Measuring the Conversion Power of Social and Search

Michael Garrity — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:21:00 GMT

Cloud marketing platform BloomReach recently compiled an infographic looking at how different social media sites can become traffic sources that convert users into customers.

According to the data, it seems increasingly clear that social media is quickly catching up to search as a source of coverting traffic. Although conversions from social only represent around 3 percent of the total number of conversions from search, many of these sites don't send very much traffic to online stores, especially compared to search engines.

The big winner in this study was Pinterest, which is quickly growing as a driver of quality traffic. With a conversion rate of 1.02 percent, it's far ahead of Google Image Search (.54 percent) and social media powerhouse Twitter (0 percent). Furthermore, Pinterest's numbers could potentially get much higher, as there are still many e-commerce companies that are barely using (or outright ignoring) the site. There is a lot of room for growth with Pinterest, as it just hit 19 million users.

For now, however, traditional search is still the best bet when it comes to getting converting traffic, largely because it is a clear signal of an intent to purchase. Approximately 1.62 percent of Google Search traffic will result in a sale, which is quite a bit higher than even the highest converting social media site, Facebook (1.13 percent).

In the end, it seems that the real trick to making social media a viable option for driving traffic that converts is to put effort into delivering quality content, following the trends, and linking to relevant landing pages designed to help users convert.

Check out the infographic below:

Social Media Mavens : social media mavens week 29 2012

Measuring the Conversion Power of Social and Search