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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Picture this: You’re walking through the store, your stomach is growling, and you’re looking for the perfect thing to eat. Then, out of nowhere, a person shouts, “Free samples!” and hands you a hot bite of pizza just oozing with melted mozzarella cheese. And hey, it’s dinner time…you want more! *Add to cart.*

Now, replace that pizza with anything else — wine, ice cream, a handheld vacuum. Once customers try it, they’re more likely to talk about it, buy it, and share it. That’s why, despite the costs, product sampling marketing is one of the most effective ways of collecting authentic content and increasing conversions on your e-commerce site, social pages, and beyond.

Chapters:

1. What is product sampling?
2. When should you launch a product sampling campaign?
3. Why you should launch a product sampling campaign
4. Product sampling strategies
5. Get started with product sampling

What is product sampling?

It’s the practice of offering goods or services to your audience in exchange for increased brand awareness, brand loyalty, reviews, feedback, and other revenue-boosting user-generated content (UGC). This is a form of experiential marketing because consumers are able to completely absorb and engage with the product prior to buying it.

Quick history lesson: Product sampling is a tried-and-true marketing strategy dating back to the 1850s. Benjamin T. Babbitt, a soap manufacturer, was one of the first people to hand out samples to his fan base. As time passed, the power of this marketing strategy was realized by others and has since become popular in a variety of industries.

Today, there’s several different product sampling methods:

• Traditional sampling means giving away free product samples to customers, so they will feel more confident buying the product
• Digital product sampling is a sustainable sampling method, where customers buy a product in a store or online with a provided coupon, or receive money back after uploading the receipt — no samples need to be shipped meaning no unnecessary packaging waste
• Sampler packs include small or trial-size products. If the customer likes the sample, they are more likely to buy the product at full size
• Mail drops are when you mail free samples directly to customers’ homes
• Limited time samples are free only for a specific amount of time, such as three days, a week, etc. This adds excitement and plays to the psychological fear of missing out (FOMO!)
• Virtual sampling is when consumers are able to try out a product online without visiting a store or receiving something in the mail. This type of product sampling campaign relies on technology like an app or artificial intelligence

When should you launch a product sampling campaign?

You should launch a product sampling campaign when you need to boost word of mouth or get feedback on a new product.

• You have a high-quality, effective product ready for people to test. It’s important to make sure you’re delivering something genuinely good before people’s opinions start flying. A bad product will be all the more maligned by product sampling
• Your budget can handle sampling costs. This includes the cost of the samples as well as shipping, handling, staffing, and marketing. Note: Digital product sampling alleviates a lot of fulfillment costs!
• You need increased brand awareness for an existing product. If your brand isn’t well-known but you have a great product, you need positive word of mouth to increase brand awareness and fill your sales funnel. Just make sure expansion is feasible for you based on your current business model
• You have a new product to launch. Product sampling will help with product development, as well as create some additional buzz. People who sample your product and love it are more likely to buy it, tell their friends, and even create shareable content about it

Why you should launch a product sampling campaign

Product sampling marketing helps brands boost feedback, conversion rates, positive reviews, and social content for both small and enterprise brands alike.

Get valuable product feedback

Product sampling is a way to connect with and get feedback from your audience.

According to Ryan Stewart, a marketing expert and the managing partner of WEBRIS, “We normally ask them questions about their experiences with our services, show how they use them, or even invite them to take part in an online contest that involves using our services.”

You can also use surveys to collect quantitative and qualitative data. This feedback can help you further develop the product into something your audience will love.

Boost sales and conversion rates

Sampling a product makes customers want to buy it. It’s wired into our psychology. Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University, knows samples create desire. “If I gave you a tiny bit of chocolate,” he says, “all of a sudden it would remind you about the exact taste of chocolate and would increase your craving.”

Take Costco, for example. An oft-cited study about Costco revealed the grocery store saw a significant boost in revenue thanks to its free food samples. And Stewart confirms sampling is a solid way to increase sales. He asserts, “People who feel like we value their opinions are more likely to buy from us when they need something similar in the future.”

Gathering UGC and reviews from shoppers also gives brands a significant boost in sales. Absolution Cosmetics wanted to support product launches, build brand awareness around their healthy skin care messaging, and boost customer loyalty and engagement to ultimately increase sales. The brand implemented a dual review collection strategy, combining an evergreen sweepstakes on their website, ensuring a constant influx of fresh UGC and reviews, and targeted product sampling campaigns to support new product launches.

As a result, in just a six-month period, Absolution increased its revenue per visitor from 14% to 123%, customer engagement from 28% to 61%, and earned $107K directly attributed to ratings and reviews.

Encourage positive reviews due to a sense of reciprocity

Free samples encourage potential customers to play into the idea of reciprocity. In other words, people who receive the sample want to do something for your brand in return — like posting a positive review on social media.

This by no means every review is going to be positive of course. Neither should that be expected. Product sampling isn’t “we’ll send you a product sample in return for a positive review.” By contrast, reviews should be honest regardless of the sentiment. And even negative reviews provide added authenticity for your brand.

But one of the reasons sampling does yield such positive results is because the right provider (like Bazaarvoice ) can create campaigns for a hyper-targeted audience across demographics, behaviors, preferences, and more. When the recipient is the exact target audience the product is for, the review is much more likely to be positive. Just make sure your sampling provider can accommodate this.

“Product sampling allows us to get our audience involved in the creation of our content, which gives them a sense of ownership over what we’re sharing,” says Stewart.

For instance, after TTI Floor Care North America allowed top brand loyalists to sample Dirt Devil vacuum cleaners for free, they saw an 86% response rate and more than 700 reviews full of positive, authentic UGC. As a result, Dirt Devil product reviews went from 2.8 to 4.5 stars. These reviews not only filled TTI’s own webpage but were also syndicated on major retailers’ sites.

Supercharging brand awareness with social content

You probably already know that social content is an important way to reach consumers. Combining the reach of social media with the effectiveness of sampling gives you a unique marketing campaign powerhouse.

Most Bazaarvoice Sampling customers are brand managers who use sampling to generate and feature content on social media.

“Linking sampling to social is a core tenant of any e-commerce plan,” says Kerry Bridge, Global Director of Advocacy at Bazaarvoice. “You need to be able to collect that great content from social in order to populate your product pages. Plus build your community.”

We’ve pinpointed a few different reasons why social content and sampling go hand-in-hand:

1. New product launches benefit greatly from large amounts of recent UGC. 89% of shoppers check reviews before making a purchase, and 60% of shoppers feel more comfortable making a purchase if they can see product images or videos first. A great way to collect this valuable UGC is to employ sampling
2. Entering new markets helps you expand your reach. Each demographic is different, and over 70% of shoppers are looking for perspectives that reflect their own. Product sampling can help you get your foot in the door and provide UGC that speaks to these new markets in a relatable way
3. Supporting your core SKUs with product sampling allows you to collect quality content at scale. Your core products are hot sellers for a reason — get them in your fans’ hands through a sampling campaign and encourage them to create content. Data from our Bazaarvoice Network of over 12,500 brands and retailers found a 135% increase in conversion rate and a 164% increase in revenue per visitor when shoppers engaged with social content from their peers
4. Working with the right content creators can help you skyrocket your brand awareness and success. Creator collaborations add to your content volume, and by sharing with their own engaged audiences, they also extend your reach

Relaunch your products

There may be times when you want to shift your brand strategy and reformulate or reinvent your product. With the introduction of the FTC’s 2023 review hijacking legislation, reformulating your product isn’t just about tweaking its features — it’s about ushering it into the market as if it’s an entirely new line. It’s a unique challenge, with the daunting task of resetting your review count and content collection to zero. But sampling can help you rapidly rebuild from this new starting line.

• Relaunch your product with fresh advocacy: Successfully relaunch your reformulated product by targeting the right audience, providing an experience, driving UGC from day one, and gaining actionable insights from product samplers
• Combat misleading reviews with authentic content: If the reformulation means the product is “substantially different” in “one or more material attributes” from the prior version (as per the FTC), it would be deceptive to continue using existing reviews. A sampling campaign can generate fresh reviews and customer photos quickly and effectively so you have an arsenal of new social proof you can show off to shoppers

Product sampling strategies

Ultimately, all sampling campaigns help your potential customers get a preview of what you’re selling while helping you get more visibility for your product and brand overall. The individual strategies can take several different forms, from in-store food samples (Costco) or mailed glasses to try on (Warby Parker). The details depend on your business model and campaign goals.

Here’s seven examples from the masters that you can imitate when you craft your own campaign, including the relevant sampling program they used.

Costco nails the traditional sampling strategy

Costco is famous for the traditional, in-store, free sample method. People have gone so far as to tour the sample tables at various Costco stores. The more samples people try, the closer they get to a free lunch. Personal finance and food bloggers have picked up on this idea as well and have even written articles encouraging the practice.

Costco’s store sampling draws people to its stores, thanks to one key message: Going to Costco is fun (and yummy!)

While you might be nervous about handing out “freebies,” the benefits far outweigh the costs. In fact, according to the College Marketing Group, “Interactions — the company that handles Costco’s sampling — found that their efforts led to a 71% increase in sales of beer and a 600% increase in frozen pizza.”

Traditional sampling works especially well for supermarkets like Costco, as well as other brick-and-mortar stores like makeup counters. Just remember that the goal for this type of sampling is to increase sales and positive word of mouth. You probably won’t get a lot of usable content out of it.

L’Oréal gets personal with virtual sampling

Since its target market is focused primarily on beauty, personalization and creativity are everything for L’Oréal. That’s why L’Oréal’s special offers and promotions are tailored to this demographic’s specific preferences and needs in the form of virtual sampling.

Customers simply select a product like hair dye or blush. Once they grant L’Oréal access to their camera, a small window shows them what they would look like wearing that product. It’s kind of like Zoom + the Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap Visualizer. But instead of paint, it’s a beauty product.

Virtual sampling is attractive because it’s incredibly scalable, not to mention germ-free. Brands aren’t limited by physical space in stores or the cost of making or shipping the product. Instead, consumers are able to instantly get a good idea of what the product would be like for them without the hassle of applying the sample color to their wrist (eww), applying to a program, handing over their personal info, or potentially wasting a product if they don’t like it.

This technique is also sometimes more helpful and realistic than physical store samples because the tool takes into account different product combinations and how they affect each other. For example, if I dyed my hair bright red, would that red lipstick look good? Hmm… maybe a more subtle shade would be better.

Brands can use virtual try-ons to fill their social media calendars. If you have a tool like this, inspire your customers to post a photo of themselves on social media “trying on” your product. Then collect, store, and track that content using Bazaarvoice’s AI-powered Media Library.

Warby Parker masters the mail drop

Warby Parker prides itself on its choice selection when it comes to new, stylish, and comfortable eyeglass frames. It provides a quiz to help customers determine exactly what type of frames will best suit them and then a personalized selection based on their responses.

After completing the quiz, customers can choose up to five frames that are delivered right to their homes, where they can test them for five days. After finding that perfect pair, customers can buy what they want and ship the rest back. The return shipping is free with Warby Parker’s return label.

For something you have to wear all the time (like glasses), comfort and style are paramount. Warby Parker helps customers feel assured that both needs will be met because customers can literally see the results for themselves at home before buying.

For brands that want a turnkey sampler program, Bazaarvoice offers a white-labeled sampling program to help retailers get their product samples directly into the hands of their community and start generating UGC.

Neuro optimizes product development

Sampling isn’t just to market and sell existing products. Kent Yoshimura and Ryan Chen, co-founders of wellness company Neuro, explain in this podcast one of the key ways they achieved their success: making sure Neuro Gum was as perfect as possible before they jumped into product activation. They gave out free samples of the gum to family, friends, and co-workers to test a variety of key details such as:

• Different ingredients (20 milligrams of caffeine to 80 milligrams of caffeine)
• New flavors
• Different sweeteners
• Hard chews vs. soft chews

After perfecting the product, Yoshimura and Chen surpassed their crowdfunding goal in just three days and ended up selling over 12 million pieces of Neuro Gum. And those people who sample the product became loyal customers.

“Once we introduce that product to somebody, the repeat purchase rate can be up to about 40, 45%,” said Chen. “Our challenge is getting people to try the product. Sampling is a really big opportunity for us.”

Neuro ensured it had a good, high-quality product and an active community of fans, thanks to product sampling. According to Chen, “We’ve grown such a loyal group of customers that they give us feedback all the time. It’s built a community which has been inspiring for us and has given us the motivation to keep going.”

After their initial success, they continued sampling with specific cohorts like the CrossFit community. They’ve also shipped product samples to new distributors to explore a potential new market in Africa.

Using samples and collecting customer responses is the most effective way to get meaningful feedback about your product, so you can improve it and launch with confidence.

Bazaarvoice’s sampling programs can help you learn from sampler feedback and expand into new markets via our robust, global Influenster community.

Home Depot doubles conversion rates with Managed Sampling

Home Depot Canada wanted to increase the volume of UGC, particularly reviews, its brands get on its product pages. So they partnered with bazaarvoice to create the Home Depot Seeds Sampling program.

“UGC is becoming increasingly important. It’s no longer a ‘nice to have.’ It’s a necessity. We see our site as a research tool, so even if people come into the store, they still use their phones to see ratings and reviews and make a final decision.”

Gabriela da Silva, Senior Brand Advocate Analyst, Home Depot Canada

Seeds Sampling is a review-seeding program that puts a brand’s highest priority products into the hands of its shoppers, in exchange for honest reviews on HomeDepot.ca. Since the program’s inception, it’s already led to some brands doubling their conversion rates on HomeDepot.ca.

It’s not just legacy products either. WiZ, a brand featured on HomeDepot.ca, used Seeds Sampling to generate buzz for new products and earn that UGC before they’d even launched. 

It worked, too. The conversion rate for the products used in Seeds Sampling was 68% higher than products not part of the program. Not bad at all.

Home Depot isn’t the first retailer to turn to Bazaarvoice for a Managed Sampling program. We’ve built sampling programs for Walmart, Target, and Sam’sClub, to name a few. And you could be next.

Get started with product sampling

Ready to experience the power of product sampling marketing in your own business? Bazaarvoice makes it easier than ever to get your products into the hands of the perfect customers, leading to a surge in reviews, social media buzz, authentic word-of-mouth, and sales.

You can learn more about Bazaarvoice Sampling here, or get started directly below.

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Buyer’s guide: Find the perfect product sampling partner

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Since 1914, AI has helped power commercial airplanes’ autopilot functionality. Today, spam filters, mobile check deposits, and facial-recognition technology all use AI to make consumers’ lives easier.

And in e-commerce, AI is used to improve website search functionality and make better recommendations based on recent browsing activity. The technology also helps power retargeting ads and chatbots.

Now, leading brands and retailers are tapping this technology to improve the shopping experience for customers in innovative new ways. Thanks to the growth of AI in e-commerce, shopping from home, in the park, or literally anywhere you have an internet connection, just got a whole lot more exciting.

Chapters:

1. Awesome ways AI is impacting e-commerce
2. AI in e-commerce examples
3. How to optimize your AI in e-commerce strategy

Awesome ways AI is impacting e-commerce

We’ve been watching the AI trend closely over the past year. Here are some of the most exciting AI in e-commerce use cases to date.

Though it would be fun to list all of the capabilities, approaches, and uses AI provides for e-commerce businesses, we’d be here for a while. Rather than forcing you to take a few personal days to get through it all, we thought we’d narrow it down to our favorite ways AI is changing the world of e-commerce.

1. Endless personalization

Oh, personalization. The hot topic that’ss taken consumer demands to another metaverse while forcing retailers to ask themselves, “Do I really know my customers as well as they want me to?”

Personalized shopper journeys are more of an expectation than an add-on these days. Luckily, AI algorithms can analyze colossal amounts of data, providing valuable insights into things like customer behavior, preferences, and trends. This information helps e-commerce businesses make data-driven decisions, optimize marketing strategies, and customize their offerings to each shopper’s needs. 

The result? A bucket load of customer satisfaction, increased engagement, and higher revenue. Personalization has also been proven to strengthen brand loyalty — 70% of consumers say that how well a company understands their individual needs impacts their loyalty. Give them what they want (personalized, relevant experiences), and watch their support grow.   

Personalized product recommendations 

You can’t talk about e-commerce personalization without mentioning its compatriot, AI-generated product recommendations. These subtle suggestions can create quite the shopper stir when delivered at the right time and in the right way.

First, AI algorithms analyze customer data, like browsing behavior and purchase history to identify shopping patterns. Then, that information is used to recommend products that might interest the shopper. And boom: more sales.

Intuitive cross-selling + upselling

Remember that important customer data we previously mentioned? AI systems can use it to identify relevant cross-selling and upselling opportunities. Even better, AI has a large capacity to learn and adapt, which means that over time you’ll be able to maximize your supplementary sales, propelling and improving your customer lifetime value.

2. It enhances the customer experience

One of the most meaningful ways AI is evolving e-commerce is by providing marvelously-engaging customer shopping experiences. From the very first search to the final post-purchase adieu, AI enables your digital store to function in a way that makes each shopper feel like it was created just for them.

Smarter site search

While it might seem somewhat unassuming, an e-commerce site’s ‘search’ can tell a huge story. And when powered by machine learning technology, its narrative includes advanced algorithms that are enhancing product discovery for online shoppers.

AI uses advanced natural language processing (NLP), making a user’s shopping experience faster, easier, and more intuitive. By understanding consumer language and combining keyword search and vector search into a single query, results are more accurate, and relevant. This means shoppers have a higher chance of finding exactly what they’re looking for, through two key ways:

1. Voice search. This well-known speech recognition technology allows shoppers to search phrases quickly without using a mobile device’s keyboard. Thanks to emerging AI, voice commerce has seen some impressive upgrades. For starters, speech analysis and contextual reasoning have led to more accurate voice recognition. It also saves customers time by reducing the effort (and chance for errors) of manual typing — handy for lengthy product names like, “Organic Queen Size Memory Foam Lavender Scented Pillow”
2. Visual search. Sometimes, a shopper wants to find a product but doesn’t know its name, type, or the category it falls under. Usually, it’s right about here that their search journey ends. But with visual search, potential customers can look for products using images and nothing else. If an online visitor doesn’t know the details of an item they’re interested in, all they need to do is use a picture to find what they’re searching for. Not only does this increase product exposure, but it elevates the customer experience by alleviating the friction between curiosity and acquisition

Interactive augmented and virtual reality

Both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) enhance the e-commerce experience by providing immersive and responsive features that minimize the gap between online and physical (phygital) shopping.

Maybe it’s because AR integrates simulated elements with the real world, enabling shoppers to engage with products in their own surroundings. Or maybe it’s because AR can seamlessly work with existing devices, so shoppers can experience a product from their iPhone or tablet. Either way, the global AR market is expected to reach $300 billion this year.

Shoppers can try on virtual products, see how items will look and fit in their space, and participate in interactive demonstrations. Another cool AI-driven feature: online retailers can incorporate tailored recommendations and offers for an additional layer of personalization. 

Chatbots and virtual assistants 

One of the most significant ways AI is transforming e-commerce is through improved customer service. Most e-commerce businesses don’t have time to compose a personalized response to every incoming inquiry. This is where artificial intelligence can really serve a purpose.

Chatbots enable online retailers to provide 24/7 support to their customers. And because they never take breaks or get heated, chatbots can provide a level of service humans can’t match up to. Did we mention they don’t get paid either? 

Chatbots use NLP to understand customer queries. This allows them to provide immediate and accurate responses, help shoppers make smart purchasing decisions, and assist with order tracking and returns. These virtual assistants have already been a lifesaver for many digital stores and consumers.

Streamlined checkout process

Did you know that the average cart abandonment rate is around 70%? The good news is that AI can help to decrease the number of lost customers during the checkout process. 

AI algorithms optimize the checkout flow by assessing customer behavior and preferences to determine if any recommendations or messaging is needed for that final purchasing persuasion. 

Machine learning can also save shoppers time by inputting customer information, and offering advanced support by providing effortless payment processing. Together, this creates a more streamlined shopping experience that can minimize cart abandonment and maximize conversion rates.

3. It improves business operations

There’s a lot that goes on beyond what a shopper sees on their device’s screen. AI makes managing the back-end of e-commerce easier by providing tools that boost efficiency, save on costs, and help online retailers know exactly who to market to.

Increasing productivity

The use of AI in e-commerce empowers businesses to automate several procedures that are usually performed manually. By utilizing this innovative technology, online retailers can diminish their time spent on repetitive and arduous tasks, such as packaging items, restocking shelves, and troubleshooting issues.

The best part? The more AI software is introduced, the more its capabilities improve, resulting in a revolving loop of productivity.

It’s important to note that automation doesn’t mean extinguishing all redundancies or replacing people with technology. Rather, AI and machine learning streamline repetitive tasks, limiting the chance of operational errors. This frees your team from monotonous jobs, allowing them to channel their efforts toward more complex and creative responsibilities that have a greater impact on your bottom line.

Predictive analytics tools

AI-driven, predictive analytics tools can examine enormous volumes of customer data to forecast market trends, potential risks, and future opportunities. These insights enable you to make informed decisions and customize your sales and marketing strategies to better align with shopper preferences. 

Predictive analytics tools also play a crucial role in helping e-commerce businesses with supply chain management – but more on that in a minute. 

Customer segmentation

Thanks to AI technology, hyper-segmenting audiences based on data like browsing history, life stages, and even major hurdles, has become easier than ever. This information helps online retailers gain knowledge about everything from a customer’s preferences and behaviors, to their sentiments about products and services.

As a result, e-commerce businesses can tailor marketing campaigns and sales offers toward select shoppers. Plus it allows online merchants to get incredibly specific about targeting, messaging, and timing, which increases the chance of a better return on investment (ROI).

4. Superior supply chain management 

AI is modernizing the e-commerce industry by providing greater automation in supply chain management. Predictive analytics can help optimize stock levels, streamline delivery routes, and forecast potential disruptions. Here’s a quick breakdown for you.

Demand forecasting

Many online retailers rely on artificial intelligence for sales predictions to make demand forecasts more precise. Instead of using historical data, AI software makes sales and demand predictions using real-time data like weather, demographics, and online reviews, to name just a few. This allows you to adjust inventory levels and enhance operational adeptness.

Inventory management 

Good inventory management focuses on monitoring stock levels to ensure the right supply is always available to meet customer demand.

AI helps e-commerce stores maintain adequate inventory levels by utilizing data such as sales trends from previous years, projected changes in product demands, and impending supply-related issues that could affect stock availability.

And unlike pesky humans, AI robots can be used 24/7 to dispatch items immediately following an order, fetch inventory, or stockpile merchandise.

Optimized pricing strategies

AI-powered dynamic pricing lets e-commerce businesses adjust their pricing based on supply and demand.

Using data analytics and more machine learning methods, AI algorithms evaluate market trends, customer behavior, and competitor pricing to determine the best price for any product. 

Dynamic pricing algorithms can then adjust prices in real-time to enable digital retailers to boost revenue and maintain a competitive edge.

AI in e-commerce brand examples

AI is already well underway and brands are taking note. Here’s some of our favourite brand examples of AI in e-commerce.

Playing makeup at home

One of the best arguments for using AI in e-commerce is trying on items — virtually. NARS Cosmetics’ virtual try-on uses a shopper’s camera to instantly detect the contours of the face. As shoppers click on shades of lipstick, bronzer, and eyeshadow, the makeup is superimposed on their lips, cheeks, and eyes.

Occasionally a set of bright red lips appear in the middle of the screen, but the experience is surprisingly smooth and accurate. The technology also automatically evens out shoppers’ skin tone, making the makeup extra flattering.

Home sweet (virtual) home

Target’s See It in Your Space tool uses AR to allow shoppers to literally see how furniture and decorations will look in their home. Shoppers can either upload a photo of a room or use the Target app to access their device’s camera. Then, they select furniture to overlay on the image.

The tool helps them see if items will fit in the space, coordinate with other items, and decide which finish or color works best. 

Taking ‘see it for yourself’ to another level

Eyewear brand Warby Parker was an early adopter of AR. Its app allows shoppers to see how each frame will fit their face.

The brand’s Virtual Try-On feature also won a Webby Award. Shoppers can click through different styles and colors to see which best complements their face shape. Once they’ve picked their favorites, Warby Parkers allows shoppers to select 5 frames to try on at home for free.  

H&M’s personal stylist

H&M use an AI chatbot as their own personal shopping assistant. The bot learns each shopper’s style preferences through a series of questions, then presents options to the shopper to choose from.

Based on continual feedback from the shopper, the chatbot continues to offer up new suggestions, advice, and products for them to purchase.

3D luxury

Consumers looking for a new designer handbag or wallet can now view 3D images of their favorite Burberry products online. The items are scaled to size and then superimposed on the shopper’s camera screen.

Consumers can then see what a purse looks like on their shoulder or countertop and see how it complements their favorite outfits.

How to optimize your AI in e-commerce strategy

AI is clearly here to stay. Whether it’s transforming e-commerce by delivering endless personalization, enhancing the overall customer experience, or improving company operations, the AI revolution is changing the way we do business. But don’t forget: AI is here to enhance, not replace.

Ready to unlock the power of AI for e-commerce? Bazaarvoice Insights and Reports tools seamlessly integrate AI to boost efficiency and optimize your marketing strategy. Whether for boosting sales, improving products, or competitor analysis, our tools have you covered. 

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Masterclass: How to use AI strategically and responsibly

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E-commerce and brand managers will soon have to rely on first-party data — the data you collect directly from customers yourself.

Not just to stay compliant with privacy regulations such as the GDPR and CCPA, but because a first-party data strategy can enhance your revenue, provide value internally for your business, give you better customer data, and ultimately help you build a relationship with your customers. 

Chapters:

1. What is first-party data?
2. How to use first-party data
3. How to collect first-party data
4. First-party data e-commerce strategies
5. Examples of first-party data strategy in action
6. Maximize your first-party data

What is first-party data?

First-party data is customer information and data that you collect yourself — directly from your audience. Nobody else owns this data except you. It cannot legally be sold or shared, it doesn’t follow users outside of your website, and it’s made up of two different “types” of data.

1. Declarative data

Declarative data is the data that your audience self-reports, such as their name, email address, location, and more. It doesn’t just have to be rote demographic data, however. It can also be data such as their income level, the number of pets they have, and more. It’s especially useful for understanding consumer behavior and finding out what triggers buying behaviors.

Example: A customer informs you that they have pets: two cats. This information comes directly from the customer.

2. Behavioral data

Behavioral data is data based on the activities of a site visitor. This type of data is often collected via the use of a first-party cookie or tracking pixel. This cookie is unique to your site and your site only, and never follows the user across the web. Tools like Google Analytics are commonly used in conjunction with behavioral data to analyze site performance and user behavior, giving marketers and managers granular details about what parts of their website are performing and what parts need improvement.

Example: A customer likes several cat pictures and pages on Instagram but does not explicitly tell a business they have any cats. It’s up to the business to make that inference.

How to use first-party data

Before you start on your first-party data strategy, there’s some housekeeping and tactics that will need looking at first.

Align with stakeholders on what first-party data you’ll collect

First, you need to align with stakeholders on what first-party data you’ll collect. This way, you have buy-in from everyone on your team, and everyone’s needs are equally represented. Because this first-party data will become your only data source, it needs to be as robust as possible, while still keeping within regulations.

Aligning with stakeholders requires some prep on your end. Before meeting with the different stakeholders in your organization (managers, executives, legal, IT), come up with a list of metrics you’d like to track. Some common ones include sales interactions, emails, phone numbers, site behavior, purchase history, and common demographic information, such as age and location.

Next, you’re going to want to run this list of possible data points by your stakeholders, justifying why you want to collect each data type and how you’re going to do it, so there isn’t any friction between departments over what data is collected and how it’s being used.

Update to the latest Google Analytics data model

Google Analytics version 4 includes new ways to segment and track users, is GDPR and CCPA compliant, and is built to take on first-party data by utilizing AI to fill in data gaps that third-party data would ordinarily have filled.

The ever-popular analytics tool specifically addresses issues with the retirement of third-party data and inconsistencies in cookie consent options by using AI to fill in missing customer information, meaning you can still collect and analyze user data even if you don’t have a complete user profile.

Additionally, Google Analytics 4 helps you easily find and delete user data upon request, which means you can stay compliant with “the right to be forgotten.”

Looking to get started with a site implementation? Google has some valuable resources and a step-by-step guide to implementing Google Analytics 4 properties on your website’s analytics property.

Build new personas and segment your audiences based on first-party data

Because you’ll be using first-party data moving forward, you need your personas to be as accurate as possible; working with inaccurate or baseless buyer personas is a huge waste of time and resources. But you can’t keep relying on third-party data to build your buyer personas. Ask any marketer how accurate their third-party data is, and you’ll probably get back a “not very.” Survey data collected by Deloitte unearthed some startling facts about first-party data’s ugly cousin:

• Over 66% of respondents said that the third-party data about them was zero to 50% accurate as a whole
• Around 71% of all third-party data was deemed inaccurate after a review by survey respondents

As part of a first-party data strategy, personas based on first-party data are crucial to providing a personalized e-commerce marketing and advertising experience. Buyer personas based on first-party data have a number of benefits, including a 10–20% reduction in marketing and sales costs, a 20% higher customer satisfaction rate, a 10–15% increase in sales conversion rates, and a 20–30% increase in employee engagement.

Start by leveraging all the first-party data you can to build your personas. This might include data like location, age, purchase history, audience research, CRM data, or user account information, all of which can be consensually collected without the use of third-party data or cookies.

How you divide your customer base is entirely up to you. But some common shopper segmentations include: 

• Shared characteristics and behaviors
• Common interests
• Demographics
• Region
• Purchase or browser history
• Frequent shoppers or buyers
• New customers
• Recent cart abandoners
• Browsing or buying habits
• Engagement levels
• Average AOV (e.g. big spenders, sales hunters, etc.)

Build a data governance strategy that keeps you compliant

Data governance is the process of ingesting data and managing that data’s lifecycle from creation to storage to deletion.

Both the GDPR and CCPA have clauses that allow users to request their data be deleted — “the right to be forgotten” and “right to erasure.” Data governance strategies play a huge role in both of these clauses — you can’t comply with a data deletion request if you can’t easily find and manage that data in the first place.

Failure to govern your first-party and third-party data in accordance with regulations could put you in regulatory hot water. The GDPR imposes stiff fines for companies who fail to comply. Amazon was hit with a massive $887 million fine for not complying with the GDPR.

Failure to govern your first-party and third-party data in accordance with regulations could put you in regulatory hot water.

Building a data governance strategy requires you to consult with two teams: legal and IT. Legal will be able to tell you what needs to happen to the data you have from a governance standpoint. IT will be able to help you find a solution to managing your data.

Start collecting first-party cookies in place of third-party cookies

You may have seen those popups on some websites asking to place cookies on your browsers while also offering you the chance to opt in or out of data collection. That’s how first-party cookies are placed in a way that’s compliant with regulations — and it’s a crucial aspect of your first-party data strategy. There’s a few key ideas at work here:

• Customer information gathered from first-party cookies is gathered consensually
• This data is being used on this site and only on this site and will not follow the user across the web

Ordinarily, companies use third-party cookies — cookies that have been placed on users’ browsers by third-party sites — to gather customer data. These cookies are placed without the consent of the user, directly violating the GDPR and CCPA, which prohibit the non-consensual placement of third-party cookies. How do you start collecting first-party cookies?

You can do this manually by consulting the different teams in your org about how you’re going to implement a first-party cookie strategy. Design the language and copy, then take your plan to legal, and finally to IT, who can implement a first-party cookie solution. 

If you’re a small or medium-sized business, services like Cookiebot can help you set up collection popups. Larger organizations can rely on tools like OneTrust to do this at scale.

Value exchange

Value exchange is a tactic used to entice customers into exchanging their personal information for high-value content or services (you might recognize this as giving your email in exchange for an e-book or a discount from a company). Value exchange is consensual data collection that’s compliant with the GDPR and CCPA, and it’s mutually beneficial to your business and the customer. It’s a win-win that provides some great, long-term benefits.

Common value exchange tactics are to offer discounts, which help you gather emails, and loyalty programs, which can improve your bottom line and your brand’s relationship with your customers. You get their data and earn their trust, and the customer gets a valuable piece of content, item, or service.

Additionally, it represents your commitment to user privacy and data transparency. You’re being upfront about what you’re collecting, why, and what the customer is getting in exchange for their data. This type of approach is great for building goodwill with your customers and helps you stay compliant with regulations.

How to collect first-party data

Collecting first-party data starts with building users’ trust, gaining their consent, engaging the customers in ways that prompt them to volunteer information, and having the right tech to gather first-party data in place. Here are some tried-and-true methods of collecting first-party data:

Be transparent about the data you do collect. Customer trust is built on transparency, but one in five consumers still believe businesses don’t care about privacy. Separate your business from the pack by explaining how you’re going to use the data you do collect and how it’s being collected in your cookie consent popup.

Ask for reviews from customers. Asking for customers to review products in your e-commerce store is not only a great way to improve your sales performance but also gain access to customer data consensually.

Offer quizzes to your customers in exchange for personalized recommendations. Customers like personalized product or content recommendations — 35% of Amazon purchases come from product recommendations, and 75% of Netflix watches come from recommendations based on customer data. Learning a buyer’s likes, dislikes, and interests is a great way to improve the customer experience, your ROI, and consensually gather first-party data.

Let customers make accounts in your e-commerce store. Accounts are a veritable treasure trove of first-party data. By letting customers volunteer information via user-created profiles, you give them an incentive to return to your e-commerce store and can also mine their accounts for useful bits of data.

Reward repeat customers with a loyalty program. Building a successful customer loyalty program provides you with a dynamic source of customer data — a data source that is constantly evolving and is updated by the customer — as well as better sales numbers and increasing your brand loyalty. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Ask users to participate in surveys. Customer satisfaction surveys are an excellent way of improving your products and services. Surveys can also function as a source of first-party data, giving you the ability to tie interactions back to specific customers so you can identify points of friction within your e-commerce store or customer journey.

First-party data e-commerce strategies

Follow these best-practices for using first-party data to drive e-commerce growth.

Retarget hesitant shoppers

Retargeting is a super effective way to use first-party data to reach customers who have shown interest in your products but haven’t completed a purchase. Use data from website visits to create targeted ads that remind them about their viewed or wishlisted products or items left in their carts.

This subtle-yet-not-so-subtle nudge brings reluctant customers back to your site and also nudges them to complete their purchases.

Generate personalized product recommendations and promotions

With 91% of consumers more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations, implementing this strategy into your e-commerce marketing plan is a no-brainer. Utilize purchase and browsing history to tailor offers and product recommendations that are most likely to appeal to each customer.

These can be displayed on product pages, in email campaigns, and even during the checkout process, and should include related or complementary items that encourage upsells and cross-sells to increase average order value.

Enhance the shopper journey

Strengthening customer relationships is paramount for any e-commerce business’s growth. The stronger the relationship, the greater the trust. And the greater the trust, the deeper the loyalty — which just so happens to convert to higher online revenue. 

Analyze your first-party data to identify any pain points and areas for improvement. This will allow you to optimize the customer experience by reducing any friction throughout the conversion funnel. For example, your first-party data might highlight that many of your customers make their exit during checkout after they see limited payment options.

So then you could add more payment methods, such as buy now, pay later.

Strengthen your loyalty program

A recent study found that 79% of consumers are more likely to do business with a brand because of its loyalty program, which translates to increased customer retention and revenue. Your best approach for making your loyalty program a reason that shoppers seek out your business?

Begin by using your first-party data, such as shopper preferences and previous purchases, to tailor your rewards to each customer. 

And with third-party data going away, loyalty programs are going to be more important than ever when it comes to customers actively sharing their information. With a well-executed, personalized loyalty program, you can increase your customers’ lifetime value, drive repeat purchases, and create champions for your brand.

Target shopping cart ditchers

Customers often leave your site and abandon their full shopping basket with no intention of ever returning to complete a purchase. While this might seem like a waste of time, it’s actually a great opportunity to build connections with online consumers you might never have heard from again.

First-party data can identify those who have recently abandoned shopping carts, and you can then send targeted email reminders or offers to encourage them to complete the purchase. This strategy is proven to work well, especially when an incentive like a limited-time offer is included. 

Looking to catch cart abandoners before they leave your site? Machine learning tech (like Bazaarvoice) can use first party data to identify when a shopper is likely to abandon, and intercept before they’ve made their exit.

Implement dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing can help you maximize revenue by charging different prices to different customers at different times, optimizing based on each consumer’s willingness to pay. Determine whether this hyper-personalization strategy could benefit you by looking at first-party data like customer preferences, buying behavior, and historical purchases.

You’ll also want to take a look at competitor pricing to ensure you’re not over (or under) reaching. From here, you can adjust prices based on your customer segment and offer discounts to customer groups who would benefit from them most to encourage purchases.

Create personalized campaigns

A large part of your marketing budget is likely going toward advertising. Take your wealth of first-party data, including purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographics, and use it to create highly targeted campaigns that spark interest in your segmented groups.

For instance, a furniture retailer may target a group that has all purchased the same sectional with ads featuring a matching chair or ottoman, along with a limited-time discount if they buy it within a set time frame.

Don’t forget to test your strategies

Testing different strategies and messages based on first-party data is paramount to determining what resonates best with your audience.

Make sure to continuously refine your marketing and personalization strategies using A/B testing, and experimenting with different messaging, offers, and channels.

You can then use first-party data to measure the impact of these changes on key metrics like conversion rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and average order value.

Examples of first-party data strategy in action

First-party data is used like any dataset to improve your products, services, revenue numbers, or processes. In the following examples, you’ll notice a common thread throughout: a strong first-party data strategy is in place, and best-practice data collection techniques are used to do a lot more than just target customers for ads or remarketing.

B2C — The slipper store

An e-commerce store selling fun and stylized slippers severed its ties with its data vendor in order to build a first-party data strategy. Upon visiting its website, users are greeted with a prompt asking for their email and phone number in exchange for a 20% off coupon. The user fills in the form and collects their discount.

During checkout, the user is then prompted to create an account to speed along the transaction and manage future purchases. The customer creates an account, enters their shipping and billing information, and completes the transaction. The e-commerce store now has some data points it can use to help improve its products or services.

But that’s not all: first-party data can be used to retarget and nurture leads during the sales process.

B2B — Applicant tracking software vendor

An applicant tracking software (ATS) has a new website and a blog it’s using to capture organic leads. Employees notice that while the blog itself is attracting a fair number of leads for the company, once users navigate to the rest of the website, they bounce within seconds, most never completing an action beyond clicking through a few pages.

The company’s first-party data strategy helps uncover the problem. Using a first-party data cookie and Google Analytics 4, the vendor can see the users coming in via the blog, attempting to schedule a demo with the CTA link on the homepage, and then bouncing. Upon analysis, the vendor realizes that the form isn’t opening when users click the “schedule a demo” CTA. They re-work the form but have another problem on their hands: the vendor has no way of remarketing to leads who didn’t convert.

They turn to first-party data to help. The vendor creates high-quality e-books and assets and then gates them at the bottom of their highest-performing blogs, asking for some basic customer information, such as their email and phone number. Now the vendor can send personalized email content to their leads, educating them on the benefits of ATS in their business and qualifying them for a sales conversation.

Maximize your first-party data with Bazaarvoice

E-commerce managers and brand managers who don’t embrace first-party data are living on borrowed time. Regulations such as the GDPR and CCPA, in conjunction with unanimous motions to quash third-party data and cookies, have put additional pressure on businesses, that often don’t have the time or resources to prepare for third-party data’s retirement.

An easy solution is insights and reports tools from Bazaarvoice. Rather than waste time hiring third parties, the tools help you analyze customer behavior and sentiment, build your brand, and source more reviews to diversify the voices in your first-party data strategy.

Using this insight, Lindt began giving its followers more of what they wanted. And the move paid off: The chocolate company’s website visits increased by 130%, and its clickthrough rate climbed by 178%.

As a social media manager, you’re well-acquainted with the frustration of decoding what actually resonates with your audience amidst the ongoing changes to Instagram Insights. But whatever your brand’s goal for Instagram — whether it’s to grow followers or increase sales — it’s essential to not only keep an eye on analytics but also to truly understand them.

Knowing what data to look for and how to examine it can help you reach your target audience better, post more engaging content, and develop a more effective social strategy to help you reach your goals and ROI.

This comprehensive guide will take you step by step through Instagram analytics and explain what each metric means and the significance of tracking it, so you can develop a winning Instagram strategy.

Chapters:

1. Why you should use Instagram analytics
2. How to access Instagram analytics
3. Instagram insights you can view
4. Individual post analytics
5. Instagram Stories analytics
6. Instagram product tags analytics
7. Making sense of Instagram analytics

Why you should use Instagram analytics

Instagram analytics helps marketers understand three important things:

1. People: Who’s engaging with your content?
2. Content: What content is engaging?
3. Products: Which products within that content are getting the most engagement?

When you consider these collectively — who’s viewing your posts, how your content is performing, and what value your content is driving — you’ll be able to curate your feed in a smarter way and improve your overall content strategy.

Plus, if you’re not looking at the numbers regularly, you may miss key insights and opportunities. For example, you could be posting too frequently or not enough, targeting the wrong audience, or even overlooking comments or mentions that could lead to future partnerships.

How to access Instagram analytics

Instagram analytics, which is known as Instagram Insights, is available to business profiles only. You can access analytics from your account profile in one of two ways. First you can access Insights directly from your profile by clicking “Professional dashboard.”

This brings you to a dashboard where you can access insights, tools, and other resources for your business account. To access Instagram Insights from this dashboard, click on the individual metrics at the top of the page to see more information about it. For example, if you want to look at your reach, click “Accounts reached.” 

You can also access Instagram analytics by clicking on the three horizontal lines on the top-right corner of the screen and then selecting “Insights” from the list of options. 

If you don’t have a business profile yet, follow these instructions to make the switch. If you only recently transitioned to a business profile, you may not have data available yet on Instagram Insights. Also, keep in mind that Instagram can only provide you with analytics information about posts and Stories that you published after you switched to a business profile.

Up until 2023, you could only see data from the past week. Now, you have the option to look at insights from the past seven days, 14 days, 30 days, three months, six months, 12 months, or two years.

Instagram insights you can view

When you access Instagram Insights, you’ll see three different data groups: reach, engagement, and followers. Within each group, you can dive deeper into even more data.

Accounts reached 

Under “Accounts reached,” you’ll see the total number of accounts reached and impressions made. 

• Reach: How many Instagram accounts your posts reached
• Impressions: Number of times your posts were viewed

At the top, your reach is broken down by followers and non-followers, so you can find out whether you’re effectively reaching your followers. Below that, you can also see an overview of the demographics of the audiences you’ve reached, including their city, country, age range, and gender. (You’ll be able to see a more in-depth breakdown of this information in the “Total followers” section.) 

Under the demographics, you’ll see a “Profile Activity” section. Within this section, you can see how many profile visits and external link taps were made during a specific time period. If you have email, phone number, and/or text options set up from your profile, you can also see how many times those were clicked. 

• Profile visits: Number of profile views for the week
• External link taps: Number of times someone clicked on the link in your Instagram profile
• Call button taps: Number of times your phone number or “Call Now” button was clicked
• Email button taps: Number of times users clicked the “email” button on your profile page
• Text button taps: Number of times your text button was clicked

This data in the “Profile Activity” section provides you with an overview of how your audience interacts with your brand each week. For example, if you find that profile visits and website clicks are growing, it’s clear that your audience is active and engaged with your brand. However, if these numbers remain low or even decrease, you’ll want to adjust your strategy and find new ways to get your audience involved. 

Why the “Accounts reached” tab matters

These numbers provide a good overview of how your content is performing in terms of how many people it’s reaching and how many views it’s receiving. 

You can use this data to try to discern what may have prompted a change in impressions. Perhaps you launched a new product that week, or maybe you hosted a giveaway that enticed users to share a post to increase their odds of winning.

Identifying what’s working — or not working — for your audience empowers you to improve your strategy.

Accounts engaged

When you view “Accounts engaged,” you’ll see the total number of people who have interacted with your content over a specific time period compared to the previous time period. Instagram breaks this number down by followers and non-followers.

Next, you’ll see a section for “Content interactions,” where you can see the total interactions made with your content. Under the total, your interactions are broken down by the type of interaction that people made with your posts, Stories, and Reels. 

For each post and Reel, you can see the likes, comments, saves, and shares. For Stories, you can see the replies, likes, and shares. If you hosted live videos during that time period, you can also see the comments and shares for those videos.

Why the “Accounts engaged” tab matters

Engagement with posts is important because it reveals what type of content is getting your audience’s attention, which allows you to tweak your strategy. For example, if you notice that photos that have a certain style or use a specific filter perform exceptionally well, you may use that tactic more frequently in the future.

Engagement is important for e-commerce brands to track because users who are engaging with your brand are more likely to make a purchase. So, if you have a post that has high engagement, it’s clearly resonating in some way. But can that engagement be translated to conversions? In other words, is there actual engagement with your products?

Total followers

Next is the followers tab. Under this section, you’ll find a more in-depth breakdown of your followers and their demographics. 

You can see your overall growth, including the number of people who followed and unfollowed you in a specific period of time, then compare it to the previous period. 

If you keep scrolling, you’ll find more specific demographics on your audience. You can look at the top locations of your followers by either city or country to find out where the majority of your followers are located. Then you can see the overall age range of your followers or break it down by gender. 

Lastly, you can see which times your followers are most active. Instagram breaks this down by both hours and days so you can pinpoint the best times to post your content. For example, if a majority of your followers are active on Fridays at 4:00 p.m., that’s a good time to post in your story and on your feed. 

Why the “Total followers” tab matters

This data can inform you if you’re reaching your target audience or perhaps if there’s an audience for your content or product that you weren’t previously aware of. For example, if you find your audience is in a younger age range, you may want to post to Instagram or Instagram Stories more frequently because younger demographics tend to be active on Instagram.

Once you understand more about your overall audience, you can look at individual posts to see how your content resonates.

Understanding the data

When interpreting data from Instagram analytics, it’s important to have goals in mind so you can determine if your content is accomplishing them:

• If your goal with Instagram is to build brand awareness, you’ll want to pay particular attention to metrics like your follower count, impressions, reach, and the number of likes and comments your posts receive
• If you’re trying to drive traffic to your website and you have high engagement but no profile clicks, you may want to consider ways to use your posts to entice followers to visit your profile and click

Now that you can compare Instagram data from the previous month and quarter, you can track and monitor more closely whether you’re making progress toward your goals in the long term. 

Questions to consider

Is your follower count growing, shrinking, or remaining stagnant? While some fluctuation in numbers is normal, if you see a sudden increase in followers, it’s worthwhile determining what led to it. Did an influential user tag you in a post? Has the type of content you’re posting changed?

Which posts receive the most impressions or have the greatest reach? Do your posts about products get a lot of attention, or do posts by micro-influencers perform better? Are users engaging with your branded content, or do one-off posts outperform them? If it’s the latter, how can you optimize branded content for engagement?

Are you reaching your target audience? Look at your audience data to determine whether you’re reaching key demographics. If not, what adjustments should you make? What audience are you already reaching, and how might this affect your brand?

How often should you post? Experiment with posting just once a day, and then try posting more often. Compare the amount of engagement that you get at different posting frequencies because different audiences will have different appetites for content.

Individual post analytics

If you want to take a look at how a particular post has performed, you can easily do this by selecting the post and clicking “View insights,” as illustrated below.

Here, in addition to viewing how many likes, comments, shares, and saves a post has received, you’ll be able to delve even deeper into the post’s performance.

Once you’re in the “Post insights” dashboard, you’ll see an overview of the post’s performance. Below the overview, you’ll see headings for “Reach,” “Engagement,” and “Profile activity.” Within these sections, you’ll see how many unique Instagram accounts you reached, how many users followed you from that post, and where the post garnered impressions.

Understanding the data

Drilling down into how a specific post performed can reveal a great deal of information:

• If certain types of posts, such as product photos, lifestyle photos, or graphics, are receiving more engagement, you’ll want to post more of these and see if you can recreate that success
• If your Instagram is shoppable, you may find that close-up photos of your products get more clicks than images featuring lots of different products in a “shop this look” format

Questions to consider

Which posts are generating the most interactions? Which ones are garnering the most profile visits, website clicks, or emails? Which ones are getting the most reach and attracting new followers?

How are users finding your posts? Are they coming to your profile and viewing content from there? Or are they discovering your content through hashtags?

Instagram Stories analytics

There’s a couple of ways you can see how your Stories are performing, depending on whether you want to view data on current Stories or see historical data from Stories after a 24-hour period.

To see historical information about Stories, simply access Instagram Insights the same way: by visiting your account profile, clicking on the three horizontal lines in the top-right corner of the screen, and selecting “Insights.” Then, click on “Content you shared.”

Under the “Content you shared” section, you can narrow the insights down to just story posts and see the number of impressions your Stories received during a certain time period. For story posts, you can choose from six different time periods: the last seven days, 30 days, three months, six months, 12 months, or two years. To see how an individual story has performed, simply select it and then swipe up to reveal more in-depth data.

To access information about an active story, simply tap on the story you’re interested in and either swipe up or tap “Activity” in the lower left-hand corner. From here, you’ll be able to view a variety of data, which is outlined in the following section.

Instagram Stories metrics 

Instagram provides a lot of information about who’s watching your Instagram Stories and how those viewers are interacting with them.

Viewers and Reach

To see who viewed an individual story on your account, click the eye icon (eyecon?). This will display a complete list of every Instagram user who saw the story.

Reach shows you how many total accounts you reached with a particular story post. Under Reach, you’ll also find data for Impressions — or the number of views your story received. This is again broken down by followers and non-followers. 

Engagement 

Beneath Reach, you’ll find a section of data called Engagement, which details the number of accounts reached with an individual story. Here, you’ll find the following metrics:

• Story interactions: How many users: replied to your story, shared your story, liked your story
• Navigation: How many users: tapped back, tapped forward, tapped on your next story, exited your story (tapped the x icon, swiped to another account’s story, returned to their own feed, or closed the Instagram app)
• Product button clicks: The number of times someone visited a product page from your story and then tapped the button on the product page
• Link clicks: The number of times people clicked on a link in your story
• Sticker taps: The number of times people clicked on a hashtag, location, mention, or product sticker in your story 

Profile activity

At the bottom of your story insights dashboard, you’ll find data on your profile activity. This includes the following metrics:

• Follows: Number of users who followed your account from the story
• Profile visits: The number of times someone visited your profile from a story post

Understanding the data

The data you gather from Stories will show you how engaging these posts are for your audience.

For example, if you find that users watch your Story posts when you post behind-the-scenes updates but exit quickly when you promote products, you may determine that users want to engage with your brand but are put off by your sales tactics.

Or if you discover that certain Stories get substantially more clicks back, meaning people are watching the story again, consider what about that content is appealing to users so you can recreate it in future Story posts. When considering your Instagram Stories analytics, again, consider your goals for the platform:

• If your goal with Instagram Stories is to engage with users in a more personal way, pay attention to how many users are sharing or replying to your story posts
• If you’re using Stories to drive traffic to your website, you’ll want to see how many people are swiping up to visit the URLs you’re linking to within your posts

While Instagram now gives businesses access to Stories data from up to two years ago, it’s helpful to be able to see data for as long as you’ve been on Instagram. Having access to all of your data allows you to compare more effectively so you can pinpoint patterns and trends you see over long periods of time and adjust your content according to what resonates most with your audience. 

For what it’s worth, Bazaarvoice offers a solution to Instagram’s limited capabilities:

• Bazaarvoice’s dashboard provides unlimited access to Instagram Stories analytics — the data will never disappear
• You can schedule Instagram Stories in advance based on AI feedback to optimize views

Questions to consider

What kinds of Stories are holding your audience’s interest? Identify which of your posts get the most engagement and look into the reason those are performing so well. Do the posts with the most engagement have stickers? Do they have faces? What is it about the engaging posts that your non-engaging posts don’t have? You can also experiment with a variety of story stickers — videos, polls, Q&As, and more — to determine what works best for your brand.

At what point are users exiting your story? This information can help you develop a strategy for your story posts. For example, if you’re uploading numerous photos or videos to tell a more lengthy or complex story overall, when do viewers lose interest? Would you benefit from keeping your Stories more succinct?

What posts are enticing users to click? When you include links in your Stories, are there certain types of posts that lead to more clicks? If you’re promoting a product, are people clicking to learn more? If you’re teasing a blog post, are people swiping up to read the full post?

Instagram product tags analytics

Product tags on Instagram allow businesses to tag items for sale in both posts and Stories, making them easily shoppable. Users simply tap on the product’s picture to learn more about the item and make a purchase. This has three key benefits:

1. Allows businesses to showcase products
2. Enables businesses to drive sales directly from Instagram
3. Empowers the buyer to quickly and easily make purchases

Product tag metrics

The metrics available for product tags are essentially the same for Instagram posts or Stories, meaning you can see the engagement and reach. However, you can also see how many clicks your product has received. Here are some additional product metrics you can access via Instagram Insights:

• Product page views: The number of times your product detail pages were viewed via product tags in your feed or story post
• Product sticker taps: A metric only available in Stories — it tells you how many times people clicked on your product sticker
• Merchant tagged: Tells you when someone tags your brand in their feed or story post
• Product tagged: Tells you when someone tags your product in their feed or story post

Product launches 

Instagram also helps businesses and creators promote new products by setting up a product launch. Once you initiate a product launch, you can share an alert so people can save reminders for the launch date. You can also allow your audience to preview products ahead of the launch to drum up excitement. You can view all the insights from your product launch in Commerce Manager. 

Understanding the data

This feature provides an additional way to evaluate how your business performs on Instagram by allowing you to see which product posts generate the most interest. However, while Instagram’s native shopping feature enables you to make your account shoppable, Bazaarvoice’s shop tags feature enables you to truly maximize the value of your content by distributing it among various outlets.

Questions to consider

Which products are getting the most clicks? You may find that some of your products simply get more engagement than others. Perhaps expensive items receive fewer clicks than more affordable ones because your audience is more likely to make an impulse buy on a less costly item. Or maybe your top-selling item isn’t getting as many clicks on Instagram as a less popular item, and you need to determine why.

Which types of posts are getting the most clicks? Do your product tags perform better in posts or in Stories? Is there something specific about the post that’s getting your audience’s attention? For example, is the product photo or video appealing for a certain aesthetic reason, or is the product teased or promoted in an intriguing way?

Making sense of Instagram analytics

Clearly, there’s a great deal of analytics information available to Instagram users, and it can be challenging to know where to start when you’re first looking at all of the data and trying to make sense of it.

To help make your Instagram analytics experience easier, first consider getting verified on Instagram. Next, consider what your goals are for the platform. If you’re mostly interested in growing your audience and expanding your brand’s reach, you’ll want to focus on followers. Pay close attention to your number of followers, track how that number changes over time, and consider how your content plays a role in the increase, decrease, or stagnation of that number.

However, if you’re using Instagram for e-commerce, you’ll want to focus on other aspects of analytics and consider how you can increase sales, such as by making your Instagram easily shoppable.

Instagram Insights can only provide so much data, though. So, if you’re serious about delving into your Instagram analytics and genuinely understanding what your numbers mean, Bazaarvoice can provide you with the tools to do just that.

FEATURED RESOURCE

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

Read here

That all sounds great, but how can you possibly know what each of your current or potential customers thinks and wants? The short answer is you just need to listen to them in the spaces where you coexist — your social media channels. Social listening is the launchpad to providing value for your customers, and how you respond will determine your success.

Learn how to listen, what to listen for, the best social listening tools, and what to do with the insights from those customer conversations in our social listening guide.

Chapters:

1. What is social listening?
2. Why is social listening important?
3. What to listen for and how to respond
4. How to set up a social listening strategy
5. Social listening examples in action
6. Manage and streamline social listening with Insights and Reports

What is social listening?

Social listening is all about actively tracking and analyzing the online conversations that matter most to your brand. Whether it’s your customers, competitors, or industry buzz, social listening tunes into these discussions across social media platforms. The goal? To glean insights into customer sentiment, preferences, and emerging trends, and to pinpoint any pain points or problems that need addressing. 

Social listening goes beyond keeping your digital ear to the ground. It’s about diving deep into the data you collect from social media conversations and analyzing it to understand public perception. This involves interpreting the data to uncover patterns, sentiments, and trends. By doing so, you can anticipate market shifts, innovate in response to customer feedback, and develop targeted digital marketing campaigns. 

Take, for instance, a beauty brand that uses social listening to track discussions around skincare routines.

They notice a growing trend in conversations about natural ingredients and eco-friendly packaging. By aligning their product development and marketing strategies with these insights, the brand successfully launches a new line of eco-friendly skincare products. The result is a product line that resonates well with their target audience, leading to increased brand loyalty and sales. 

Social listening vs. social monitoring

Social monitoring is another marketing tactic related to social listening, but the two are not the same. On the one side, social media monitoring is more targeted, with the goal of directly and immediately responding to a specific occurrence, like a brand mention or customer service question or issue. Whereas social listening is more comprehensive and aims to extract insights from social discussions to inform and shape your overall brand strategy.

Employing both social listening and brand monitoring allows brands to be reactive in customer engagement and proactive in strategic planning. Let’s run with the beauty brand example. While they used social listening to uncover an emerging trend and reshape their broader brand strategy, they might simultaneously use social monitoring to quickly address a customer’s complaint about a delayed shipment, and enhance customer satisfaction. 

Why is social listening important?

Social listening allows you to understand the key factors that affect your company’s success. It helps you become an invaluable presence in your customers’ lives and a force to be reckoned with in the eyes of competitors.

Understand customer preferences

Understanding the preferences of your customers is crucial for delivering products and services that attract and retain them. Through social listening, you can discover what particular features or qualities they love about individual products, your brand presence, and services like customer support, sustainability, and delivery. 

Customer preferences can be about your brand specifically, product categories, or your industry as a whole. By actively listening to and analyzing social media conversations, you gain the ability to pinpoint specific likes and dislikes. This process enables you to fine-tune your offerings, ensuring they hit the mark with your target audience. 

Address customer dissatisfaction

Customers might not always have a great experience with your brand or products, and that’s okay — addressing customer dissatisfaction is always an opportunity for growth and improvement. As we mentioned above, from a monitoring standpoint, social media can be a customer service tool to promptly address specific concerns and complaints before they escalate. 

At the listening level, you can use these instances to uncover the underlying causes of customer dissatisfaction and gain valuable insights into common issues within your industry. 

A clothing brand might discover through social listening that a significant number of consumers are frustrated with the lack of diverse sizing options in online shopping. This insight can prompt them to reevaluate and potentially revamp their sizing options, addressing a widespread customer need, boosting the brand’s reputation, and tapping into a new customer segment. Win-win-win!

Stay ahead of emerging trends

For your brand to stay relevant, it has to be ahead of trends. Social listening essentially serves as a radar for detecting the latest fads and preferences directly from the consumers, whether it’s must-have styles, music, products, or memes. 

Tracking trending topics and hashtags allows you to keep a finger on the pulse of shifts in consumer interests and preferences, so you can adapt your social media marketing, product, and customer service strategies in real-time.

Glean valuable competitor insights

Competition is fierce out there, especially in the world of e-commerce. While the focus should be on your brand, you also need to keep an eye on your competitors, their moves, and customer perceptions about their products, marketing, and customer service. 

Social listening helps you understand the competitive landscape, identifying both the strengths and weaknesses of your rivals, so you can uncover opportunities to outperform in areas where they fall short. It’s essentially an opportunity to capitalize on their missteps by enhancing your own products or messaging in ways that directly address the gaps left by your competitors. 

Find unique collaboration opportunities

Social listening is instrumental in finding potential influencers, UGC creators, complementary brands, and industry or subject matter experts to partner with. 

These individuals and companies are often at the forefront of trends and discussions, making them ideal partners for collaborative campaigns. When reviewing the mentions, hashtags, and keywords you track, you can find active and trusted voices contributing to those conversations.

Teaming up with them on campaigns introduces your brand to new audiences in a way that feels organic. It also aligns your brand with a voice that your target audience already knows and respects. Partnerships with the right creators and brands can cut through the noise, offering the kind of authentic content that builds trust with consumers. 

Enhance brand reputation and crisis management

For all the benefits social media has, it also puts businesses in a vulnerable position. A single misinterpreted tweet can go viral and break a brand’s reputation in a split second. Keeping tabs on what’s being said helps you safeguard the brand’s image and address any potential issues that could evolve into a full-blown crisis — in such cases, a rapid response can be the difference between a minor hiccup and a major PR disaster.

Social listening serves as an early warning system, allowing you to detect and respond to negative publicity or emerging issues promptly, and remain in tune with your audience’s perceptions and expectations. 

Improve your content strategy and marketing campaigns

Social listening takes the guesswork out of what your audience is talking about, feeling, and expecting. Using these insights, you can draw inspiration to craft content that not only aligns with but also anticipates current audience interests, leading to more effective marketing efforts. 

When your content is relevant to the audience, it naturally leads to higher engagement and conversion rates, turning those casual browsers into paying customers. 

Consider a travel agency that uses social listening to gauge the mood and preferences of its audience. They notice a growing interest in domestic travel and seize the opportunity to tailor their Google ads campaigns to focus on local tourism.

This strategic pivot results in a campaign that resonates with the audience’s current desires, leading to increased bookings and a chunkier bottom line. 

What to listen for and how to respond

There’s numerous conversations about your brand, products, industry, and competitors happening on social media, so focusing on everything isn’t feasible or efficient. These key areas of discussion are a good place to start if you want to reap the benefits of social listening.

Topics of interest

Monitor trending hashtags and popular content to align your marketing with your audience’s current interests. Pay attention to current events, big cultural moments, or trending hobbies that can shape your social media presence and interactions.

How to respond: Actively participate in conversations related to the major interests of your audience. Respond to their content or create your own that repurposes relevant content you already have, shares your brand’s perspective, and connects your products to popular use cases.

which side are you on? pic.twitter.com/Q71DeZLoOj

— Swiggy (@Swiggy) July 21, 2023

Invite your audience to share their thoughts — this not only positions your brand as a thought leader but also fosters community engagement.

Personal challenges and goals

Social media is a space where people often share personal challenges and aspirations. Social listening allows businesses to tap into these conversations, gaining insights into the real-life experiences of their audience. Access to these details enables you to offer solutions, support, and products that genuinely help customers.

How to respond: Craft campaigns and messaging that highlight how your products or services can address your customers’ needs or make progress toward their goals. 

Common issues and questions about products and services

Customers frequently turn to social media to seek information and voice their questions about products and services. Identify these common questions that come up when customers tag your brand or use your branded hashtags. This allows you to not only resolve issues quickly but also create permanent solutions and resources to improve the customer experience.

How to respond: Compile and maintain a list of the common questions that arise and use those to create online resources. For example, you can include them in a Questions and Answers section on your product pages, optimize product details with pertinent info, create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) website section, and create social media content that addresses FAQs. 

Need a hand? We’re here to help! @/
-Check out the official Help Center https://t.co/R0nr73NoV4

-Visit our Community Forums page for more discussions https://t.co/f8Ncnj9Hsk

-For our Server Status & more → https://t.co/ILcKyJd79n

— Adobe Care (@AdobeCare) December 9, 2022

This is also valuable information to share with your customer service team and integrate into your live chat technology to prepare answers for these common questions.

Discussions about competitors

Social listening is a nifty tool for competitor research. Follow conversations that mention or tag your main competitors to find out what customers love or dislike about them. 

For example, you might discover sales and promotions, packaging, product details, subscription services, or something else that either works well or isn’t doing the trick. Then, you can use that information to do it better or step up your game in areas where they’re beating you out. 

How to respond: Share the insights you’ve collected about your competitors with the broader marketing, sales, and product teams. Make improvements to products, services, and marketing where needed, and highlight areas where you outshine competitors in your marketing and social media content.

Brand advocates and network partners

Pay attention to the customers who rave about your products and share content about your brand. These brand advocates are the customers who showcase your products in their everyday lives. You can also keep track of other like-minded businesses with products that would interest your audience.

How to respond: Develop relationships with creators and brands that might make good partners in the future. When someone posts quality content about your brand or industry, share it on your own social networks. Initiate deeper partnerships by reaching out to customers or influencers directly to be brand ambassadors.

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A post shared by Sarah Wolak (@sarah_wolak)

Likewise, reach out to other brands to co-host a giveaway or collaborate on product packages. 

Product mentions

Track conversations that call out your specific products and categorize them based on positive and negative feedback. 

How to respond: Evaluate the feedback about your products and identify any patterns that come up. For example, you might discover multiple complaints about certain products but rave reviews about others. Share this information with your product team so they can identify how to improve products or build upon successful ones.

How to set up a social listening strategy

Social listening is like a mind-reading superpower. While monitoring certain areas of interest ad hoc is helpful, executing an intentional social listening strategy can yield far more impactful results for your brand.

1. Define your social listening goals

Start by pinpointing what you want to achieve through social listening, be it understanding customer preferences, identifying pain points, or keeping a pulse on brand awareness. 

Make sure these objectives are specific, measurable, and, most importantly, align with your broader business goals. The latter ensures that every piece of data collected and every insight gleaned serves a larger purpose and drives the brand forward. 

Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) related to your social listening goals. These could include metrics like engagement rate, sentiment analysis results, the volume of brand mentions, or specific hashtag performance. Regularly tracking these KPIs will provide you with quantifiable data to evaluate the success of your social listening efforts.

2. Choose the right social media listening tools

From sentiment analysis and trend tracking to influencer identification, social listening tools are designed to cater to different business sizes and needs. The key is to find a tool that not only aligns with your specific social listening goals but also integrates with your existing marketing strategies. 

For small e-commerce businesses, the focus might be on cost-effective tools that offer essential listening features. These tools should be user-friendly and capable of providing insights into brand mentions, customer sentiment, and emerging trends. 

On the other hand, larger businesses might require robust platforms that offer advanced analytics, CRM integration, and data analysis capabilities. These social listening tools can handle larger volumes of data and provide deeper insights, which are key for big businesses with a wider audience reach. 

3. Identify keywords and topics

This step is crucial, as it determines the scope and relevance of the insights you’ll gather. First, identify the core aspects of your brand and industry (these can range from specific product names to broader industry terms). Include variations and common misspellings to ensure comprehensive coverage. 

Depending on your goal, you might expand your keyword list to include competitor brand names and key products. Don’t forget to add buzzwords, industry trends you’re already aware of, and seasonal topics that are likely to generate conversation. For example, if you’re a home decor brand, you might track keywords related to home improvement trends, seasonal decorations, and DIY projects.

To make your tracking more actionable, categorize your keywords into different themes or topics. This categorization can help you segment the data and analyze it more effectively. You might have categories for product feedback, customer service inquiries, and general industry discussion. 

Remember, social media is dynamic, and so should your keywords and topics be. Regularly review and update your lists to reflect new products, campaigns, or shifts in industry jargon. 

4. Determine your social media listening methods

There are various approaches to social listening and different techniques for finding meaningful conversations. Each method will unveil unique insights, and your choice will depend on the goals you originally set.

Track mentions and hashtags

Use a social media management tool to track mentions of your brand and your competitors, as well as the hashtags you designate. This way, you can access conversations on your different channels in one place. 

This is a holistic way to quickly gauge public reaction to new product launches, marketing campaigns, or company news so you can adjust strategies on the fly and ensure that your brand’s messaging aligns with audience expectations and sentiments. 

Sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis measures customers’ perception of your brand and products based on positive and negative feedback and particular opinions expressed. And Sentiment analysis AI tools leverage machine learning that includes natural language processing (NLP) to interpret conversations and determine how people feel about your brand.

This method is particularly effective in identifying areas of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction, which are crucial for guiding strategic improvements and maintaining a positive brand image.

Trend tracking

Use your social media management tool or the specific channel’s analytics to reveal trending content and topics. For example, the TikTok Creative Center provides robust insights on trending hashtags, creators, songs, and videos over different time periods. Analytics features included in other channels like X (formerly Twitter) reveal high-volume keywords that inform what’s trending as well. 

Proactive listening

Initiate the conversation by asking your audience for questions and feedback on your social channels. Leverage engagement features like the Questions Sticker for Instagram Stories or ask your followers to respond to your posts as a comment or a video response on TikTok.

5. Analyze and interpret social listening data

This stage is where the raw data transforms into actionable insights.

Start with quantitative analysis, which involves measuring the volume of mentions, the reach of your hashtags, and the frequency of keywords. Social media analytics platforms use automation to provide you with metrics such as engagement rates, sentiment scores, and trend graphs. 

However, quantitative data only tells part of the story. Qualitative analysis is equally important. This involves reading through posts, comments, and conversations to understand the context behind the numbers. Look for recurring themes or sentiments in the discussions about your brand. Are customers consistently praising a particular aspect of your product? Are there recurring complaints or suggestions for improvement? This level of detail can provide deeper insights into customer attitudes and perceptions. 

6. Review and adapt your social listening strategy

Social media is constantly changing, so what works today might not be as effective tomorrow. Plus, your business priorities also change and your social listening needs along with them. Regularly assessing the performance of your social listening strategy keeps it relevant and effective. 

Incorporating feedback loops is also beneficial. Use the insights gained from social listening to make changes in your business, and then monitor social media to see how these changes are received. This approach ensures that your strategy is not just reactive but also proactive in shaping your brand’s presence and offerings.

Social listening examples in action

Social listening isn’t an exact science. It’s a practice that continues to evolve with many different purposes and applications. To better understand how to use the information that’s accessible to you, take a look at these social listening examples for how other professionals have done it with impactful results.

Petco’s branding and services evolution

Petco considers social media and search the “largest focus groups on the planet” and relies on signals and feedback from social to evolve their offerings. For example, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, they expedited a curbside delivery program based on listening to their audience’s preferences on social. 

In addition to offering new services informed by social listening, Petco shifted their focus to be a pet health and wellness company based on the priorities of their audience. Another way Petco leverages feedback and data is by answering customer questions on their website with Questions and Answers.

This feature provides a helpful resource on relevant product pages for customers who want to learn how specific products meet the unique needs of their pets.

Nestlé Canada’s product improvements

By listening to and acting on their customers’ feedback, Nestlé Canada saved a struggling product and returned it to its former glory. The major food brand ruffled some feathers when they modified the recipe for a favorite iced tea product. Within a month of releasing the new version, customers made their complaints known on Nestle’s marketing channels and in product reviews. As a result, their sales and review ratings dropped.

These insights led to action, and Nestlé responded to the negative sentiment by reinstating the original recipe. By finding and implementing customer feedback, they restored high customer satisfaction and raised their average customer rating for the product from 1.7 to 4 stars.

Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” (10-minute version) 

Taylor Swift is not only one of the biggest pop stars of our time but also something of a marketing genius. Social listening is definitely part of her strategy to win over fans time and time again. One example is how the 10-minute version of the fan-favorite song “All Too Well” from her album Red came about. 

After hearing reports of a 10-minute version of the song, fans took to social media to call for its release. Taylor heard these messages and ultimately decided to record and release the complete version on “Red (Taylor’s Version)” along with a music video, which won a Grammy for Best Music Video. This is a great example of Taylor listening to her audience’s requests and responding with a new product release or, in this case, a song. 

Manage and streamline social listening with analytics

Social media teams can only do so much when it comes to conducting social listening. Small teams, multiple channels to review for social conversations, and manual processes limit what’s possible. That’s why automated tools are invaluable for managing and synthesizing large amounts of data.

Bazaarvoice’s Social Analytics tools measure your performance for social media efforts, influencer marketing, and revenue reporting all in a single dashboard. Check out the full capabilities here. Or get in touch below to learn more.

Chances are you’ve most likely been to a Home Depot or ordered from them online. Need a new drill? Repainting your living room? Updating your lighting? Bored on a Sunday? It’s off to Home Depot. 

The home improvement retailer has 2,200 stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and offers more than one million products for its shoppers. They serve DIY customers, professional contractors, and installation businesses across North America. 

For brands that sell their products on HomeDepot.ca, figuring out how to maximize channel sales is critical for business. Brands can of course come to HomeDepot.ca with their own user-generated content (UGC) — like reviews, Q&As, and social posts — but the retail chain partners with Bazaarvoice specifically to provide robust UGC collection tools for brands. 

A UGC strategy done right increases the discoverability of products, boosts sales, and creates a valuable dialogue with customers and new shoppers. It also informs SEO benefits, provides insights for product innovation, reduces return rates, and ensures shoppers have a positive experience with your brand. The impact of reviews by numbers:

Customers who interact with UGC are 2x more likely to convert, according to Bazaarvoice research. Reviews help customers validate their purchasing decisions and feel more confident about the products they buy. 

Home Depot Canada has launched several Bazaarvoice solutions and features that improve the customer experience and help suppliers optimize UGC. One of its most successful solutions is its sampling program, the Home Depot Seeds Program. 

What is the Home Depot Seeds Program?

The Home Depot Seeds Program is a product sampling program that puts a brand’s high-priority products in the hands of Home Depot Canada’s most loyal shoppers, in exchange for honest reviews on HomeDepot.ca.

Bazaarvoice and Home Depot partnered to help brands select which key items to sample, identify Home Depot Canada audiences within the sampling community, and guide brands through fulfillment. 

How to leverage the Home Depot Seeds Program

Home Depot encourages its brands to enlist the Seeds Program for seasonal, exclusive, and new products. Or even any products that just need a fresh crop of reviews:

• New products: Brands can collect authentic UGC for products ahead of a new launch. Insights found within reviews ensure your products launch with a bang, and will help future shoppers feel confident about purchasing your new products
• Seasonal items: Optimize seasonal item product pages with UGC to boost discoverability and increase conversions during their limited time
• Home Depot exclusives: If your brand sells products exclusively through Home Depot, then HomeDepot.ca is the only place where shoppers can see that valuable UGC
• Products with outdated reviews: Search engines like Google favor pages with fresh content, so a a continuous flow of review content means more traffic to your product pages, which means more sales

Getting started with Bazaarvoice + Home Depot

The Home Depot Seeds Program has already helped some brands on HomeDepot.ca more than double their conversion rates. In addition, the program has been so successful that Home Depot vendors in the United States are now interested in using it to collect reviews for their Canadian exclusive items and product launches. 

Learn more about the Bazaarvoice + Home Depot partnership and more ways you can utilize strategies to increase channel sales over on our partnership page. Or get in touch directly below to get started.

Chapters:

1. What is word-of-mouth marketing?
2. Why word-of-mouth marketing is so effective
3. How to increase your word-of-mouth marketing
4. How to implement word-of-mouth marketing (with examples)
5. Measuring your word-of-mouth marketing

Think about the last time you used a product or service that solved your problem so well, you wanted to tell everyone you know about the experience. Perhaps you found the perfect pair of headphones for work. Or handmade chocolates that you can send as a cute gift. Whether you talked to a friend or relative directly, posted about it on social media, or left a review, telling others about your experience is word-of-mouth marketing in action.

This powerful form of marketing fuels a whopping $6 trillion of annual consumer spending globally. It can also be more effective than paid ads, resulting in 5x more sales. 

This form of marketing isn’t just for big brands. Any company that provides services or sells products can benefit from word-of-mouth marketing strategies. For instance, in a survey by Alignable 85% of 7,500 small business owners reported word-of-mouth referrals as their top source of new customers.   

Here’s everything you need to know about word-of-mouth marketing so you can start benefiting from this powerful form of advertising.

What is word-of-mouth marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing is when consumers share positive experiences with a product or service with their peers, whether in person or online. In the connected marketplace where shoppers are always-on,

Because the information comes directly from your customers, word-of-mouth advertising is authentic and cost-effective. It’s also highly valuable. Over 50% of consumers read at least four reviews before buying a product, and 93% say online reviews have influenced their purchasing decisions.

What is the digital version of word-of-mouth marketing?

Digital word-of-mouth marketing is how your customers speak about you online — in product reviews, social media posts, blog posts, and emails.

In the consumer-to-consumer commerce world we live in, digital word of mouth is how potential customers find out about your brand.

Why word-of-mouth marketing is so effective

No matter what strategy you pursue, word-of-mouth marketing helps increase your social exposure, create excitement about your products or services, foster brand loyalty, and build trust. 

Considering that consumers talk about brands casually at least 90 times a week, this type of marketing can have a substantial impact. Word-of-mouth marketing can help grow your business in the following ways

1. Consumer trust

Think of the last time you needed a recommendation for a doctor. What’s the first thing you did? You likely asked a friend or family member who they use or posted a question on social media.

The positive experience of others becomes a key factor in your buying decision. You’re more likely to buy or use a service because you trust the feedback from your peers.

Brands and retailers can “borrow” that trust to gain new customers with minimal effort.

2. Brand loyalty

When it comes to building trust and loyalty, businesses need all the help they can get. 

According to HubSpot Research, 65% of people don’t believe advertisements and 71% don’t trust sponsored social media ads.

Yet people do trust their peers. 88% of consumers regularly consult online reviews from other shoppers to help make confident buying decisions. Since the information comes from actual customers — not the company — word-of-mouth marketing helps build a strong, loyal community. 

The more businesses can encourage or make it easy for happy customers to share their experiences, the better. As loyal followers talk to others, those individuals get excited, become customers, and tell more people — creating an ongoing source of word-of-mouth advertising.

When you consider that about 65% of sales are from existing consumers, you want to ensure that you’re keeping your loyal base happy and making it easy for them to spread the word about your company. 

3. Increase brand awareness

People can’t buy from you if they don’t know about your business or products. Therefore, getting the word out about your business organically, especially new products and services, is essential. 

Word-of-mouth marketing is a perfect way to make people aware of your brand and what you have to offer. 

Sometimes word-of-mouth advertising can catch hold, especially on social media. This excitement can quickly spread among your ideal audience causing a powerful viral effect. 

How to increase your word-of-mouth marketing

There’s two ways to increase the influence of word-of-mouth marketing: organic and amplified. 

1) Organic word of mouth

Organic word-of-mouth marketing occurs naturally. Customers freely talk about your brand, service, or product. This can occur online, over the phone, or in person. Examples include reviews, ratings, social media comments, or conversations in the checkout line.

It’s unlikely you can control consumer conversations in the street. But these conversations are also happening in the reviews, social posts, and other forms of user-generated content (UGC) shoppers are creating about your brand — you just amplify their voices across your e-commerce site and beyond.

You can syndicate product reviews and display them across all your customer acquisition channels. Or you can browse your tagged posts on Instagram and take the photo of a customer happily sporting one of your products and feature it on your product pages. Featuring this UGC can increase average order value by 15%.

2) Amplified word of mouth

Amplified is when companies offer rewards, affiliate programs, freebies, discounts, contests, or they partner with influencers.

The goal is to motivate people to talk about their experiences. Example: A business may receive more entries to a contest if they tell others about the competition on social media. 

These types of word-of-mouth marketing strategies can be easier to track than organic ones, but they require more effort from your team.

How to implement word-of-mouth marketing (with examples)

Now that you know how word-of-mouth marketing works, here’s six ways you can use it to increase engagement and boost sales.

1. Create a referral or loyalty program

Whether you use them to generate awareness about a new product launch or a subscription service, referral programs are designed to get your customers talking.

Additionally, a referral or loyalty program that’s created with your ideal audience in mind can build trust by showing customers you care about their needs and interests.

Before launching Girlfriend Collective, the brand decided not to use paid ads. Instead, they launched a referral program that allowed people to get a free pair of $80 leggings by sharing a referral link on Facebook. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Girlfriend Collective (@girlfriend)

The approach worked so well that the had brand received 10,000 orders on launch day.

2. Reward customers for creating and sharing user-generated content

When someone is excited about your brand, service, or product, you want to make it easy for them to share their enthusiasm. 

Customers who are excited about your brand might post user-generated content on your company page, share stories of using your product, create videos, and more. These people are your super-sharers. They care about your business and want it to succeed, so reward them. 

Comment on their posts. Provide positive feedback on their videos. Share their posts on your social media channels and in your emails or newsletters. 

You can also motivate others to share their UGC by asking people to post, or running events that encourage followers to create their own content. The coffee and tea company Top of the Mornin posts user-created artwork on its homepage. Artists are clearly credited and a social link is provided so people can see more of the person’s work. 

By amplifying the work of its fans, Top of the Mornin helps foster a loyal community of super-sharers.

3. Connect with influencers who are a great fit for your brand

Influencers are a valuable resource for many companies, with 93% of marketers relying on influencer marketing. 

Pairing up with an influencer who fits your products, services, and company values can help increase your brand awareness and bring in new customers. The key is finding someone who already has the right type of followers for your brand.

For example, food and beverage giant Kraft Heinz wanted to drive buzz and word of mouth around new product releases, so they sent product samples to the Influenster App’s community of everyday influencers who matched the brand’s target market. They were then encouraged to create authentic feedback and other UGC about the products.

According to Elizabeth Northrup, Associate Brand Manager at Kraft Heinz, the campaigns, “over-delivered on our targets for the program, delivering 2x the product reviews we expected, and the earned media was over 5x our program investment.”

4. Ask customers for reviews

Reviews are the pinnacle of word-of-mouth marketing. They’re organic testimonial ads in action. If you come across a positive review for a product on your social feed, it’s likely to catch your attention. It’s likely to get you to check out that product. Maybe it convinces you to purchase.

But people are busy. Sometimes, they forget to leave a review after making a purchase. But most will happily share their experiences — all you have to do is ask.

You can schedule a social media post requesting reviews from current customers. You could also send an email inviting customers to leave a review or a testimonial after they make a purchase. Or leave QR codes next to checkout tills in-store.

The key takeaway here is to make it easy and quick for people to share their feedback — and then display it on your channels.

Hardys Wines for example uses customer reviews as their word-of-mouth marketing, displaying the positive customer feedback in adverts.

5. Create content that people are excited to share 

Take time to create posts, emails, videos, and articles that interest your followers and are easy to share. As a result, they’ll keep coming back for more and tell others about your content.

The niche clothing brand CLOAK knows its followers. The brand consistently posts unique and engaging content that customers are excited to share. 

This includes quizzes related to CLOAK’s products and images of the company’s owners modeling the clothes. 

6. Authentically connect with your community

Loyal customers want to feel connected to your brand. Instead of just focusing on increasing your followers, make your social media channels a 2-way conversation. This will play a huge part in boosting organic word-of-mouth marketing. Reply thoughtfully to customer comments and thank them for leaving a review. You can even spotlight UGC by sharing it on your own channels.

Growing your community with intention can also provide you with valuable consumer insights, allowing you to better serve them while strengthening your brand. 

Threadless evolved from a T-shirt company into an e-commerce marketplace fueled by the brand’s Artist Shops community. 

Knowing that its ideal audience was creative and fun, Threadless created contests and challenges designed to showcase its followers’ creations and build its community. This helped Threadless attract 10,000 members in its first 2 years of business and earn $6.5 million in less than 4 years. 

In an interview with Forbes, Threadless’ then-vice president of marketing, Cam Balzer, stressed the importance of building social media followers organically. 

“We believe the more organic the growth, the more loyal the fans, the more likely they will be repeat customers.”

Currently, the Threadless website provides multiple ways for customers to connect with artists and the community, like the Artist of the Day section on its homepage.

Measuring your word-of-mouth marketing

Accurately measuring word-of-mouth marketing can be tough. You won’t always know when someone recommends your product or service, especially if it happens offline or in a private Facebook group. But you can get a sense of how well your word-of-mouth marketing is working overall. For instance, you can:

• Ask customers at checkout or after their purchase how they learned about you
• Use a customer satisfaction survey to gleam relevant information
• Start a loyalty program that includes promo codes or other trackable links to monitor if the information is shared

Word-of-mouth marketing lets you authentically build brand awareness, trust, and loyalty. All for very little cost.

As the stats show, people trust family, friends, and online reviews from their peers. And as a business, you want to encourage word-of-mouth marketing by embracing the strategies that fit your brand and audience.

Because the more you understand your followers, engage with them, and provide quality content, the more excited they will be to share their positive experiences with everyone they know. Which means more traffic to your pages. Which means more sales. And who doesn’t want that?

The best way to get started is by activating content creators and existing vibrant communities you can tap into. Our on-demand masterclass below will teach you how.

LEARN MORE

Masterclass: The future of marketing: creators and communities

Watch now

This inspires them to shop. A whopping 97% of shoppers have purchased something from social media — and 69% have been inspired by social media to make a purchase via another channel. 

Where a third of shoppers spend $200 or more a month, active social media users spend almost 3x more, or $580 a month. That’s why you need a retail social media strategy — the relationship between social media and shopping is tighter than ever. 

Consumers want to discover new things and purchase them on the spot — 54% of shoppers say they’re willing to buy products on social media if they can get product info directly there. When we asked shoppers where they shop, we discovered:

Social commerce, which is the buying and selling of products on social media — and everywhere social reaches — through shoppable content, is here to stay, and more and more shoppers are jumping into it. With all that in mind, creating a retail social media strategy for your brand is a necessary move. 

Retailers who fully embrace social commerce can increase engagement, conversion, and revenue.

Your retail social media strategy 5-step guide

We have tips for defining your goals, implementing best practices on social platforms, building relationships on social media, driving sales, and using metrics to assess ROI. This five-step guide will help you launch your retail social media strategy. 

Step 1: Define your goals

Before you can hit the ground running, it’s crucial to define your retail social media strategy’s goals. Goals guide your brand’s focus on desirable outcomes and set a foundation for your marketing strategy — which you’ll continue to adjust and build upon as you discover what works and what doesn’t. 

Communicating your product’s benefits and connecting with your target audience can help you generate sales, grow your customer base, and increase brand loyalty. All of these are strong marketing objectives. Therefore, selecting the objective that coincides with your brand’s mission is the best place to start.  

Defining clear, realistic, and quantifiable goals will give direction to your retail social media marketing efforts. 

Build brand loyalty 

Transform your brand enthusiasts into your greatest advocates by building stronger relationships with your shoppers. That means answering their questions, breaking down buyer barriers, and sharing insights with shoppers. When your advocates feel heard and valued, your brand wins. 

Generate sales

Boost conversion rates by optimizing user-generated content (UGC) on social media channels, focusing on shopper experience to pique interest, and syndicating reviews across a vast network of retailers to increase buyer confidence. 

Stand out on social 

Get noticed by selecting the social media platforms that match your brand, collect feedback about your content and products, use your customers’ voices to connect with a broader audience, and be authentically true to your identity. 

Drive traffic and generate leads

Featuring UGC resonates with shoppers, since the content shows everyday people using your product. Consumers equate this to a recommendation from a friend or family member. When you display UGC on social media, it’ll help you drive traffic and generate leads, which ultimately helps boost sales.   

Step 2: Understand retail social media best practices

While most consumers prefer to engage with brands by following them on social media, others prefer interacting with influencer content and taking their recommendations. Consumers also appreciate being able to easily access brand or product information directly from social media, according to Bazaarvoice data. 

Above all, consumers seek out high-quality visual UGC on social media. Using a blend of robust visuals, videos, influencer content, and shopper reviews can increase buyer confidence while helping you achieve your strategic goals. 

Although quality content is a must on all social platforms, it’s crucial to have a solid grasp of each platform’s best practices. Here’s some platform-specific guidelines to get you started. 

a) Instagram

From trend discovery to product research, brand-created content on Instagram is a major player in a shopper’s buying journey. In fact, 83% of users say Instagram helps them discover new products, and 81% use it to research products and services. 

To capitalize on user activity, you must first complete the Instagram Shopping approval process to begin tagging products to make posts shoppable and drive sales. 

Consumers find your brand through discoveries

Instagram’s Explore Tab bridges the gap between aimless browsing and active shopping. With this feature, brands can enhance shopping experiences by immersing in your products and creating an in-store shopping feel. 

Brands like Iconic London have integrated a gallery of inspiring social content to create feed-like experiences on their home pages and product pages, which further reinforces its position and increases engagement. 

Not only that but the brand has seen an 11% lift in average order value for those who engaged with these galleries versus those who didn’t.

Shoppers can have a personalized shopping experience

Instagram’s algorithm gathers visually similar items, allowing users to scroll through content based on their interests and what they want to see. This helps users continually discover new products.

When you use Instagram, you can give your customers a personalized shopping experience. Lifestyle retailer Oliver Bonas, for example, uses Bazaarvoice Like2Buy to turn their Instagram visuals into shoppable posts to improve customer experience. They make their Instagram photos and videos shoppable and improve their shopper experience.

The tool has helped the brand drive more engagement and increase conversions by 188%. They can also collect new UGC assets to feature on Instagram later on. 

Instagram shopping is seamless 

Instagram’s checkout feature allows users to purchase products without leaving the app. Shoppers just have to enter their information, and it’s saved for future transactions — streamlining the shopping process. 

Although content will help users discover products, the checkout experience needs to be as easy as possible to ensure they complete their purchase and keep coming back. You should test your checkout process regularly to make sure it’s as seamless as possible and identify and fix any obstacles. 

You can use Instagram’s insights to track the success of your content on the platform, so you’ll know how well your retail social media strategy is working. 

b) Facebook

Facebook posts can help you make a splash, connect with consumers, and achieve your desired ROI. 

Simple, high-quality creative posts resonate most

High-quality, creative posts inspire Facebook users to interact with your brand. Each post should include images, videos, or GIFs that accurately echo your brand’s message. It’s also a great place to feature visual UGC. 

Posts inspire action 

Capture your Facebook followers’ attention via different types of actionable content. From sharing articles and blogs from your website to posting links to asking the audience to leave a review, there are various ways to inspire engagement. 

Understanding your audience builds a connection 

Connecting with your audience is about understanding how they tick and what inspires them. The better you understand your audience’s needs, the easier it will be to develop posts that connect with them. Facebook’s Page Insights can help you gather information about audience demographics and past posts they interacted with.

c) TikTok

TikTok content should be short (just about 15 seconds), visually compelling, and authentic. Here’s how it can be an influential part of your retail social media strategy. 

Trends are the heartbeat of the app

TikTok content follows trends, which are the ongoing conversations users have on the platform. You should jump on these trends. Complete the latest TikTok challenge or give your take on a popular trend — this will make you seem relatable and cool. It also helps you build momentum on the platform.  

Authenticity is the only way to be

TikTok is where people go to have fun and be themselves. Brands contributing to the platform should strive to be a part of the community and its light-hearted spirit, instead of pushing sales or other hidden initiatives. Being authentic is everything. 

TikTok Analytics enables you to track key metrics, like views, likes, comments, shares, and engagement rates. 

d) Pinterest

Pinterest is an amazing and underrated platform for retailers. It’s highly visual and made for discovering and saving (or pinning) your favorite things. 

The highest-performing pins are the ones that tell a story, are visually captivating, and entice the audience to want to learn more. Pins that will compel your audience to engage with your brand: 

• Standard pins. Vertical, high-resolution images are eye-catching. Putting your brand’s products front and center helps you showcase them. Utilizing specific titles and descriptions boosts pin discovery

• Video pins. Videos with an immediate visual hook will capture your target audience. This is important because some pinners browse the platform on mute. Also, video pins must have a strong cover image that conveys exactly what the video is about before the user scrolls past 

• Story pins. Like a video pin, a compelling cover image tells users what the story is about before clicking on it. Use multiple pages to tell your story and let your personality shine through with images, videos, colors, and fonts that suit your brand 

Like other social media platforms, Pinterest offers analytics that allow you to track pins, views, and more, so you can keep tabs on the effectiveness of your retail social media strategy. 

Step 3: Build relationships with customers and community connections

Consumers love following their favorite brands on social media to learn about new products, keep up with sales and promotions, and like and share their content. 70% of consumers discover products on social media — and, they’re more likely to buy from brands they follow on the platforms. 

Taking steps to build community connections and direct relationships with your customers will drive engagement and sales. Here’s how: 

Respond to comments and questions 

Shoppers want access to detailed, quality information about products while they’re shopping. They also want to feel like their needs are being met. So, when they comment on your post, send a question via a DM, or leave a review, respond to it. Consumers actually expect it. 

MeUndies has found value in Bazaarvoice Questions and Answers. When it answers customer questions, shoppers learn more about products and feel confident purchasing. This has increased conversions for the brand and reduced the number of customer service messages employees have to respond to. 

Provide top-notch customer service 

Most consumers say a brand’s customer service factors into their choice of whether to become a customer, according to a Microsoft report. Additionally, 58% say they’d end a relationship with a brand after poor customer service. Make shopping experiences seamless, respond to customer questions and feedback, and resolve problems immediately, and you’ll have a loyal customer for life. 

Bazaarvoice recently announced a partnership with customer service platform Zendesk to help brands build efficient, effective UGC programs that deliver quality customer experiences and improve customer service across a shopper’s journey.

Host contests and giveaways

Who wouldn’t want to show their love for their favorite brands and win a prize in the process? Social media contests and giveaways do just that. They also help brands engage followers, collect UGC, and increase sales. Instagram accounts that host contests grow 70% faster than those that don’t. 

Successful social media contests use brand-, product-, or campaign-specific hashtags. Samsonite ran a travel-gear giveaway using the hashtag #takewhatsyours to gather UGC and influencer content.

The campaign generated over 27,000 posts, which it uses on product pages, social media, and in its marketing to connect with customers.

Use social listening 

Through social listening, you can monitor topics, keywords, and hashtags related to mentions of your brand or products. You can also keep tabs on your competitors and what’s happening in your industry overall. Knowing what’s happening lets you capitalize on trends, resolve problems, and provide the content that you know audiences want to see. 

Create communities 

Focusing on your audience and building relationships with a brand community of supporters is always a great way to understand what your customers need and want — and respond accordingly. 

The rise of community commerce lets you leverage social creators to post real-life, authentic content that informs, entertains, and inspires. Just make sure it’s shoppable so people can easily buy what they see! 

Step 4: Drive sales with social media

With billions of social media users all over the world, social platforms are the place to connect with consumers and inspire them to buy your products. Social media is where people go to find out about the latest things. 

When you feature UGC on your social platforms, it helps build an authentic connection. Brands can see double the engagement when UGC is incorporated into retail social media strategies. There’s a number of ways to drive sales with social media.

Use social media to promote products 

Social platforms are a great place to showcase new products and post refreshers about your tried-and-true items. Another way to promote products on social media is with the help of influencers. 

Everyday social media users, like your real customers, are the influencers that resonate the most with shoppers. These influencers are considered authentic, and our research shows that 82% of consumers are purchasing more or the same number of products from everyday social media user recommendations this year. 

Run social media ads with UGC 

Consumers trust the advice of their peers over highly produced ads with professional photography and taglines that sound too sales-like. Running social media ads that feature UGC gives your paid ad campaigns an extra boost by driving higher conversions. 

For instance, bedding e-commerce brand Parachute increased its click-through rate by 35% and lowered its cost-per-click rate by 60% with UGC advertising. 

Use social media to drive traffic to your website 

Social media is the preferred spot for product inspiration and discovery. Tag your posts and make social content shoppable to drive traffic to your website and help shoppers complete their purchases. 

Use UGC collected from social media on your e-commerce website, on product pages, home pages, and anywhere else. Bazaarvoice Galleries can help by feeding social content to all of these places. Brands see 140% higher conversion rates when users interact with Galleries content on product pages. 

Step 5: Measure ROI to determine your retail social media strategy’s success 

Now that you know what it takes to create a solid retail social media strategy, how do you know it’s working and meeting your goals? The only way you can know is to measure your ROI.

This involves tracking metrics such as engagement, traffic, conversions, and revenue generation. Your goals and objectives will determine the type of social media metrics you track. 

Individual social media platforms offer their own analytics tools. Take, for example, if you want to build awareness on Instagram, you may want to closely examine Instagram Reels and Story views or engagement rates.

If you advertise on Facebook, you may want to measure the cost-per-click rate. But manually tracking and gathering metrics from each platform can be time-consuming and make your head spin if you’re unsure how to find meaningful data. Bazaarvoice offers several tools to help. 

The Social Commerce Platform provides brands with social analysis, UGC performance tracking, and competitor insights all on a single dashboard.

Let’s say you’re on TikTok and want to measure performance. You can do so from one singular dashboard. It can tell you what content to post, what’s engaging your audience, and what strategy works. 

Using tools like Premium Network Insights take the guesswork out of ROI assessments of your brand strategy. Our Social Analytics tool helps brands understand what their shoppers find most engaging, such as certain types of images or content. This can help inspire future marketing campaigns. 

Having a repertoire of analytics tools makes it much easier to pinpoint a successful retail social media strategy for your brand.

Retail social media strategy key takeaways 

Social media is the preferred source for product information and inspiration. Consumers follow their favorite brands on social platforms and expect to see compelling, authentic content that they can engage with. That’s why you need a robust retail social media strategy. 

Your retail social media strategy should focus on: 

• Defining your retail social media goals
• Deciding which types of content work best on different platforms (the answer is mostly always UGC!)
• Building authentic relationships with consumers 
• Driving sales with social content 
• Measuring your ROI to know what’s working and what needs work

This five-step guide can you get started. Learn more about how we can help you with social commerce here.

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The retailer’s guide to social commerce

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But while we may be the leader (again, not our words), we accept we’re not the only option out there — there’s a few alternatives to Bazaarvoice. But how do they compare?

9 Bazaarvoice alternatives

Are you interested in exploring different UGC providers? Here’s nine Bazaarvoice alternatives and how they stack up to the Bazaarvoice platform.

1. PowerReviews

PowerReviews helps product-based businesses drive conversions by collecting, displaying, sharing, and tracking user-generated content. The app offers core features that support e-commerce growth, including customer reviews and ratings, UGC syndication, and product sampling.

Bazaarvoice vs. PowerReviews

Bazaarvoice offers a wider range of products and features. PowerReviews only collects and distributes UGC, while Bazaarvoice has other unique offerings for attracting and converting potential customers — from social media management tools to online and in-store brand activation events. With these additional features, Bazaarvoice reduces the need to combine multiple tools to perform tasks that can all be handled in one centralized provider.

2. Yotpo

Yotpo is an e-commerce retention brand that helps businesses collect online reviews and showcase visual UGC on their various website pages. It also specializes in SMS marketing, loyalty and referral programs, subscription offerings, and email marketing — all targeted at encouraging repeat purchases and boosting recurring revenue.

Bazaarvoice vs. Yotpo

Bazaarvoice is tailored to both customer acquisition and retention. Instead of focusing solely on retention like Yotpo, Bazaarvoice is a more holistic solution that prioritizes gaining new buyers just as much as retaining existing customers. Bazaarvoice’s Influenster community — a large community of product-passionate consumers — is ever-ready to promote your products in video, image, and text reviews that display across multiple sales channels. This influencer collaboration and review distribution system aids higher search engine rankings and product discovery.

3. Emplifi

Formerly Pixlee TurnTo, before being acquired by Emplifi in November 2022, Emplifi is a platform for e-commerce brands looking to invest in large-scale word-of-mouth marketing. The company leverages influencer marketing, social UGC, and customer ratings and reviews to convince and convert shoppers.

Bazaarvoice vs. Pixlee TurnTo

Bazaarvoice delivers better ROI. Actually Bazaarvoice has the same offerings as Pixlee and more (like social media management and analytics features), so our customers get more value for their money faster. But with more integration options and an expert services offering for personalized support and guidance, Bazaarvoice also empowers brands to optimize their UGC marketing strategy.

4. REVIEWS.io

REVIEWS.io is a review management and retail syndication platform. It helps companies curate reviews and ratings across various platforms — Google, Shopify, Klaviyo, and more — to use on their sales channels and paid advertising. REVIEWS.io also offers a survey feature for customers to measure customer satisfaction and a loyalty and rewards tool for them to create high-converting referral programs.

Bazaarvoice vs. REVIEWS.io

Bazaarvoice is better suited for enterprise. Because of our platform’s numerous functionalities and automations, Bazaarvoice is better suited for large businesses with extensive service offerings than REVIEWS.io. We also provide more sophisticated reporting options and a wider selection of marketing tools for social media management, product sampling campaigns, review monitoring, and more.

5. Trustpilot

Trustpilot is a well-known site for reviewing and rating the world’s top SaaS and e-commerce products. The review platform lets customers post both negative and positive feedback about a brand, so other buyers can make more informed purchasing decisions, and it helps businesses improve their offerings. 

Customers also use Trustpilot to research and learn more about certain products and services for personal or business use.

Bazaarvoice vs. Trustpilot

Bazaarvoice includes video reviews. While Trustpilot only lets customers drop text reviews, Bazaarvoice allows text, photo, and video product reviews, creating a visual way for customers to experience products before making a purchase. Brands can also leverage our dedicated and passionate community of everyday influencers to generate product reviews at scale and syndicate them across their top sales channels.

6. Sprinklr

A partner as well as an alternative to Bazaarvoice, Sprinklr is a customer experience management platform that provides tools for real-time data analytics, customer support, marketing, and social media management. One of Sprinklr’s most relevant social commerce offerings is its ratings and reviews product, which lets brands receive, approve, display, and respond to customer feedback. The app also seamlessly integrates with CRMs like Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Zendesk.

Bazaarvoice vs. Sprinklr

Bazaarvoice is custom-built to drive e-commerce sales. If you’re looking to attract more customers to buy your products, Bazaarvoice is your muse. Unlike Sprinklr, Bazaarvoice is tailored to e-commerce businesses — from its shoppable image galleries to product sampling campaigns and review sourcing offering.

7. Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson provides a hub of social media management tools for businesses of all sizes. With features for top social channels like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, the platform enables efficient post scheduling, social monitoring, campaign planning, performance management, and more. Dash Hudson also has influencer-tracking software for managing and growing successful content creator programs.

Bazaarvoice vs. Dash Hudson

Bazaarvoice is more proactive. Dash Hudson and Bazaarvoice are very similar in the influencer marketing realm, but our platform wins thanks to proactive features like product sampling. With this feature, Bazaarvoice incentivizes customers and influencers to create authentic brand content in exchange for free product samples, helping brands to start seeing results from UGC quickly. Bazaarvoice is also the only provider that has a visual syndication network for distributing social content to retailers as a way of supporting their marketing and sales efforts.

8. Social Native

Social Native is a UGC and influencer discovery platform that helps brands leverage authentic social content to drive awareness and sales. In 2020, Social Native acquired visual marketing tool Olapic to strengthen its content sourcing, performance management, and insights tracking functionalities for marketers.

Bazaarvoice vs. Social Native

Bazaarvoice includes revenue attribution. Unlike Social Native and other competing brands, Bazaarvoice is the first end-to-end UGC platform that measures revenue directly attributed to social content. With Bazaarvoice, e-commerce brands no longer have to depend solely on vanity metrics like engagement rates and follower growth to gauge campaign effectiveness. 

9. Sprout Social

The final Bazaarvoice alternative on our list is Sprout Social — a social media management platform for online post scheduling, publishing, social listening, customer engagement, and insights tracking. Unlike other social media management solutions, Sprout Social also offers an employee advocacy feature for empowering team members to become online brand advocates and industry thought leaders.

Bazaarvoice vs. Sprout Social

Bazaarvoice leverages UGC seamlessly. Sprout Social is a great social media tool, but it does not have a clear-cut system for sourcing and utilizing UGC for business growth. Meanwhile, Bazaarvoice helps businesses provide rich shopping experiences that lead to purchases — using UGC. Our e-commerce marketing platform has smooth processes for creating organized product sampling campaigns, collecting and displaying customer ratings or reviews, turning social content into shoppable experiences, and more.

Bazaarvoice is your best alternative

Whoever your audience, Bazaarvoice is the ideal partner for collecting and leveraging UGC for customer acquisition and retention. With key products like Product Sampling, Social Commerce and Creator Partnerships, Retail Syndication, and more, our full-funnel platform makes it easy for e-commerce brands and retailers to leverage social content for reputation management and business growth.

And sure, there’s some strong alternatives to Bazaarvoice out there. But none provide the full ROI that Bazaarvoice does. An independent Forrester Total Economic Impact of Bazaarvoice study found that Bazaarvoice customers can experience up to a 4x increase in conversion rates and a 400% ROI with “a payback period of less than three months.” That’s not something you can find just anywhere.

If you’re an existing Bazaarvoice user who needs help with any of our products or services, log in to the Support Community for assistance.

And if Bazaarvoice isn’t part of your digital marketing tech stack yet, or you’re using an alternative but want to switch, get in touch with our team by filling out a contact form or calling to talk about how we can meet your business needs today. 

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