Less Than 1% Of Online Purchases Come From Social Channels

Thirty-nine percent of online retail transactions by new customers start with clicks from paid or organic search results and less than 1% come from social channels according to a new Forrester report.

In order to determine how and when shoppers touch various platforms when completing a transaction online, Forrester partnered with GSI Commerce to examine 77,000 consumer orders made over a period of 14 days in April 2012. Findings in the report include:

-- Multiple platforms influence many buyers. While 33% of transactions by new customers involve more than one trackable touchpoint, 48% of repeat customers visit multiple trackable touchpoints. The most popular platforms include organic search, paid search, and email.

-- Email and direct traffic matter for frequent customers. Thirty percent of transactions by repeat customers start with an email from the retailer, and an additional 30% type the retailer's URL directly into a browser.

-- Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers. Forty-eight percent of consumers reported that social media posts are a great way to discover new products, brands, trends, or retailers, but less than 1% of transactions could be traced back to trackable social links.

More information on social  media and CRM can be found at www.CRMindustry.com