demographics and behaviors with tailored website and marketing content.

There’s many applications of personalized marketing, from geo-sensitive push notifications that send discounts when you’re near a coffee shop, to abandoned cart emails that remind you of products you looked at but didn’t buy, to product recommendations based on order history. Just to name a few.

And personalized marketing is growing at a rapid pace. Nearly 40% of marketing decision-makers ranked personalization as the most important consumer experience. And a recent survey revealed that 33% of marketers in the US and UK devote over half of their online marketing budgets to personalization projects and initiatives.

The report predicts this trend will continue, driven by advancements in technology, data, and analytics that make personalization more widely available, as well as the rapid rise of generative AI tech.

Why is personalized marketing so important?

Personalized marketing allows you to gain extensive knowledge about your products and customers. You can learn what products, services, features, and messaging attracts customers and leads, then adapt your marketing and product strategy accordingly.

Customers receive marketing materials they actually want and make them feel connected to your brand. This leads to purchases in the short term and brand loyalty and customer retention in the long term.

Valuable information like this lets you focus on what works and scrap what doesn’t. If you only have blanket messaging and offers on your website and in campaigns, you’re missing out on opportunities to target visitors with effective content. According to McKinsey, personalization can

• Increase revenues by 5 – 15%
• Lower customer acquisition costs by up to 50%
• Increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10 – 30%

Increasing online privacy regulations makes user activity more secure and protected, but targeted marketing — like personalization — more challenging. The restrictions prohibit third-party data tracking that has historically helped marketers target campaigns to their website visitors.

This is why it’s extra important to know how to implement personalized marketing in the wake of new obstacles and a changing marketplace. Without the third-party tracking data that gives a broad view of users’ search behavior on various websites, marketers will need to rely on their own data and create campaigns based on that to reach their customers.

How to build your personalized marketing strategy

The basis of personalized marketing is having comprehensive and organized data about the people you’re trying to target.

Once you’ve assembled all your relevant data, you can use it to segment customers based on preferences, demographics, or order history. Then, you can identify the primary channels where customers engage in order to focus your distribution. Either your website, email, social media, live chat, or a combination.

1. Gather customer data and insights

Collect all the pertinent information on your customers that will be useful in serving them personalized content. This includes demographic data, like gender, age group, location, and income level.

Another big piece of the puzzle is shopping behavior, like purchase history and spending habits. With the advent of third-party tracking restrictions, this means relying heavily on collecting first-party data.

There’s different routes you can take to collect these insights, which require varying levels of oversight. Customer data platforms (CDP) are a primary resource for aggregating data from across multiple customer touchpoints. CDPs record when a customer visits your e-commerce website, is shown an ad, or opens a promotional email. And then how the customer interacts with each. CDPs then combine all this information into a single, data-rich customer profile.

A good example is our Bazaarvoice homepage. It appears slightly differently depending on whether you’re a social media manager or e-commerce manager. Each page is tailored to suit the relevant persona.

A personalization engine is similar to a CDP but with AI and machine learning that can assist in designing data-based, targeted campaigns.

Individual data sources also offer insights into your customers. These include social media and SEO management software, e-commerce and retail point of sale (POS) systems, and Google Analytics. These platforms will give you insights on customers who visit your website, engage with your brand on social media, and purchase your products or services.

2. Create customer segments

Next, you can create customer segments based on your data. Look for demographic and behavioral patterns in the data to determine how to segment your audience. Personalization engines and CDPs can combine and organize this data for you, or it can be done manually.

Some examples of customer segments to use for marketing personalization include age groups, occupations, spending amount tiers, product interest categories, and date of the most recent purchase. Once you have your different customer segments set up, tailor your messaging and offers according to the qualities and characteristics of each segment.

Segmentation is a planning tool for personalized marketing. To personalize content, you need to take it a step further. Personalized marketing takes customer segments and then individualizes content for the members of that segment.

For example, a segment could be a group of customers who regularly purchase higher-priced items. To create personalized content for a customer in that segment, you could send an email with product recommendations for luxury items in their size.

One brand who knows segmentation well is Little Sleepies. Wanting to boost their Black Friday sales, the apparel brand leveraged Klaviyo’s segmentation capabilities. Little Sleepies sent two campaigns in a day: the first to their full nurture list and the second to the segment that engaged with the first email but didn’t make a purchase.

They also targeted specific segments with personalized features like a countdown timer. Using Klaviyo’s segmentation paid off with a 138.2% year on year growth in revenue from email during Black Friday.

3. Personalize experiences based on UGC interactions

Leveraging the insights you find from consumer interactions with user-generated content (UGC) — like reviews and frequently asked questions — can be a powerful way to identify and segment audiences for win-back campaigns for unhappy customers. Or for surprise and delight campaigns for your biggest fans. 

Some example use cases include:

• Send review requests: Integrate flows to send post-purchase review request messages to your customers from Klaviyo. This ensures that any email communication is configured and managed within the Klaviyo platform, giving your teams a singular view of the communication with your customer
• Powerful segmentation and flows: Create flows within Klaviyo to thank your customers for writing a review, or segment based on review submissions to contact customers after they leave a positive or negative review
• Personalize your messages: Leverage past review data to notify satisfied customers of an upcoming promotion on a product they love or trigger a refer-a-friend invitation following a positive review submission 

Businesses can now incorporate Bazaarvoice data into their Klaviyo platform to drive additional intelligence to their marketing strategies and personalization triggers. Through the Bazaarvoice and Klaviyo integration, customers can leverage real-time UGC interaction data within email and SMS to create relevant shopping experiences for each customer and influence more purchases.

This integration enables brands to unlock the full potential of UGC while leveraging Klaviyo’s robust marketing automation capabilities to deliver personalized and impactful messages at scale.

Personalized marketing examples

Collecting and organizing customer data is only half the battle. The next step is putting that data to use with different types of personalized marketing tactics and campaigns.

Personalized email marketing

Only 8% of brands think email is important, which is surprising. Because not only do nearly a third of shoppers think personalized emails are important, but email is the top digital channel used for personalized marketing because it’s fairly easy to create customized email content for individual recipients.

After all, consumers have been getting promotional emails with their name in the subject line for years.

There’s multiple different types of email marketing campaigns that brands can personalize. Review request emails are the perfect opportunity to personalize content. They’re a direct response to a customer’s action, whether that’s a website visit, a cart abandonment, or a purchase.

Other types of emails, including product feature announcements, out of stock emails, newsletters, and special offers, can all be personalized. The most basic method is to simply include the customer’s name in the subject line or body of the email. Emails with personalized subject lines improve open rates by 26%, but this can also come off as heavy-handed. Product recommendations based on the customer’s preferences and order history are a more advanced way to appeal to the customer’s personal interests.

Enhance these emails with customer reviews and visual UGC of recommended products. UGC provides consumers with the social proof they need to learn more about products, and ultimately the confidence to make a purchase. You can go the extra mile and personalize the UGC itself. Example: If an email is going to someone in an older age bracket, include reviews or a photo created by someone close to their age that corresponds with the brand or product.

The way in which you collect UGC also plays an important role in personalization. One of the top recommended personalization campaigns is to send emails asking customers to review a recently purchased product. You can then use that UGC to display on your website, giving shoppers more details and insights from verified customers who have first-hand experience with products.

In this email example from Hulu, the streaming platform does a great job of using customer data to create a personalized campaign. It uses the customer’s demographic information (their date of birth) and purchase history. In this case, the customer was a previous subscriber who hadn’t renewed their subscription.

So, Hulu offers them a birthday gift in the form of a one-month free trial with the goal of winning back the customer.

SMS marketing

Often considered an extension of email, SMS marketing is an often overlooked but equally powerful tool — the average text open rate is 98%.

Much like with email, SMS works wonders for personalization because it’s easy enough to create custom content for specific segments. All you need to write is your customer’s name at the start and include messaging like “Exclusively for our text subscribers” to get going. 

There’s multiple types of personalization opportunities in SMS marketing:

• Promotional SMS include special offers like holiday sales and customer acknowledgement like a birthday message
• Post-interaction texts are usually sent post-purchase and post-delivery or even for abandoned cart notifications
• Customer service messaging can consist of shipping updates and delivery notifications

The key is to segment before you send. Types of SMS segment include loyalty program customers, engaged subscribers, or subscribers who’ve yet to make a purchase from you. And it works.

One brand, Fast Growing Trees, discovered this firsthand after they implemented a more personalized SMS strategy, using Klaviyo’s segment level campaign reporting. The brand started sending SMS messages to a more specific segment of subscribers — 60-day engaged as opposed to 180-day engaged — with the aim of increasing engagement and growing their SMS channel.

Since June 2023, their revenue per SMS message has already grown 35% quarter over quarter.

Website or app optimization

For e-commerce companies, your website or app is the ideal space for personalization. This is where you can deliver relevant calls to action (CTAs) for further browsing and exploration. Things like product recommendations of products similar to what’s in the shopper’s cart, or based on order history.

Some examples are “people also bought,” “you might also like,” “finish the look,” and “don’t forget to accessorize.”

Enabling your website search feature to produce relevant results and recommendations is another important aspect of website personalization. For example, if a website visitor searches for a black dress, everything that fits “black” + “dress” should populate.

And if you don’t carry a black dress, provide them with alternatives that closely match. That could be a navy dress or a grey dress, for example. If a search term is misspelled — like “black dress”— your technology should be able to understand that and produce results instead of no results.

Special offers tailored to different types of customers is an enticing website personalization tactic. Offer promo codes to first-time customers to use on their first order. Increase basket sizes by offering discounts on products or free samples that align with customers’ repeat purchases or interests.

Customized content is another way to provide a personalized experience for each website visitor. Create dedicated landing pages to include in emails that highlight personalized product updates and recommendations. Another way is to include the customer’s name and order history when they visit your website.

Netflix is an expert in the art of personalized marketing, particularly with its in-app recommendations. The company uses its subscribers’ viewing behaviors to create TV and movie categories based on their unique tastes. Examples of this in action are its “Because You Watched” and “Gems for You” lists.

Spotify does the work for you and curates recommendations into instantly consumable playlists. Some of its personalized playlists based on listener data include daily mixes, genre mixes, top artists mixes, Discover Weekly, and Release Radar.

The company’s highly anticipated annual Spotify Wrapped is a shining example of personalization in action. With this feature, they literally create a neatly packaged overview of each individual listener’s data and use it to make fun, shareable content and custom playlists.

Augmented reality

The use of augmented reality (AR) is a growing marketing trend that enables real-time personalization. The number of mobile AR users is expected to reach 1.73 billion this year. Some customers using the AR platform Adloid reported seeing up to a 200% increase in sales conversions.

AR is an example of advanced personalized marketing, where customers can see products superimposed on their own bodies, in their living spaces, or in other real-life settings. Some top retail and e-commerce industries that have quickly adopted AR include automotive, beauty, home goods and decor, and apparel.

On its website, L’Oreal’s Live Try On gives shoppers the opportunity to virtually apply its products from wherever they are using their mobile or desktop device.

And Target’s See It in Your Space feature is a great way to see how furniture and other products look in your home or office. Customers can accurately visualize these products and if they fit where they live and work.

Saying sorry

Elton John famously sang, “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.” (Or Blue famously sang it, depending on the era you grew up in. Both are bangers). Either way, apologies can be tough. Not just for people, for brands too. But it really doesn’t have to be!

They’re the perfect opportunity to use personalization to turn a negative shopper experience into a positive one. 45% of consumers actually consider a brand apology to be the “coolest” personalization tactic they’ve seen.

Whether apologizing for an item being out-of-stock or following up on an abandoned shopping cart, there’s often a reason a brand needs to apologize. So if you have to do it, do it properly.

Take this tailored example from ZocDoc above. Not only does it provide a form of compensation to entice the customer to stay with the brand, it also uses the opportunity to gain customer feedback. This feedback can then be used to improve the service going forward, making sure it doesn’t happen again.

Product sampling

Launching a targeted sampling campaign creates a personalized experience for customers because you are sending products directly to them to try out for themselves. To maximize the personalization of each campaign, tailor the samples according to the individual customer.

For example, you can reward customers you consider high value because of their repeat business with pre-release samples of new products. You can target customers who have interests in specific product types with samples of new or similar products. You can include samples of relevant products along with order shipments.

With product sampling, not only do customers get a free gift based on their interests or customer history, but samples often create impactful UGC for brands.

In exchange for product samples, brands can ask recipients for feedback in the form of an online survey or a review, making sampling another valuable data-gathering tactic.

Conversational commerce

We’ve left the best til last. Knowing how to win at conversational commerce is a business necessity. Conversational commerce uses messaging apps and voice-activated technology to sell products and services, with help from artificial intelligence. Think of it as an online version of talking to a sales assistant in a store.

Whether shopping bots that aid a customer through the buyer journey, or customizable chatbots for customer inquiries, there’s a multitude of conversational commerce delivery methods. And each one provides a different personalization in its own right.

Take this example from our own Bazaarvoice website. You’ll have seen an iteration of it pop up in the bottom corner. Through some simple tweaking, our own lovely chatbot (Bazaarbot!) differs in messaging depending on who visits the site.

Let’s say a user has tried out our marketing ROI calculator tool. On their next site visit, our bot will encourage those with an ROI calculation to get in touch. As demonstrated below.

Using this example almost feels like spilling state secrets or insider trading. But you know what, it’s one of the multiple, successful customizations on our website. And you have to lead by example.

How to get started with personalized marketing

Personalized marketing is a proven way to win over customers, and it’s surprisingly simple to implement. But there’s a disparity between brands and shoppers when it comes to personalization — while retailers believe they’re excelling at personalized marketing, consumers disagree.

There’s multiple ways to solve this though — you already have most of the resources to do it. As it is, you can start personalizing with the data you already have and refine your strategy through more sophisticated collection and segmentation. But key areas of opportunity for brands include:

1. Focus on delivering the right content through the right channel at the right time
2. Use tailored offerings and purchasing incentives, like discounts, in exchange for personal information
3. Utilize the Bazaarvoice + Klaviyo integration to leverage real-time UGC within email and SMS in an automated way to create relevant shopping experiences for each user and influence more purchases

Over time, you’ll increasingly notice the impact it has. And your bottom line will thank you for it. Learn more on our dedicated Klaviyo + Bazaarvoice integration page or get started right away below.

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Masterclass: Creating a 5-star personalized customer journey

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• 65% of shoppers use social media for shopping inspiration
• 97% of Gen Zers say social media is their top source of shopping inspiration
• 82% of shoppers make purchases on social media

Sounds great! But collecting, curating, and creating high-performing, authentic social content that drives revenue across all channels is no easy feat. Especially if you’re dealing with internal organizational silos and competing KPIs. 

Fortunately, there’s a way to reap all of the benefits of a strong social media strategy with minimal stress and maximum efficiency. It all starts with a little organization. 

Chapters:

1. What is a social media content calendar?
2. Why your business needs a social media content calendar
3. How to build a social media content calendar
4. How to manage your social media content calendar
5. Get more from your social media content 
6. Examples of social media content calendar success
7. Social media content calendar template

What is a social media content calendar?

A social media content calendar is a one-stop shop for all things social that organizes content ideas, posting times, platforms, hashtags, and more, into a single place,.

You can also use your content calendar to create a consistent social posting strategy that supports your marketing and business goals. Added bonus: a calendar also serves as a single place where team members can collaborate without getting lost in emails and endless Slack messages. 

Your social media content planner can be as simple or advanced as you like. Here’s some common tools teams use to stay organized: 

• Excel/Google Sheets: This is the cheapest and easiest way to get started. Simply open a spreadsheet, create a basic table with the appropriate columns (we’ll explain more in a moment), and start dropping in your content and assets 
• Social media management tools: There’s a slew of social media scheduling and publishing tools that help keep you organized and let you focus your time elsewhere. Some more popular services include Buffer and Hootsuite (and Bazaarvoice )
• Social media content calendar templates: You can find customizable templates like this one to help guide and organize your posting schedule. These are either free or paid resources
• Project management tools: Tools like Asana and Trello can double as social media planners. You can create workflows to assign tasks and manage deadlines, albeit they require a lot more management 

Why your business needs a social media content calendar

A social media content calendar doesn’t just keep you organized. It also helps you stay sane. A content calendar is an essential toolkit for any social media or brand manager. Here’s the top five benefits to brands and retailers:

1. Easier collaboration. Depending on how you manage permissions, multiple team members can view, access, and edit these calendars. You can easily track which posts need to be written or edited and which are ready to go live
2. Be more efficient and proactive. These tools let you batch the content creation and curation process. Rather than trying to squeeze social media in between other projects, you can develop multiple posts at a time and be confident they align with your brand voice and objectives 
3. Maximize marketing and business strategies. A social media content calendar helps you match your social media efforts with bigger business and marketing objectives. Just imagine how much saner Black Friday will be if you have all of your posts planned in advance 
4. Maintain a more consistent posting schedule. We’ve all seen it happen. A brand starts a new social media channel and posts regularly for the first month or so. And then … silence. A month or so later, they’re back, only to fall off again in a few weeks 
5. Eliminate blank page syndrome. One of the hardest parts of writing a social media post is just getting started. By defining your strategy in advance, you’ll always know what topics to write about on a given day, which helps you create and curate relevant posts more easily — and avoid last-minute scrambling 

Social media content calendars aren’t just for big-name brands — smaller teams can especially benefit. Having a centralized location for content, ideas, and important dates makes it easier to maximize limited people power and budgets. 

What to include in your social media content calendar

Whether you build your own social media content calendar in Google Sheets or use an existing service, you’ll want to include the following components in your template:

• Posting date and time. Some tools offer a calendar view, letting you easily see your overall posting schedule
• Platform. You might have a slightly different strategy for each social media platform. A social media planner helps you maximize the benefits of each channel and find opportunities to repurpose content (which saves you additional time and stress)
• Content category. This is a high-level overview of the type of content you’ll post each day. Categories could include customer testimonials, educational posts, carousels, product features, etc
• Photo and video assets. Keeping these organized makes it easy to create more visually engaging posts
• Milestones and important dates. This includes holidays as well as internal dates for upcoming sales and promotions

How to manage your social media content calendar

You’ve created your social media content calendar. Congrats! But now what?

The first step is to go ahead and put it in motion. Or you can save time and hassle and utilize an existing social publishing platform, like our social media management tools, which makes executing your posting schedule effortless.

Once you have your calendar, you want to regularly check in on your engagement and track metrics like clicks, comments, and shares. The goal is to show how your strategy directly affects revenue and ROI, allowing you to prove the value of your social team and their efforts. You’ll also want to make sure to plan the type of content you’ll be posting, not just which platform.

As you measure the performance of your posts, stories, and shoppable storefronts, you can see what works — and use those insights to explore new channels and strategies. 

Get more from your social media content 

Using social media to share customer reviews and other user-generated content about your products is one of the most authentic and trusted ways to drive awareness and conversions. When customers interact with your social media content, they spend up to 15% more per order and spend 380% more time on your site, our own data shows.

When it comes to ROI, sharing this UGC on your social media channels is good. Leveraging these assets across all customer touchpoints is even better.

That’s why our social media tools let you go beyond just scheduling posts and tracking metrics. We also help you collect, curate, and manage content at scale — from getting rights from content creators to empowering you to leverage these assets on your product and category pages. 

Bazaarvoice customers who optimize their product pages with authentic social proof see conversions skyrocket. Those who feature photos and videos from customers, influencers, and partners can drive up to a 172% increase in revenue per e-commerce session.

Using this UGC on your site also helps you rank higher on Google. Most UGC is loaded with rich keywords. All it takes is eight reviews to start getting SEO benefits. 

Examples of social media content calendar success

Here’s a few success stories from customers who have leveraged our social media content calendar tools.

1. Bemz 

Bemz wanted to reach new customers, increase conversions, improve the customer journey across all channels, and boost shopper confidence in its interior design products. 

To help the brand achieve its goals, we leveraged a combination of our Social Commerce tools — including our content calendar Social Scheduler — to showcase the best of its UGC across social media and Bemz’s product pages. 

In the past year alone, Bemz has seen $1.65 million in revenue that can be attributed to on-site use of social media content — a 72.56% increase from the year before. Our social tools also contributed to a 270% lift in time on site, a 290% lift in conversion rate, and a 34% increase in average order value.

2. Iconic London

The digital-first beauty brand Iconic London wanted to drive conversions, increase order value, and build customer connections.

Bazaarvoice’s social tools, including Like2Buy and Bazaarvoice Galleries, helped Iconic London leverage its UGC across its Instagram account and website. This created an uninterrupted shopping experience, encouraging customers to spend more time on the site and engage with the brand’s UGC.

In 12 months, Iconic London saw a 361% lift in time on site and an 11% lift in average order value, leading to a 126% lift in conversion rate. The company also used UGC to discover influencers, form partnerships, and build stronger relationships with customers.

3. Samsonite

Samsonite is one of the most well-known travel luggage brands in the world. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t want to get more customers and sales. To boost brand discoverability, Samsonite planned to increase its brand presence across distribution channels, expand to more distribution channels, and ensure consistency of its branded content across all retail and wholesale channels.

We implemented Bazaarvoice Galleries, which seamlessly integrates UGC collected via Samsonite’s social media channels and distributes this content across multiple websites and partner sites. This allowed Samsonite to share inspirational content and drive product discovery. Bazaarvoice Galleries also helped ensure the messaging was consistent across each distribution channel.

In the end, our suite of social media tools helped Samsonite achieve 4x higher conversion rates, 5x increase in time on page, and a 254% increase in revenue thanks to higher average order values.

Create your own social media content calendar

In addition to helping increase sales and conversions, a social media content calendar makes it easier to plan and execute your strategy, helps your company create a methodology for cross-functional communication, and proves the ROI of your team’s efforts.

But remember, your content calendar is a living document. Just as channels like Twitter (err, X) evolve, so should your strategy. A social media planner shouldn’t just include time for content creation and curation, it should also include a schedule for evaluating the latest trends, as well as your company’s sales and messaging goals.

Doing so helps you ensure your social media channels are optimized to drive sales with a regular cadence of inspiring, authentic social content that’s relevant to all stages of the buyer’s journey. 

Not got the time to create your own social media content calendar from scratch or unsure where to begin? Grab our fully editable calendar template here to get started right away. Or work smarter, not harder, with Bazaarvoice’s Social Content Calendar. Learn more about it here.

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A practical guide for social media professionals to drive engagement and commerce

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Shoppable content was a new concept a few years ago, but in internet years that might as well be a decade. According to a survey of 250 business execs, 73% of businesses currently sell products and services on social media platforms, which are inherently content-driven. So, there’s a good chance your brand is already practicing this marketing tactic (or should be ).

As with everything else in the rapidly evolving digital marketplace, you need to continuously innovate if you want to compete. Leaders in the shoppable content space utilize the latest platforms, technologies, and formats available to them.

And in a smarter way than your competition. Whether you’re just getting started with shoppable content or you’ve been doing it from the start, there’s plenty to learn about at the intersection of social content and commerce.

Chapters:

1. What is shoppable content?
2. Best platforms for shoppable content
3. New shoppable content features on established platforms
4. How to add shoppable content to your e-commerce site
5. Customize and curate your shoppable content
6. Test and measure your shoppable content for success

What is shoppable content?

Shoppable content is a digital image, video, article, catalog, or social media post that consumers can purchase from directly, or click through to purchase on the product page.

If you’re behind the shoppable content curve, first of all: it’s never too late to catch up. And even if your brand’s already producing shoppable content, you should still learn how the technology is evolving.

Let’s start by explaining the concept.

Shoppable content is the foundation of social commerce — the selling of products and services on social media platforms and everywhere social reaches. Increasingly, brands are extending their e-commerce business past their websites to their social media channels. Accenture reports that social commerce sales will more than double by 2025, growing, three times as fast as traditional e-commerce.

They predict that millennials and Gen Z will contribute the majority of that growth. Especially the latter, given that 97% of Gen Zers use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration.

Social media is literally built for content, discovery, and exploration. So it’s a perfect fit for consumers to find products that appeal to them, represented by images, videos, testimonials, and descriptions.

But social media isn’t the only space for shoppable content. That’s the beauty of this conversion magnet. With the right tools (shameless plug), you can place that content on your website, partner sites, and even email. 74% of shoppers even expect to see social content on your website nowdays.

And in this stage of the game, there’s more types of content you can enable for shopping than when it first broke onto the scene. Now, shoppable content has expanded beyond static images in social media feeds and blog posts linked to product pages. We already know that works and produces significant results. Just look at Oak Furnitureland, who featured shoppable content across their website and marketing campaigns and saw a 248% increase in conversion rate.

So instead here’s a look at the latest advancements that brands and retailers can explore and use to innovate.

Best platforms for shoppable content

Some major social media platforms have begun to enable social commerce, even though they’ve been around for a while. If your brand already has a presence on these platforms, you’re well-positioned to start testing shoppable content on them. If you’re not already on these channels, now’s your chance to arrive prepared.

TikTok

Shoppable video content is all the rage. TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social platforms, and it reached 1 billion users in almost half the time that it took Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. As it continues to roll out more shopping features, this is a channel that e-commerce brands will want to pay attention to.

Millions of active users around the world burn through hours of their day scrolling TikTok. Videos of people dancing, cooking, goofing off, doing voiceovers, putting on makeup, and basically just living their lives.

This makes it the perfect environment for customers to discover brands and products they’re drawn to in a casual, organic way. There’s even a hashtag dedicated to this very activity: #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, which has literally billions of views.

TikTok Shopping, a suite of in-app shopping solutions for retail and e-commerce brands, is in its early stages. Similar to Pinterest and Instagram, brands with a TikTok for Business account can link their Shopify product catalog, which will appear in a Shopping tab on their TikTok profile. 

Additional partnerships with other e-commerce providers like Square, Wix, Ecwid, and OpenCart are in progress.

Many early TikTok Shopping adopters reflect the most popular content categories, such as beauty and skincare. For example, after Glow Beauty experienced a 600% spike in sales from a viral TikTok post and received a ton of first-time customer traffic from TikTok, they were eager to join the TikTok Shopping beta program.

Twitter/X

Twitter, or X, has joined the social commerce trend and is currently testing and piloting several different shopping features. They include:

• A Shop Module where users can purchase from business profiles
• Shop button linked with product-based tweets that adds items to an in-app cart
• Live Shopping and a Twitter Shopping Manager for merchants

Twitter’s commerce tools are only available to a limited number of brands, as of early 2022. But keep an eye on them as the next big platform to offer shoppable content.

Be prepared for when Twitter expands access to shopping features to more brands by optimizing your Twitter marketing strategy now. Take the advice of successful brands on Twitter by coming up with a brand voice that works for the platform and refining your audience targeting.

Snapchat

Snapchat is another social platform to launch in-app shopping in the past year. With Snapchat’s Public Profiles for Businesses, brands can enable a Shop section of their profile where they can upload products for sale.

With Snapchat’s Verishop collaboration, users can search for items according to their mood — a fun and inventive way for shoppers to explore outfits, makeup, and more. The category themes include mid-century modern, high glam, and free-spirited. This approach is Snapchat’s way of translating the in-person shopping experience for the digital audience.

The key to leveraging Snapchat for shoppable content is to embrace all the features that differentiate the app from its towering competitors. This means creating Snapchat-friendly content using interactive Lenses, artistic Filters, and creative Stories that show tutorials and provide an inside look into your brand. Then, you can complement that content by adding all the products that inspired it in your Snapchat Shop.

Leverage new social commerce features on established platforms

As social commerce continues to grow, so do the opportunities for more shoppable content on the first platforms to offer it. Your audience is already on these platforms to discover products and shop. 70% of the 8.5 million-member Influenster community say they search for products on legacy social platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Make sure your brand meets them where they are with the shoppable content they’re looking for.

Shoppable Instagram Reels

Instagram was already a social commerce giant. Recently, Instagram added shopping functionality to Reels too, making it an ideal shoppable video content platform. This move came soon after TikTok’s Shopify partnership announcement as a way to compete with their short-form video rival.

Brands and creators that have Instagram Shopping set up can add product tags to their Reels. Then, anyone viewing a Reel with tagged products can tap to learn more. By enabling Instagram Checkout, they can even add-to-cart or buy from within the app.

Reels are a valuable feature for brands that want to level up their social commerce game, and their overall Instagram presence. In addition to displaying Reels within your feed/profile, Instagram may also feature Reels in the Reels tab of the Explore page. And creator partners can also tag your products in their Reels. This last perk presents brands with another way to make the most out of their influencer partnerships.

Brands can use Reels to demo products and show their fun and creative side. Use the music in Reels to your advantage: bust out your best dancing, acting, and performance skills; tell a story and use props and anything else your imagination can concoct.

Facebook Shops

In 2020, Facebook launched Facebook Shops, a way for businesses to have an online storefront on Facebook and Instagram by uploading their product catalog. In 2021, Facebook expanded Shops’ promotion to Facebook Marketing and WhatsApp. More recently, Meta (Facebook’s parent company) announced they would further extend Shops content to other corners of their platform, including Facebook Groups and News Feeds.

Within Groups, Facebook will recommend relevant products based on the topics and discussions within those communities. On WhatsApp, businesses on Facebook can showcase their entire Shops catalog, and users can interact directly with merchants to ask questions and get more information about products.

Pinterest Shopping

Pinterest has supported and encouraged shoppable content for a while now, making Pins shoppable and allowing brands to upload their product catalogs to sell on Pinterest. Those products can link to their corresponding pages on e-commerce sites or, for U.S.-based businesses, are available to purchase directly in iOS and Android Pinterest apps.

Their newest social commerce feature is Shopping Lists, where all the Product Pins saved by users are stored in one place. Pinners who have Shopping Lists will be notified any time there’s an update or price drop on their saved items. According to Pinterest data, Pinners are 7x more likely to buy products they’ve saved.

Make sure you’re primed for shoppable content on Pinterest. Apply to be a verified merchant to increase your brand trust and credibility, post a variety of media types, and create content that appeals to the latest trending interests in beauty, food, fashion, home decor, travel, and other categories.

Livestream shopping

If there’s one way to go and make your video content shoppable it’s livestream shopping. Livestreams are the new infomercials. Except younger, cooler, and better connected. Livestream shopping first exploded in Asia, and the trend is traveling quickly to other parts of the world. Since other major markets like the U.S. are still figuring it out, this is a great time to get in on it early.

Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok currently dominate the livestreaming sector of social media. YouTube, which seems like a natural fit, is also getting on board with livestream shopping.

One brand to experience the power of live shopping on Instagram is Clinique. For a livestream event, the makeup brand offered Instagram-exclusive makeup kits, including a very limited, in-demand product. This repurposed product launch accounted for 85% of orders placed through Instagram and Facebook during, and right after, the livestream. This was a 7x faster product launch than what’s usual for Clinique.

Social media livestreams offer brands the opportunity to leverage partnerships with influencers who have large followings. For example, after seeing more success than anticipated with their first TikTok shopping livestream, Walmart partnered with TikTok creator Gabby Morrison, who has millions of followers, to host another livestream.

Livestream beyond social

Social platforms aren’t the only way to host livestreams. The Canadian footwear brand Aldo debuted livestream shopping on their website that achieved great success, including 17,000 pageviews, a 12-minute average time on site, and a 308% engagement rate. Aldo recruited two exciting co-hosts — a celebrity stylist and an L.A. entertainer — for the live shopping event. Attendees could shop the 2021 spring collection right within the livestream.

Adweek reports that more retailers will be following Aldo’s example and hosting livestreams on their own websites, with the help of new tech and startups “that have cropped up to provide the infrastructure for these efforts.”

To do livestreaming right, first you need a likable, knowledgeable, and relatable host. They need to be able to speak authoritatively about products and quickly and thoroughly answer questions submitted by viewers during the livestream. Cross-promoting livestreams on other channels is also key, as are exclusive incentives for livestream attendees, like discounts and bonus offers.

Distinguish your shoppable content with augmented reality

Using a digital camera, AR technology can “yes-and” reality by adding images, sounds, and animation to what appears in real time. This is one of the most innovative and cutting-edge ways brands can set their shoppable content apart.

AR marketing is particularly effective for beauty and apparel brands, and many have seen success in offering virtual try-ons. L’Oreal and Meta have combined forces with AR tech providers to bring virtual try-ons to Instagram.

Snapchat is going all-in on AR. The app is leveraging their trademark filters — dubbed Lenses — that can give you animal ears or turn you into an anime character to carve their niche in shoppable content. Elevating their social commerce capabilities with AR features is how they’ll continue to compete with TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, which have much bigger audiences.

Brands can also invest in proprietary AR, like Home Depot’s Project Color app to test paint colors. Or there’s Target’s See It In Your Space tool to visualize home furniture and decor.

How to add shoppable content to your e-commerce site

Shoppable content can go way beyond the add-to-cart and buy now buttons on your e-commerce website. Step it up with shoppable content on your blog, product pages, and anywhere else that makes sense.

Longform blog content is essential for improving SEO performance, but you can further optimize that content for conversions by adding shoppable images, multimedia, and customer reviews. This will provide a more realistic representation of your products and give shoppers the ability to add-to-cart or buy now with one click.

Or using social commerce tools like Bazaarvoice Galleries, you can upgrade your home page, product pages, or separate gallery pages with beautiful shoppable image and video displays of your products sourced from influencers, shoppers on social media, and your own content.

By bringing user-generated content (UGC) from social media to shoppable website galleries, apparel brand Quiz increased time on site by 276%, average order value by 23%, and conversion rates by 154%.

Read the full case study here to see how they did it.

Customize and curate your shoppable content

It’s not enough just to tag your content with products on your social channels and call it a day. Give that content a fighting chance by planning it strategically.

Carefully select which products you want to showcase in shoppable posts and catalogs. Focus on lower-priced items, or at least offer a range of prices, as shoppers are more likely to make smaller in-app purchases and take more time to research higher-priced items.

You can group your products together in categories on Facebook and Instagram Shops. Curate your product collections based on the types of products that are driving sales and social engagement, as well as what aligns with your product marketing strategy. If certain products aren’t selling that well in-store or on your e-commerce site, try selling them on social platforms. 

You can also organize collections based on what’s in season, what’s trending, new products, and sales you’re promoting.

A proven way to increase engagement, reach, and conversions is to leverage UGC. Whether it’s content on your social media or website, UGC will go the extra mile because it’s created by your customers, many of whom have become brand advocates. They’re sharing their experiences with your brand because it makes them happy or proud.

Repurpose the best images and videos created by your customers, turning them into shoppable content. Repost it (with permission) on your social media accounts and website.

Test and measure your shoppable content for success

There’s many types of shoppable content and many platforms on which to distribute it. But that doesn’t mean you have to use every single one. Create different forms and try different channels until you find which delivers you the most value.

Measure the performance of your shoppable content based on your goals. What’s driving the most conversions, attracting the most new customers, and bringing higher average order values? There’s an easy way to find out.

FEATURED RESOURCE

Masterclass: Shopping on social: From following trends to starting them

Watch here

You can check out the rest of our Long Read content here for more social commerce marketing strategies, tips, and insights.

After all, some of the best performances happen when an artist steps aside and allows someone else to shine. It adds a unique, shall we say, flavor to the entire spectacle.

Social media takeovers, a strategy where you temporarily hand over your brand accounts to someone else, require that you step out of your comfort zone and allow fresh, diverse voices to echo through your social channels. 

These voices, whether they belong to influencers, industry experts, or even your own employees, can captivate your audience in ways you might not have imagined.

Chapters:

1. What is a social media takeover?
2. Why brands should run social media takeovers
3. How to plan and execute a successful social media takeover
4. Examples of social media takeovers in action
5. Unlock the full potential of social media

What is a social media takeover?

A social media takeover is a strategic move where an external influencer, celebrity, or internal team member takes the reins of your brand’s social media accounts for a short period. During this period, the guest takes charge of creating and posting content, interacting with your audience, and essentially representing your brand’s voice on social media.

The concept thrives on diversity and freshness. The guest brings their own style to the table, offering your audience a different perspective they don’t usually see. 

In a social media takeover, your partner typically has the freedom to create content that aligns with their personal brand and your brand’s values and goals. The key is finding the right balance between the guest’s creativity and your brand’s messaging.

Why brands should run social media takeovers

Influencers and other user-generated content (UGC) creators have a lot of sway with consumer audiences. And this influence is shaping how people shop and interact with brands online. According to our internal research, three out of four consumers say their shopping behavior is significantly influenced by social media, with 60% making purchases directly through recommendations or links from influencers.

By taking part in a social media takeover, you tap into creators’ credibility, reach, and ability to impact consumer decisions. It’s an effective way to leverage the trust and rapport that they have built with their audience, translating it into increased brand visibility, engagement, and, ultimately, sales. 

We know consumer attention is fragmented and fleeting. Social media takeovers are an opportunity to capture interest in the midst of all the content and drive consumer action. They provide a platform for you to showcase your products in a relatable and authentic manner, making the shopping experience more engaging and personal for the consumers.

How to plan and execute a successful social media takeover

You can’t just give an influencer free rein to do whatever they want and call it a day. You have a brand to protect. And every action taken under your banner should reflect its values, voice, and objectives.

1. Set your goals

Takeovers are smaller, time-bound strategies that should fit into your broader social media strategy. Before scouring Instagram for the ideal influencer, take a beat to define clear and measurable goals. This will set the foundation for a successful campaign that benefits both you and the creator. 

Are you aiming to increase follower count, boost customer engagement, or generate buzz around a new product launch? Whatever your goal is, it will require a tailored approach. If increasing brand awareness is your aim, you might focus on reaching a wider audience through an influencer with a substantial following.

On the other hand, driving sales might involve collaborating with a smaller creator known for their persuasive product recommendations. 

The more specific your goals, the easier it is to measure success post-campaign. Instead of a vague objective like “increase engagement,” think in terms of tangible metrics — e.g. a 20% increase in interactions on your posts during the takeover period. 

2. Choose the right platform and format

Which of your branded channels should you hand over? The choice comes down to where your target audience spends their time and how they like to consume content. 

Let’s say your audience is on the younger side and prefers visual storytelling. In this case, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok are your best bet. Here, product tutorials or behind-the-scenes stories can generate a lot of attention. For a more conversation-driven approach, X (the blue bird formerly known as Twitter) or LinkedIn are more suitable. These platforms are excellent for hosting Q&A sessions, sharing insights, or discussing trends. 

The format of your social media takeover should also resonate with your audience’s preferences. Do they enjoy live interactions, or are they more inclined towards curated posts? Instagram Stories or TikTok videos are great for dynamic, engaging content, while X threads are ideal for informative discussions.

3. Find the perfect takeover partner

Time to cast the lead role. You can go straight to the source (social media channels where creators are already active) to kickstart your influencer search. Use hashtags and track your brand mentions, or look for micro-influencers that already follow and engage with your brand. 

If you have the budget for it, influencer marketing platforms cut down on the amount of browsing you have to do. They immediately show you relevant influencers to your industry and audience.

Once you have a list of potential collaborators, study their content more closely to avoid mismatches — like a luxury brand partnering with an influencer known for budget shopping. That’s just asking for a one-way ticket to Cancelled City.

While you want someone with healthy engagement metrics, don’t make your choice based on numbers alone. Choosing someone who genuinely appreciates and understands your brand will come across as more authentic to the audience than a cash grab with a very popular influencer.

4. Craft a collaborative content plan

This is where the magic begins to take shape. ​​The part where you blend the influencer’s style with your brand’s message so that the content resonates with both your audiences. 

Start with a meeting between your team and the creator. Discuss themes, ideas, and messages that align with your campaign goals, and decide on the types of content that will be most effective and that the influencer excels at. Will it be behind-the-scenes stories, product demonstrations, or Q&A sessions? 

Once you agree on the content, develop a social media calendar that outlines what will be posted and when, including the announcement of the takeover on both accounts. It should take into account the best times to post for optimal engagement, depending on your audience’s online activity patterns. 

Be prepared to make adjustments based on real-time feedback. It’s great to have a plan to guide the takeover, but if certain types of posts end up resonating more with your audience, consider tweaking your plan to include more of that content.

5. Manage permissions and security

The trickiest part of a social media takeover is deciding how much access to grant your collaborator. You need to maintain control and safeguard your brand’s confidential data while allowing enough flexibility for the influencer to be creative and engaging.

Temporary access is the most balanced choice. Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, and LinkedIn all allow you to add collaborators to your account without handing over login credentials. This way, creators can engage directly with the audience via comments, Q&As, and reactions. 

However, these permissions allow collaborators to see analytics and data insights, which might be something you don’t want or the legal team won’t allow. Plus, TikTok doesn’t have the option of adding someone else unless you’re collaborating on ads. You can circumvent this in one of two ways:

1. Have the influencer hand over content (so your team can post it)
2. Share login credentials directly

With a content hand-off, you don’t have to worry about permissions or the influencer seeing more than they should. On the other hand, it keeps them from interacting with your audience in real time, which credential sharing allows. There are more risks associated with this approach, but if you feel comfortable doing so, you can change the password at a later time.

6. Launch the takeover

Before the big day, make sure you and your partner build excitement by announcing the takeover in advance. Share posts on your social media channels (even those that won’t be taken over) introducing the influencer and giving a sneak peek of what followers can expect.

The first post should grab attention, set the tone for what’s to come, and encourage followers to stay tuned. Throughout the takeover, keep the communication between your team and the influencer open so that any last-minute changes or updates are smoothly handled. 

As the takeover unfolds, monitor the engagement and encourage the creator to interact with the audience. Responding to comments, sharing insights, and keeping the conversation going are all key to maintaining momentum. 

Don’t forget to capture the highlights — these can be used for post-takeover content, helping to extend the life of the campaign and providing valuable content for future marketing efforts.

7. Analyze your performance and gather insights for future campaigns

Analyzing the results of your social media takeover gives you a complete picture of what worked, what didn’t, and how you can improve future campaigns. 

Start by examining key metrics related to the goals you first set, such as engagement rates, follower growth, website traffic, and conversion rates. Tools like Google Analytics or using a social media management platform provide a wealth of data on this front. 

Be as granular as possible — look at which posts, stories, or tweets performed the best. Read through comments and messages to gauge the audience’s reactions and perceptions. Did they find the takeover informative, entertaining, and engaging? 

This is also a time to reflect on the partnership itself. Was the influencer’s communication style and content in line with your brand? Did they bring new ideas and perspectives that benefited your campaign? 

Once you gather and analyze the data, create a comprehensive report consolidating all the findings. This document should highlight the successes, areas for improvement, and recommendations for the next takeovers. It will also serve as a blueprint to brainstorm ideas for further campaigns that follow this format.

Examples of social media takeovers in action

Don’t just take our word for it. Check out how three different brands leverage takeovers to keep their content fresh and their followers glued to their social media feeds.

Dripping Gold highlights influencer takeovers on their profile

Dripping Gold, a luxury tanning products brand, knows the power of user-generated content and its effectiveness at promoting authenticity, engagement, and customer loyalty. The brand often partners with influencers to produce a steady content stream that populates their Instagram and TikTok accounts. One of their preferred strategies is — you guessed it — social media takeovers.

Dripping Gold often taps young female influencers to partner with, known for their fashion, makeup, and lifestyle content. Creators like Katie White (pictured above) share long videos on the brand’s Instagram Stories showcasing how the audience can use Dripping Gold’s products to create makeup looks or achieve the perfect tan.

To ensure the longevity of the collaborations (the best content is evergreen content), Dripping Gold pins all of the takeovers to their Instagram highlights. This decision allows followers who might have missed the live events to view the content at their leisure, further extending the reach and impact of the takeovers. 

Stephanie Garber engages with readers through the Barnes & Noble account

Stephanie Garber is a beloved young adult writer. In the days leading up to the release of her eagerly anticipated book, “A Curse for True Love,” Barnes & Noble invited Garber to take over their Instagram Stories for a cool 24 hours. 

Throughout the takeover, the author offered Barnes & Noble’s followers an intimate look into her day, including sneaky book signings and snapshots of her lunch meetings. The day’s highlight was a live Q&A session, where Stephanie allowed fans to engage with her directly and ask about the novel, book recommendations, and her dream travel destinations.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Stephanie Garber (@stephanie_garber)

The takeover was a smart move for two reasons: first, it leveraged Stephanie Garber’s personal brand and loyal fan base to drive anticipation for her new book. Second, it provided Barnes & Noble with engaging, authentic content that resonated with their audience of book lovers. 

Fenty Beauty dedicates every Friday to a social media takeover

UGC and influencer content are the pillars of Fenty Beauty’s social media strategy. The brand’s Instagram and TikTok feeds are verifiable galleries of real-life product applications, with actual users and influential beauty enthusiasts taking up more space than branded content.

One of the many ways Fenty Beauty hands over the mic is through takeovers. Back in its earlier days, the brand dedicated Fridays to creators from various backgrounds, where they demonstrated everything from achieving the perfect winged liner to creating a flawless foundation routine (using Fenty Beauty products, of course.) 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Stephanie Garber (@stephanie_garber)

And they didn’t stop at Instagram. Instead of letting the content sit idly by, Fenty extended its life and reach by compiling the best takeovers into YouTube videos for their 900K+ subscribers to enjoy.

Unlock the full potential of social media

Takeovers are a dynamic way to showcase brand personality and keep your content from getting stale. But (there’s always a but) they’re just a fraction of the broader spectrum of strategies that drive consumer action on social media. 

Social commerce is revolutionizing how brands interact with their audiences, blending social media’s immersive and interactive nature with the convenience of online shopping. With shoppable images and videos now a feature of most social media channels, they become more than marketing tools. They become powerful sales channels.

Read this Ultimate Guide to Social Commerce Conversion and hop on the social commerce train before it leaves the station.

LEARN MORE

A practical guide for social media professionals to drive engagement and commerce

Read here