Social Commerce: Every Bounce Costs Brands $5.11, Breaking the Math of Customer Acquisition

SimplicityDX Exposes Why Poor Landing Experiences Lead to 70-90% Bounce Rates

SimplicityDX, the edge shopping company, announced new social commerce research, “The Cost of a Bounce,” which included a survey of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. online shoppers that started their shopping journey on a social media platform within the last 90 days.

In analyzing the survey findings, the SimplicityDX Academy team quantified the average cost of a customer bouncing off a brand website to be $5.11 and gave fresh insight into why online shoppers bounce and what they are not telling brands about their experience.

“The math of customer acquisition is broken”

“The math of customer acquisition is broken,” explained Ruth Peters, co-founder and CMO at SimplicityDX. “Brands are literally leaving money on the table as their customers click through from social to product detail pages. Our research found that 73% of shoppers do not end up buying after a bounce, so there is a big opportunity to change the economics of customer acquisition by focusing on the post-click experience.”

State of Social Commerce

Today, in the U.S. alone, 90% of the population — or approximately 302 million people — use social media for an average of 2.5 hours a day. It is no surprise, then, that brands are on a constant quest to master social media, both as a new customer acquisition tool and to inspire returning customers to buy again.

“However, it is dangerous to make too many assumptions about a shopper’s social shopping preferences, particularly when it comes to checkout,” added Peters. “SimplicityDX Academy research has consistently shown over time that 65% of consumers describe social as a great place to discover new products, but only 15% of consumers check out on social media, preferring to buy on the brand’s website.”

Calculating the Cost of a Bounce

SimplicityDX conducted research with 1,000 U.S. online shoppers to recall a recent purchase that they had clicked through to but then bounced off the page immediately.

The total cost per bounce is calculated based on the advertising cost to get each visitor to the site and the lost revenue opportunity when they bounce.

• $4.89 is the lost opportunity cost when a new customer bounces.
• $5.24 is the lost opportunity cost when an existing customer bounces.
• $5.11 is the lost opportunity cost due to a bounce averaged across all customers.

“When a customer clicks through to the brand site from social, it’s a clear sign of intent,” explains Charles Nicholls, analyst and commentator for SimplicityDX Academy. “But poor landing experiences are leading to sky-high bounce rates, typically over 70% and sometimes as high as 90%-plus. So, for every 10,000 visitors, if 80% bounce, the average lost revenue cost to the brand is $40,880. Fix the bounce, and you’ll fix the math.”

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Key Findings

How frequently do shoppers use social media?

• 66% of respondents now use social media every week for shopping.

How frequently do shoppers bounce?

• 76% of shoppers bounce 50% of the time or more from social media.
• Only 3% of shoppers surveyed say they never bounce.

What is the impact of a bounce?

• 73% of the respondents were lost and did not buy from the brand at a later date.
• 62% of shoppers felt frustrated and/or annoyed with the brand when they bounced from the brand site.
• 24% of the respondents are less likely to shop with the brand again, showing the impact of poor experience goes beyond the bounce to revenue performance.
• 13% went on to buy from a competitor, a double blow to the brand.

Why do shoppers bounce?

The top three reasons shoppers bounced were (multiple answers allowed):

• 55% reported the product was not found on the brand site.
• 37% reported the product was too expensive.
• 31% reported the product was out of stock.

The disconnected experience that shoppers encounter as they click through from social to the brand site causes customer frustration and loss of revenue.

Sharing their frustration

• 39% share their frustration with friends or on social media, meaning one bounce experience can have a ripple effect.
• Surprisingly, only 9% choose to share with the brand.

Advice to brands from shoppers

The responses from the SimplicityDX Academy survey audience were strong and clear:

• 60% of shoppers want the landing experience to show greater relevance to the original social media post and include all products depicted.
• 39% want retailers to only promote products that are in stock.

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