What is social commerce? Stats trends and tips marketers should know for 2023

Online shopping has gone social. Imagine scrolling through Instagram, finding something you love. You complete your purchase all within the app and avoid navigating to a product landing page. That’s the exact type of experience social commerce offers. It simplifies the purchase journey by eliminating extra steps and makes consumers more likely to complete their purchases.

As such, social commerce could be the key to success when using social media for retail. In this post, we take a deep dive into what social commerce is and how your brand can make the most of it.

Table of Contents

• What is social commerce?
• Best social commerce platforms to use in 2023
• 5 benefits of social commerce for your business
• 6 social commerce statistics marketers should know
• 3 social commerce trends for 2023
• 4 successful social commerce examples
• 5 ways to increase sales on social media using Sprout Social
• Starting out with a social commerce strategy

What is social commerce?

Social commerce is the buying and selling of goods or services directly within a social media platform. It involves taking social media beyond its traditional role in the discovery process. Instead, users will get to complete the entire purchase journey within the same platform. That means they can quickly go from discovery to purchase without leaving their preferred apps.

Leading social media platforms now offer dedicated social commerce tools to retailers. This includes platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok. Using these tools, you can create digital storefronts right within the respective platforms. That way, people can use these storefronts to discover and buy products without having to visit another website.

Social commerce vs. ecommerce

Ecommerce broadly encompasses the process of buying and selling goods online. It includes selling through different digital channels including online marketplaces, websites and dedicated retailer apps.

Meanwhile, social commerce involves selling directly through a social media platform. Since social media is an online channel, social commerce is a subset of ecommerce but it’s not the same as ecommerce.

Best social commerce platforms to use in 2023

Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest were the first to introduce native social commerce capabilities. Now platforms like YouTube and TikTok have joined in and started rolling out their own social commerce features.

If you’re interested in getting ahead of this potential revenue channel, here are the platforms you’ll want to test out:

Facebook

Facebook’s social commerce tool, Facebook Shops, has a very low barrier to entry. Shops are free to set up and are accessible within your Facebook business profile.

If you’re using a partner platform, you can automatically sync your entire inventory list in seconds. If not, you can use a spreadsheet to upload product information.

The Facebook Shop tab on the platform’s mobile app features products based on user preferences. This helps to encourage organic brand discovery. Once consumers find your products, they can complete a purchase within the app or on your website. Sellers communicate with customers within Messenger to ask questions, offer support and more.

Instagram

Instagram Shopping is directly linked to your Facebook Shop. To set up a shop, users must link their Instagram business account to their Facebook business profile. Once that’s completed, users can upload an existing product catalog or create a new one.

Then you can use Instagram Product Tags to make your content shoppable and your products easier to discover. Product Tags allow you to highlight items from your product catalog directly in your videos and posts. Users can tap on a tag and immediately learn more about the product.

The “View shop” button lets them browse your other listings and enjoy a seamless shopping experience. Like Facebook, purchases take place within the app or on your business website.

Pinterest

Pinterest Shopping has made it easier for retailers to sell on Pinterest. It lets you upload your product catalog to your Pinterest business page. You can then tag products in your Pins so people can click on those tags to learn more about them.

Keep in mind that these Product Pins are not direct social commerce tools. Buyers will still get redirected to a product-specific landing page to complete their purchase. However, it simplifies the buying journey as people can get the product info right within Pinterest.

TikTok

It’s easier than ever for retailers to make money on TikTok since the platform introduced social commerce capabilities. Businesses can now set up a TikTok Shop to showcase their products and drive purchases directly within the app. With this feature, you’ll be able to create shoppable videos and even enable viewers to shop directly on your TikTok LIVE broadcasts.

Source: TikTok

5 benefits of social commerce for your business

1. Reach a wider audience of potential customers

Social media usage is constantly on the rise, with more than 4 billion people using it worldwide. Couple that with the fact that consumers are discovering new brands and products through social media.

According to Sprout Social’s Social Shopping in 2022 study, 40% of consumers were finding the perfect product through a brand’s organic post. Researching products on social media and seeing a friend’s post are other common ways consumer’s discover products.

When you leverage social commerce, your products get in front of a massive audience. You’ll reach more people who could turn into customers.

2. Convert customers where they are and remove friction

Social commerce makes it easy to convert customers where they are since they can directly make purchases on the platform. It eliminates the need to switch to a different app or website to find the product they want to buy. As such, it removes friction and barriers to purchase by shortening the buying journey.

3. Increase reviews and recommendations through social proof

If your business is new to selling online, social media is the perfect place to begin establishing much-needed social proof. When shopping online, your buyers can’t necessarily test or try on your product. Reviews can be the key to making an educated purchase decision.

Managing your end-to-end customer journey on social media creates a positive feedback loop. This will eventually have an impact on your bottom line.

Your social content attracts new followers into your funnel. And offering social commerce gives them a chance to purchase and leave reviews in one centralized location. As your engagement grows with new reviews coming in, it sends a positive signal to social media algorithms. These algorithms will deem your content relevant to even more potential customers.

4. Gather useful data on your customers’ social habits

Social commerce features give you direct access to your customers’ social profiles. This gives you valuable customer data that you can use to inform your existing strategy.

Combine these insights with social media listening to get an even better understanding of your audience. That way, you get an even more comprehensive look into the habits and interests of your customers.

You can create more inspired conversion experiments based on these insights. Findings can inform messaging A/B tests, CTA optimizations and more. So you can make a bigger impact with your target audience.

5. Drive additional revenue than traditional ecommerce

Social commerce is driving an increasing portion of marketing-driven revenue for ecommerce businesses. According to McKinsey, retail social commerce sales in the US amounted to $45.7 billion in revenue in 2022. Experts predict that the number will hit close to $80 billion by 2025.

Although this is just about 5% of the total retail ecommerce sales, it still translates to increased revenue. As social commerce opens up new avenues for your business to drive sales, it gives you the opportunity to grow your revenue.

6 social commerce statistics marketers should know

1. Facebook is the most popular platform for social commerce. An estimated 5 million users in the US made a purchase on the platform in 2022.
2. Instagram comes next with an estimated 41 million buyers making a purchase.
3. TikTok is another popular option with 23.7 million users buying on the platform.
4. Pinterest draws in about 15.9 million social shoppers on the platform.
5. Targeted ads are the number one way for social shoppers to find the perfect product. Forty-nine percent of people surveyed in the Sprout shopping study were discovering products through these ads.
6. Recommendations from friends are the most compelling reasons consumers make a purchase on social.

3 social commerce trends for 2023

Many of the current ecommerce trends we see today influence the trends shaping social commerce today.

1. Livestream shopping will drive a significant portion of social media purchases. Sixty-one percent of shoppers in the Sprout study already use this social commerce feature. Moreover, 53% were planning to use more of it.
2. VR and AR experiences will enhance the social shopping experience. Platforms like Pinterest have even introduced a “Try On” feature powered by augmented reality. This allows shoppers to try on makeup products and see how home décor products look in their space.

Source: Pinterest

3. Inclusive marketing will be a key purchase factor in social commerce. Sixty percent of shoppers in Sprout’s social shopping study said that inclusive marketing would make them more likely to buy from a brand.

4 successful social commerce examples

Check out these four social commerce examples to find inspiration on how to build your own strategy.

1. The Tiny Tassel

The Tiny Tassel is a retailer specializing in handmade jewelry. It uses Facebook Shop features to create informative, Facebook-native product pages. Each listing features detailed product descriptions, customization options and shipping information.

Brands should follow Tiny Tassel’s lead and post listings that communicate value. This builds trust with potential buyers who are new to your brand, motivating them to make that first purchase.

2. Patagonia

Pinterest boards can serve as product navigation tools for your audience. Take Patagonia’s Pinterest structure: the Product Pin boards mimic its website navigation. This creates a familiar experience for returning audiences. Similarly, new potential customers will enjoy a consistent experience when they click through to the brand’s main site.

Most social commerce platforms offer just enough flexibility to recreate your brand experience. Use these tools to create consistency for your audience.

3. Target

Catalog setup can take a long time If your ecommerce platform doesn’t partner with Facebook. Rather than list all of its products, Target focuses on items that align with its Instagram content strategy. This creates a better browsing experience for its established Instagram audience.

If you’re working with a larger inventory, you can use Sprout’s Instagram Performance Reports. This helps you make smarter listing choices based on content engagement and popular hashtags.

4. Made by Mitchell

Makeup brand, Made by Mitchell introduced a product that was exclusively available on TikTok Shop. The brand took advantage of TikTok’s LIVE shopping feature for its initial launch.

The brand had collaborated with TikTok creator, Melissa Jade for this collection. So the two parties had a duel livestream on both their accounts. This attracted 50,000 LIVE views combined and a total of 2.4 million product views. The livestream session even had a 100% sell-out rate.

Brands should follow suit and take full advantage of TikTok’s LIVE shopping feature to engage shoppers in real-time. You can even maximize your reach with influential content creators.

The brand further encouraged sales through mystery beauty bundles. People were buying these mystery bundles on the brand’s TikTok Shop and creating unboxing videos. This helped to build a buzz around the collection and persuaded others to buy their own mystery boxes.

Source: TikTok

5 ways to increase sales on social media using Sprout Social

1. Know your audience

Align your social commerce strategy with your target social audience for maximum engagement. Choose products and messaging based on this specific customer subset instead of simply repeating what’s on your website.

A social media analytics tool can help you keep up with information as your audience grows. Sprout Profile Reports offer follower demographic data to create platform-wise customer personas. Use these in combination with post performance data to make your initial decisions about which products to list and how to position them.

2. Schedule your content

Once you share a listing, schedule some promotional posts to build interest and drive traffic to your new social storefront. This is a great way to share additional product information, like walkthroughs and close-up shots.

Use Sprout’s built-in social commerce catalogs to add shoppable tags and links to your products while scheduling your content. By adding products to your posts, you can meet customers where they want to shop and streamline their purchase process.

3. Personalize your replies

Asking questions about a product or service is one of the top reasons consumers reach out to brands on social. They may have requests for specific product details, ask about a specific order or want to know which options are available. Not only can you answer those questions by recommending a product, but you can even share a direct link to buy it. It’s a win-win—you’re delivering helpful service and making it easier for consumers to buy what they’re looking for.

Sprout helps you add direct product links to replies using built-in product catalogs from Facebook Shops and Shopify. You can also answer questions about order status, shipping details and more without switching to another tool.

4. Learn what works (and do more of it)

As you dip your toe into the world of social commerce, the best thing you can do is measure, measure, measure. Knowing what’s working can help you repeat your success as you scale your strategy. It can even help to illuminate new opportunities you might have otherwise missed.

Monitor your social analytics to manage performance. Remember to categorize your posts in Sprout by tagging them, giving you an in-depth look at what’s working and what’s not. Combine this with UTM parameters and you can dig in, see which posts drove sales and adjust your strategy to optimize your posts. With Sprout, you can schedule report deliveries on a weekly or monthly basis to stay on top of this process.

5. Automate conversations and increase response times

Failing to provide timely responses is one of the biggest social commerce mistakes. Before people finalize their purchases on your social media storefront, they may need some additional info. It’s your job to ensure that those potential customers get the response they need when they need it.

Sprout lets you build chatbots with customized responses so you can automate those conversations. That way, you can provide quick responses even when your support team is unavailable. And customers will get the answers they need to make informed purchase decisions.

Starting out with a social commerce strategy

Social media has revolutionized the way businesses and consumers interact, and social commerce is its newest frontier. You now know all the basics about social commerce–from what benefits you can enjoy to which platforms you should use. So if you’re ready to get started, download our free interview guide on how to craft a social commerce strategy.

The post What is social commerce? Stats, trends and tips marketers should know for 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

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How to take smart risks with lo-fi social content

In late 2009, Domino’s released a brutally honest commercial, publicizing customers’ overwhelmingly negative feelings about their pizza—and asking folks to give them a second chance. It was a massive risk, but one that paid off. The quarter following the campaign’s release, same-store sales were up 14%.

No matter how you slice it, risk-taking has always been a hallmark of strong brand marketing. In the world of social today—where generating organic reach feels like a moving target and production budgets are limited—pursuing smart risks can be the deciding factor in your content’s success.

Enter: lo-fi content. Publishing visuals and video that hasn’t been scrutinized in creative briefs and edited ad nauseum carries a degree of risk. But as we explain in this article, it’s what audiences crave.

Keep reading to learn how to build the business case for creating more lo-fi content, and ways to integrate it into your social strategy.

What is lo-fi social media content?

Lo-fi social media content is personality-driven social media content that has low production value. Social media consultant and Link in Bio newsletter creator Rachel Karten summed it up in a Sprout masterclass webinar, “You have to do something weird or wacky or fun or personality driven. People now expect brands to show up in that way across all platforms.”

Lo-fi content looks and feels more authentic and less glossy than traditional branded social content because it usually is. It’s often shot on an iPhone and involves little if any editing at all, making it more budget-friendly (with a better ROI than highly polished content).

Lo-fi social media content is still selling to your audience, but it doesn’t feel like it. Examples of lo-fi content include, but are not limited to:

• Facebook photo dumps
• Screengrabs of TikToks
• Instagram Stories that are clearly shot on someone’s phone

The risks and rewards of lo-fi content

For emerging and established brands alike, lo-fi content can be a step outside of the marketing comfort zone. Unpolished posts run the risk of showing your product or service in a non-aspirational light (even if it’s highlighting a very real customer use case), or showcasing a sense of humor that your audience might not get.

@lamer

Replying to @Lindsey 👁️👄👁️ #LaMer #LaMerSkincare #CremeDeLaMer #Succession #RomanRoy

♬ original sound – Dustin Rauser

Done well, however, the upside of smart lo-fi content is undeniable, from higher ROI to scaling your brand awareness efforts. By striking the right balance of casual and relevant, these posts can humanize your brand and encourage shareability.

What’s driving the shift toward lo-fi content?

The pendulum swing from pristine, big budget advertising campaigns to lo-fi social content has been building up for years. There are a few factors that have contributed to this shift:

1. The pandemic

During our webinar, Karten noted how the challenges brands faced at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift towards more lo-fi content. Specifically, more conservative budgets and the inability for marketers to travel and film on-site.

As major brands began to incorporate more low-budget content into their feeds out of necessity, they noticed something—audiences ate it up. It was an early sign that aspirational content wasn’t the only option anymore.

2. The algorithms

While the pandemic initiated the shift toward lo-fi social content, it was hardly the only driver. Algorithms, particularly on Instagram and TikTok, increasingly emphasize the power of discovery.

The more a particular post gets shared, the more likely it is to land on the Instagram Explore or TikTok For You pages. Today, it’s off the cuff, lo-fi content that users are more likely to share with their followers.

In other words, the combination of consumers wanting more authentic posts combined with algorithms rewarding that content led forward-thinking brands to ask themselves a simple question when creating social content: “Would you share it?”

How to take smart risks with lo-fi social content

Lo-fi doesn’t translate to low effort, nor is it a pass to be less thoughtful or strategic about your content. Here are four ways to create intentional lo-fi content that entertains and engages your audience:

Listen to your audience

Do your research—lo-fi content may not take as much time or budget to produce, but that doesn’t absolve teams from strong planning. Social listening helps you get a firmer grasp on what your customers are talking about, both in general and as it relates to your brand. This Sweetgreen TikTok, for example, hooks viewers by immediately acknowledging pervasive feedback about their prices.

@sweetgreen

this is the $10 #sweetgreen salad you haven’t thought of aka the Derian special. #salad

♬ In the Bosom – Sweet After Tears

Know what differentiates your brand from direct and indirect competitors

This will help you pinpoint the right opportunities to bet on lo-fi social content and how to bring these moments to life. Getting this right depends on understanding the behaviors, norms and fandoms that are unique to your audience. Regional fast-food chain Culver’s does this often, playing into their Wisconsin roots without formal voiceover or on-camera talent.

Be real and show up as such

Many consumers place greater value on brands that aren’t buttoned up or picture-perfect all the time, especially on social. Karten recommends doing something as similar as posting an image dump with lo-fi imagery to show your brand’s true colors or heritage.

For example, in the wake of its 2020 bankruptcy and subsequent brand turnaround, Brooks Brothers has leaned into a more casual approach on social–with simple static posts reviving old catalogs and quick get-ready-with-me TikToks—aimed at appealing to a younger generation of shoppers.

Couple goals via Spring ‘81 catalog #tbt

Posted by Brooks Brothers on Thursday, April 27, 2023

Partner with influencers driving trends

Sharing your brand’s platform with someone else always carries a certain amount of risk. But influencers and creators are masters of lo-fi content. Engaging and partnering with the originators of so many different social trends can have long-term benefits for brands.

Karten spoke to an example from Cava, which partnered with The Devon Maid, a TikTok creator who was going viral for a video on how pasta shapes walk. The subsequent post, featuring The Devon Maid’s take on how various Cava toppings would walk, over-performed in terms of both likes and shares. It allowed the brand to participate in the trend without stealing the idea from its original source.

Make major announcements more relatable

Large corporate announcements may seem like the one arena where a lo-fi approach isn’t worth the risk. But if the Tennessee Titans’ 2023 schedule release video is any indication, even this tide is turning.

For the announcement, the Titans produced two videos: One with high production value featuring celebrities including comedian Nate Bargatze, Jelly Roll and Keith Urban, the other, a lo-fi video asking random people in downtown Nashville to identify their 2023 opponents by their logo. The lo-fi version outperformed the more polished version significantly—82,000+ likes and 2,100+ comments compared to 15,000+ likes and 249 comments on Instagram alone, drawing engagement from major brands such as Cheetos and even teams on their schedule.

Why did it work? The Titans version was raw, it was real and, most importantly, it was hilarious.

To mitigate lo-fi content risks, never stop testing

For brands accustomed to full-fledged TV commercials, expensive out of home billboards and glossy print spreads, lo-fi social content may seem like a major marketing risk. But as the previous examples demonstrate, when done right the payoff is undeniable.

Marketers looking to take bigger swings with lo-fi content should still take a test-and-learn approach to find the tone, format and timely references that resonate best with your audience. Download our creative testing worksheet to find the formula that makes sense for your brand.

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Optimize your blog post for SEO & go from zero traffic to monthly growth

Have you ever written content for your blog and thought “this is the best content I’ve ever written?”

You publish it, promote it on social media and send an email to your audience. And people seem to love it initially; but after the first day or two of attention... nothing.

How can this be?

The answer is pretty simple, your post was never optimized for organic search.

You’re not alone. We had a blog post “Here's How Email Color Can Impact Subscriber Behavior” that fell into this category - amazing content, no traffic.

Here were sessions from Google Analytics for the past couple of years for this blog post.

When I dug a little deeper, I noticed that we weren’t targeting any keywords that people actually search for. No one is searching for “how email color impacts subscriber behavior.”

When I performed keyword research in ahrefs, these were the top results for “email” and “color”:

So how did I take a blog post that had zero organic traffic dating back to its launch in 2016...

And turn it into a post that is seeing four straight months of organic traffic growth?

I optimized the content based on keywords people were searching for. Here was my process for optimizing this specific blog post for SEO.

1 - It all starts with keyword research

I use ahrefs for my research but there are several other tools you can use like Semrush or Moz.

The blog was about how color can have an impact on subscriber or consumer behavior so I started with a general search term of “color”.

Then I narrowed my search by including words that could be relevant to this blog. So I included the words “behavior” and “marketing”. My thought was “email” was too specific but general words like “behavior” and “marketing” might show some organic keyword phrases to target.

The top results showed that people are searching for terms revolving around “psychology of color in marketing.”

So I decided to optimize the blog around that term.

2 - Internal research

Now that I had my topic, I wanted to see if we had any other blog posts talking about color. The reason for the internal research is because you don’t want to optimize a post on a topic that has already been written in your blog. Those two blog posts would then be competing against each other for your target keywords. 

I used Google Search Console to look for search queries that contained the word “color” to see if there were any blog posts getting organic traffic for a similar subject matter.

My research found a blog written in 2017 with the title “Color Theory for Sign Up Form Design”. This content was very similar to the content I was optimizing except it was talking about how color can impact a sign up form.

Next I wanted to see if this blog warranted its own post or could I combine it with my new blog. I looked at the clicks from Google Search Console over the past 12 months. The data showed only 45 people clicked a search query to get this blog post.

Next I looked at sessions from all channels in Google Analytics. And the past four months showed organic traffic. Even prior to that we only averaged 50 sessions a month.

The organic traffic was so low, it did not warrant keeping it as its own post. 

So I decided this additional content would make my new blog post even stronger, so I added this content to my new blog.

3 - Reposition the blog content

I loved the content from the original blog “Here’s How Email Color Can Impact Subscriber Behavior” but that was very specific to email marketing. I wanted to keep this content, but knew as is, it wasn’t going to drive any organic traffic.

So I decided to reposition the blog to talk about the psychology of color in marketing. Here’s how I did that:

New title

Created a new title “How to use the psychology of color in marketing to increase your results” to describe what the blog was about.

New optimize content

Added new content, including studies, about how color influences behavior in marketing.

In the content I also made sure I naturally included keywords I wanted to rank for including “psychology of color in marketing” and “marketing color meaning”. 

Added images

Included charts to highlight the different color meanings, my thought here was that I could also rank with the images (which I was right, some of my organic traffic is coming from people clicking on the images in the search results)

Transitioned to prior content

After highlighting how specific colors can influence consumer behavior, I transitioned into how this can be applied to both sign up forms and email marketing. This is where I added the content from the original two blog posts.

New URL with redirect

Finally, since the original blogs URL’s were about how sign up form (/color-theory-for-sign-up-form-design) and email (/how-email-color-impacts-subscriber-behavior) color impacts subscriber behavior, I created a new URL (/how-to-use-the-psychology-of-color-in-marketing.htm) and I redirected the other two URL's to the new one.

Optimize your blog for SEO

Since I used content that was already created, I only needed to write about 40% of this 2,500+ word post.

Now it’s your turn. Find a blog that is simply an amazing piece of content, but for some reason is just not driving organic traffic. Do research and find keywords that you could incorporate that would give this post a chance to get organic traffic.

To give yourself a better chance to rank high for several keywords, I recommend you search for keywords that have a keyword difficulty under 40. These are less competitive and will give you a better chance to rank quicker.

Bonus: How to optimize a blog that’s already getting strong traffic

I just shared with you my process for optimizing my content for SEO on a blog that had zero sessions over the past several years. 

But can you and should you optimize a blog post that’s already getting strong organic traffic. The answer is absolutely.

I optimized this blog post - blog.aweber.com/learn/how-to-get-email-addresses - that had 3,242 organic visitors over the previous 12 months and was ranking in the top 20 for several strategic keywords. That’s over 270 organic visitors per month from this one blog.

After a few simple updates to this blog, my organic traffic has increased almost 3x. Since this blog was optimized, organic traffic from this post has increased to 861 organic visitors a month.

Chart from Google Search Console

And I’m ranking higher for several targeted keywords:

Here are my tips that I used to optimize my content, which improved my SEO. 

1 - Updated old and non-relevant content

This blog post, believe it or not, was written back in 2010. I optimized it in 2020 and again in 2023. A lot has changed in email marketing in the last 13+ years.

I updated content that was outdated or no longer relevant.

Here’s some things you should check for when optimizing your content:

• Depending on your topic, a lot can change in a year, so make sure your content is still fresh and relevant.
• Are you referencing a year or information that is dated? For example, if your blog is referring to MySpace as the hottest social media platform, it might be time to update it.
• Check all your links. If any of the internal or external links are being redirected, change them. If the content you’re linking to is several years old, find a more recent article to link to.

Bonus tips: You should optimize your strongest content every 2 - 3 years to ensure the content is still hitting those organic triggers.

2 - Updated the title

Updating your blog title might not be necessary, but I felt my title needed something strong to compete with blogs that were ranking in the top 10.

My original title was “How to get email addresses for email marketing”. I use HeadlineStudio to score and help validate my title ideas. For the original title, the headline score was 58, which is an average score.

The new title scored an 82. This gave me more confidence that the new headline might resonate better with people searching for “ways to get email addresses for marketing”.

3 - Add new content

The blog had 17 “ways to get email addresses”, I added three new tips.

When you’re updating an already SEO friendly content, you don’t want to dramatically change the language that got you that strong ranking. But you also don’t want to add “fluff” content, it still needs to be strong, relevant, and add value to the reader.

Help the SEO algorithms

Give your content a strong chance to rank. When you publish your content, promote it to your audience. This will give search engines some early data to determine if your content is worthy of a top SERP.

So email your audience and add to your social channels. You want to get people reading and engaging with your content as soon as possible.

You can use Blog Automation to instantly notify your audience the minute you publish a new blog post. No additional work is needed on your part. Just sit back, relax, and watch as your audience starts viewing your latest, amazing blog post. 

Blog Automation is a feature in your AWeber account. 

Don’t have an AWeber account - no problem. You can create one for free.

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How marketing automation empowers your team and whole org

For today’s marketing teams, it’s nearly impossible to do your work and stay agile without marketing automation. In fact, teams that don’t adopt automation and AI-powered software throughout their tech stack risk falling behind.

There has never been more customer, competitor or industry data available to marketing teams. And yet, with shrinking bandwidths, having the time to uncover insights from that vast sea of data is becoming less realistic.

At its core, automation cuts out redundant, time-consuming tasks so your team can focus on strategy. But with the right tools and processes, automation also breaks down silos and makes your whole business a well-oiled, data-driven machine. And while you’re likely already using email automation, the capabilities of marketing automation extend to every discipline under the marketing umbrella.

In this article, we’ll walk through what marketing automation is, how and why to use it and examples of tools.

Feel free to jump ahead:

1. 1. What is marketing automation?
   2. What’s the difference between email marketing and marketing automation?
   3. Why use marketing automation?
   4. Bringing the marketing automation process into your team
   5. How does marketing automation work?
   6. Examples of marketing automation
   7. The role of AI in automation
   8. What are marketing automation tools?

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is the process of speeding up repetitive, time-consuming and complex tasks with the power of automation software.

Automation tools are popular in marketing departments. They empower teams to uncover insights or connect with customers in a faster, smarter way—all while offloading time-consuming tasks. Think: sending customer emails, SMS communications, scheduling social media posts, running digital ads and more.

As our Senior Manager of Marketing Operations Cam Conrad puts it, “Marketing automation allows you to execute your marketing campaigns at scale. It gives you the ability to build repeatable processes and templates for things like emails, landing pages and webforms.”

What’s the difference between email marketing and marketing automation?

Email marketing falls under the umbrella of marketing automation. But marketing automation is a lot broader and aims to streamline every corner of a marketing team. It includes automation strategies across marketing, including social media, digital advertising, segmentation, analytics and data measurement and yes, email marketing.

Why use marketing automation?

With automation tools, companies can target a larger range of customers and prospects across a range of channels. Many marketing teams rely on automation strategies to save their employees valuable time, improve workflows and enhance customer experience.

Automation also breaks down silos and smooths out collaboration within your team, and beyond. As Cam explains, “By centralizing all campaigns inside a marketing automation platform you can increase visibility across the marketing team.”

Marketing automation tools also assist with lead scoring, generation and nurturing, as well as measuring the ROI of campaigns.

Benefits of these automated tools include:

• Better customer experience: Setting up alerts and automating elements of customer care means users don’t have to wait as long for support.
• Increased scope and scale of campaigns: Companies can run campaigns on multiple social media channels at once without requiring additional manpower.
• Enhanced ROI on staff costs: Employees spend more time on critical business tasks rather than repetitive work.
• Maintain brand consistency: Automated tools can maintain consistency around brand assets, email send times and content scheduling even when employees have a busy workload.
• Better campaign measurements: Marketing automation tools often come with inbuilt ways to test the efficacy of your strategies.

Automation also empowers you to create marketing materials that are more personalized—like targeting leads based on how warm they are, or based on a person’s previous interactions with your brand.

And the ability to personalize marketing materials will only become more important. According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions. And the majority of consumers are more likely to purchase from brands that use personalized communications.

Bringing the marketing automation process into your team

You already know marketing is not just one discipline. It’s a combination of many key business operations and processes that impact and feed entire orgs.

Adding a marketing automation process to each of these moving pieces helps your marketing team, and teams beyond, make better decisions with improved workflows. Let’s explore how:

How does marketing automation work?

Automation in marketing works by applying technology to perform (and often expedite) routine processes with minimal human intervention.

Let’s look at a very basic breakdown of how the marketing automation process works, from start to finish:

Understand and meet sales team needs

Different customers have different needs depending on what stage of the funnel they’re in. And when you have a lot of customers—current or prospective—keeping track of who falls into which category is nearly impossible.

Automation software streamlines the complex process of lead scoring, tracking customer touchpoints and determining where in the funnel customers fall.

This empowers your sales team to identify how to approach certain customers and helps marketing teams design more personalized, tailored messaging for the right audience segments.

Define your customer segments

Segmentation categorizes your target audience into groups and lists based on specific factors, like job title, industry, buying intent and past interactions. Identifying these segments means you can create more personalized content and messaging at every touchpoint of the customer journey to warm up leads, re-engage with customers and more.

This could include identifying what industries your customers fall into and what tools they have in their tech stack. A small business segment will have different needs than mid-market or enterprise. And customers who use tools that integrate seamlessly with your product will respond to different messaging than those who don’t already have integration-friendly products.

Customer segments can also be based on past interactions with your brand. Like whether someone has purchased from you, how engaged they are with your emails or past interactions with your customer care agents.

Set up a strategy for success

Once you’ve determined which customer segments to target, you can shape your strategy to determine how you want to reach your audience at different touchpoints—while using automation to help you do so.

This is where you identify what type of outreach to conduct at every touchpoint of the customer journey—and where automation fits in along the way.

Consider the ads, social posts, emails and their triggers that will speak to each customer segment. From there, you can decide what content to create for each step of the customer journey.

Choose the right content

Different segments will require and respond to different messages and materials.

One way automation can help you is through A/B testing. For emails, this can identify what subject lines result in more clicks. For ads, A/B testing narrows down the best creative or copy to use.

Automating dynamic customer experiences can also personalize a customer journey. A tool like Uberflip creates custom web “journeys” to show visitors content customized to their needs and industry.

Use analytics and reporting to measure, test and improve strategies

Automation is a true game-changer here. It turns large data sets into actionable insights in seconds—work that can be impossible to calculate manually.

This is crucial to improving your strategies. Here, automation helps you set data-driven SMART goals for your strategy. And, thanks to the speed of automation, you can measure, test and improve those strategies faster to stay agile.

Automation tools also break down silos by enabling cross-team data visibility. For example, after sifting through billions of social data points in seconds, Sprout’s automation packages those insights in shareable reports to keep stakeholders looped in.

What are examples of marketing automation?

Marketing automation can take on many forms. You may use email, social media, audience analysis, workflow, analytics or advertising automation, or a combination of all of these.

Let’s see these automated processes in action throughout a marketing org and, hopefully, spark inspiration for your own team.

Email automation

When we talk about automation, I’m willing to bet that email marketing automation comes to mind first.

As your email list grows, so does the need for sophisticated software that manages complex lists and personalizes your communications by segment.

Email automation makes it easy to A/B test subject lines, segment your audience to reach the right people with the right messages, keep them engaged and measure your efforts.

Here are some examples of email marketing automation:

• Welcome emails that automatically launch when a new subscriber signs up for your email list.
• Email newsletters that regularly send to customers.
• Win-back emails to recapture customers who haven’t engaged with your emails in a while.
• Abandoned cart emails to encourage potential customers to complete a purchase.
• Nurture campaigns to send to audiences based on whether they click on previous communications.
• Transactional emails such as order confirmation emails, shipping notifications and requests for product reviews after a product is received.

Social media automation

Bandwidth is one of the top challenges for social teams, according to The Sprout Social Index™. And that bandwidth is only getting thinner.

Social media automation software takes repetitive, time-consuming tasks off social team members’ plates so they can focus on strategy. This helps you stay more agile and proactive, minimizing monotonous tasks.

Social media automation software also saves time by empowering SMMs to manage all of their social accounts, content and data in one hub. For example, Sprout scales social media efforts, across your strategy—from social customer care to scheduling and publishing content.

Here are a few examples of what social media automation can do:

• Schedule content to publish automatically.
• Funnel comments and messages from all of your social channels into a centralized hub.
• Social analytics and reporting tools that allow you to measure and iterate on your strategy.
• Track brand mentions from people who tag your brand, and even people who don’t directly tag you.
• Customer service chatbots that answer common questions received on social for you and remove the task from your plate.

Audience analysis automation

We’ve all been served an ad or email that doesn’t match our interests. Audience analysis helps prevent this.

Audience analysis automation helps sort customers into the segments we mentioned earlier. These segments group customers based on past actions they have, or haven’t, taken.

Here are some examples of audience analysis automation:

• Sorting leads based on how warm they are.
• Segmenting email audiences based on how they interact with emails.
• Targeting ad audiences based on their past interactions with your brand, and how close to a purchase they are.
• Demographics of your audience on social media like age and location.

Workflow automation

All automation improves day-to-day processes. But there are automation tools and features specifically built to streamline team and individual workflows.

“Marketing automation allows you to build workflows that span across different teams’ domains.” Cam explains. “For example, you can build a lead scoring model that will surface prospects that have been qualified by the marketing team to be passed to the sales team for follow up. These types of workflows and processes create a shared framework that marketing and sales strategies can be built around.”

This can be as small scale as alerting team members when tasks have been completed in a project, or as large scale as ensuring top team efficiency.

Here are some examples of workflow automation:

• Project management tools that automatically alert team members when projects have been updated, completed or added.
• Social media content tools, like Sprout’s Message Approval Workflows, that aid team collaboration and content approvals.
• Social media management tools that provide visibility into messages that have been responded to, or automatically send messages to the people and teams who need to see them, like Sprout’s Tasks.

Analytics automation

Every organization should be data-driven. And more businesses are starting to warm up to this. According to The 2023 State of Social Media Report, over half of marketing leaders say that social media data and insights consistently inform their company’s business strategy.

There has simply never been a time where we’ve had so much data at the palm of our hands. But more data and touchpoints means larger data sets that can take hours or weeks to analyze.

Analytics automation does the heavy-lifting for you. It examines your digital data points and packages them in easy-to-read presentations, data visualizations and spreadsheets. AI-powered software can even make recommendations for you.

Here are some examples of analytics automation:

• Dynamic data dashboards in software like Tableau.
• Analytics tools that calculate large data sets in seconds.
• Automated reports that create data visualizations and make insights easy-to-understand.
• Email open rates and bounce rates in your email automation tool.
• Calculated ROI and click-through-rates for your ad campaigns.

Advertising automation

You no doubt have some kind of digital ad in the mix—from social media ads, to Google shopping ads.

Advertising automation involves processes that automatically serve your ads to the right audience, test copy and content and allocate your budget to the ads with the strongest return.

Here are a few examples of advertising automation:

• Retargeting campaigns that pull leads and segment audiences based on previous actions.
• Personalizing shopping ads that appear for website visitors, or shoppers who have abandoned their cart.
• Budget optimization where digital ads (think: Facebook ads) automatically allocate more budget to the top-performing ads to maximize your spend.
• Budget caps that stop ads once your budget has been exceeded.
• A/B testing ad creative to simultaneously run two versions of one ad to test which ads work.
• SMS messages automated to send to customers during a promo or sale.
• Search ads that display when certain keywords or search terms are used in search engines.
• Location-targeted ads that only display to those in a specific location.

The role of AI in automation

Automation is often confused for AI. And while the two make a powerful duo when used side-by-side, and often have crossover, they are different.

So let’s get into the role of AI in marketing automation, and what makes AI and automation a dynamic duo.

How is AI used in automation

Automation is meant to help marketers make better decisions by doing monotonous tasks for them, faster. But AI relies on algorithms and massive amounts of data to help marketers solve problems, make more informed decisions and predict potential outcomes.

When combined, AI-powered automation can offload some of your tasks, while also making data-informed suggestions or decisions for you. This combination further streamlines your work and helps you make smarter decisions.

Let’s look at social media publishing, for example. Automation enables you to schedule posts to automatically publish. But AI tools can help you further optimize that scheduled content. Sprout’s Optimal Send Times uses data science to analyze your posting times, then suggests seven ideal times to post for optimal engagement.

An AI-powered tool can also accelerate your content creation process. Sprout’s upcoming feature, Suggestions by AI Assist, will help social media managers break through writer’s block and inspire new ideas with social copy recommendations.

What are marketing automation tools?

We’ve talked about what automation can do for you, your team and your business. But to start using automation, you need the right tools. Marketing automation tools are types of software that conduct automation processes for you. Examples include Sprout Social, Hubspot, Adobe Marketo Engage, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and Zapier.

When it comes to choosing the tools that are right for you, Cam suggests having a clear idea of what you’re hoping to accomplish with it. “There is a wide set of features available across different tools. Knowing your primary objectives will help you select the best fit. And bring stakeholders from other teams into the evaluation process—especially the team that owns CRM. Having their input from the jump saves a lot of headaches when you get to the implementation stage.”

Let’s go through some of the stand-out tools out there, and highlights from each of them.

1. Sprout Social

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention our very own automation and AI-powered platform. Sprout Social is a social media management platform that uses automation to streamline your social media publishing and scheduling, and it helps you make more data-driven decisions with powerful analytics tools.

Sprout’s Social Listening makes it easy to identify market trend shifts, track competitors to stay ahead and monitor brand health through sentiment analysis.

Sprout also enables smooth cross-team collaboration. Assign tickets to your customer care or sales team to ensure they nurture leads and customers stay satisfied. Create custom workflows to ensure stakeholders are looped into content creation when needed. And with integrations to business intelligence tools like Salesforce and Tableau, become a better collaborator.

Finally, Sprout’s AI capabilities are on the rise. Our upcoming AI Assist tools make it easier for you to create smarter listening queries and brainstorm content with AI-generated copy suggestions.

Interested? Try Sprout free for 30 days to see how our automation and AI capabilities will streamline your process and break down silos. And reach out to us about a personalized social listening demo.

2. Hubspot

HubSpot streamlines many of the moving parts across marketing, and even sales, into one hub (no pun intended.) HubSpot has a full suite of software—from sales to marketing and support—that integrates smoothly with their CRM platform, easing your process and cutting out back-and-forth. Campaigns can even be extended to SMS, right from HubSpot.

HubSpot also helps break down silos between marketing and sales with automated lead scoring and the ability to send leads to sales. Triggered notifications appear within the platform when someone in your contact list takes a specific action, so you can stay up to date with your leads. And automated task reminders in your CRM keep you and your teams on track.

And HubSpot also offers a slew of support and educational content through HubSpot Academy as you learn how to get the most out of your tool.

3. Adobe Marketo Engage

Adobe Marketo Engage boasts the title of “world’s largest marketing automation platform.”

Marketo Engage offers a powerful array of account-based marketing, lead management and email marketing tools that all empower a more personalized, cross-channel experience for customers.

One of the most stand-out elements of Marketo Engage is the AI capabilities they offer alongside their automation tools—from predictive audiences and segments to generative chat powered by AI.

4. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Salesforce is a giant when it comes to marketing and sales automation tools and platforms.

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud automates and scales marketing on the B2B level and is mostly meant for enterprise-level teams and businesses.

Marketing Cloud features a full spread of features that streamline marketing from end to end. From dynamic marketing materials like email and website pages, to providing visibility for sales reps into prospects and AI-powered lead scoring. And all of this connects to Salesforce’s CRM capabilities, too.

5. Zapier

Zapier offers high-sophistication streamlining with a clean and simple interface.

Their marketing automation software focuses on streamlining lead management and customer communication for a personalized experience. And, they offer robust data analytics tools to help you make decisions, faster.

One stand-out element that Zapier highlights is their 5,000+ app integrations to seamlessly include their platform within your current workflow. They also boast a connection to Google Forms and automatically create Trello cards from Google Form responses, cutting out manual form response gathering.

Get your marketing automation process started today

Automation and AI are here to stay. And they’ve changed how marketing teams work—as a team, and with other teams—making them better.

Even if you’re already using marketing automation in your day-to-day processes, it’s time to consider what other gaps you can fill.

Automating social media processes alone can have team- and org-wide impact. If you’re curious about how to get started, check out our article about social media automation tools that you can add to your marketing stack to empower your team.

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Instagram insights demystified: How to access and analyze your metrics

Optimizing your Instagram presence doesn’t have to be a guessing game. You can find most of the answers you need within the app itself.

Anyone with an Instagram Business account can use the network’s in-app reporting feature, Instagram Insights. While it may not provide the same level of detail as an advanced Instagram analytics tool, it’s still a valuable resource for conducting on-the-fly analysis.

This guide will show you how to access and use Instagram Insights to analyze your data. We’ll also share how to use the tool in combination with an advanced social analytics solution to drive results faster.

• What is Instagram Insights?
• How to get access to insights on Instagram
• How to see post insights on Instagram
  • Instagram Posts insights
  • Instagram Reels insights
  • Instagram Stories insights
  • Instagram Live insights
• What kind of performance data is available in Instagram Insights?
• Using Instagram Insights for performance analysis

What is Instagram Insights?

Instagram Insights is a free Instagram Business Account feature that offers performance data on your profile and posts, providing enhanced visibility into your audience’s preferences and engagement patterns.

With Insights, you can measure the success of your content, including grid posts, Stories, Reels and Live videos. It’s a valuable tool for evaluating the impact and effectiveness of your Instagram marketing strategy.

How to get access to insights on Instagram

Before we get into how to use the Insights tool, let’s go over how to access them. Heads up: This is a mobile-exclusive feature, so you’ll need the app ready to go before you get started.

1. Go to your profile settings

Go to your profile, then tap the hamburger menu in the top right corner of the app. Tap Settings and then tap Account to get started.

2. Create a professional account

To set up your Instagram for Business account, tap Account type and tools under the For professionals section of the Instagram Settings page.

Tap Switch to professional account and you’re ready to go.

3. Choose your category

Instagram business categories allow brands to clearly showcase the purpose of their business above their profile description. Choose the category that best describes your business.

Pro tip: The options listed under the suggested categories are just a fraction of the full catalog you can pick from. Use the search function to find the option that best suits your business, and don’t be afraid to get specific.

4. Navigate to Insights

Now that your professional account is all set up, you can access Insights from the same hamburger menu you used for your account settings.

You can only access performance metrics on content you’ve posted since converting to a business or creator account. If you recently switched to a professional account, you’ll have to wait until it has enough historical data to use the Insights tool.

How to see post insights on Instagram

Instagram offers a variety of ways to connect with your audience—grid posts, ephemeral content, short-form video, live streams, you name it.

To find out if your Instagram post ideas are resonating, check out the explainers below.

Instagram Posts insights

Go to your Instagram profile and tap a post you’d like to get metrics for. From there, tap the View Insights button below the image.

Instagram Reels insights

To view insights on an Instagram Reel, go to the Reels tab of the Instagram app.

From there, select the Reel you’d like to view metrics for. On the lower right-hand side of the Reel, tap the … icon. Then, tap the Insights button.

Instagram Stories insights

There are two different ways to view insights on Instagram Stories.

If the Story is live on your account, tap your profile picture. Tap through to the Story you’d like to report on. Once you’re there, swipe up on the image or video for Insights metrics.

If you’re looking for performance data on an older Story, tap the Insights action button on your profile and find the Story under Content You Shared.

Instagram Live insights

To view Instagram Live insights, go to your profile.

Tap Insights, then scroll down to the live video section in the content you’ve shared for a detailed breakdown on your Instagram Live performance.

What kind of performance data is available in Instagram Insights?

Once you navigate over to the tool, you’ll see some high-level Instagram audience insights and a gallery of recently shared content.

Click into either section for a more detailed look into the following metrics:

Accounts reached

For all Instagram content aside from Reels, accounts reached is the number of unique accounts that have seen your posts on their screen at least once. For Reels, accounts reached means the number of unique accounts who have seen your Reel at least once, whether or not they watched the video.

Once a post has reached more than 100 accounts, you can access demographic data on accounts reached. This data includes top countries, cities, age ranges and a gender breakdown.

Accounts engaged

Accounts engaged is the number of unique accounts that have interacted with your Instagram content through likes, saves, comments and other engagement activities. For posts, stories and Instagram Live, these metrics are drilled down into followers and non-followers.

Total followers

Business accounts with more than 100 followers can view overall trends in growth over time. They can also access follower demographic and platform usage data, including:

• Top locations
• Age range
• Times your audience is most active on Instagram

Plays

Plays is the number of plays video content received within a set time frame. That includes when a video plays automatically while a user scrolls through the app.

Using Instagram Insights for performance analysis

To take your Instagram game to the next level, you need to be making data-driven decisions. Luckily, you now have a wealth of performance data right in the palm of your hand.

Here are four ways to use your new Instagram business insights to your advantage:

Identify popular content 

With Insights, you can quickly identify the content that resonates most with your audience. All you need to do is look for patterns in what your audience finds compelling and tailor your content strategy accordingly.

For on-the-fly action items, we recommend conducting a brief start-stop-continue analysis of your Instagram performance data. This analysis evaluates the effectiveness of content and determines what actions to start, stop or continue.

It’s important to note that this type of spontaneous analysis is designed to provide quick takes on your Instagram strategy’s effectiveness, such as whether people reacted positively to a particular post.

For more complex questions, like determining the best time to post on Instagram, you’ll want to use a more advanced social media management tool. For example, Sprout customers can take advantage of ViralPost® technology, which analyzes audience engagement patterns and content preferences to detect the most active times for authentic engagement.

Track growth and engagement trends

A quick dip into the Insights tool is all you need to do to ensure you’re pacing well toward your monthly performance targets. If you happen to notice any inconsistencies, use Sprout’s suite of Instagram analytics reports to investigate the issue and its potential causes.

Use the Instagram Business Profiles Report to identify which types of content are driving results. That way, you can make strategic adjustments to stay on track toward achieving your desired outcomes.

Make stronger paid marketing decisions

Did you know that 50% of users become more interested in a brand after seeing an ad for it on Instagram? With these types of results, making every dollar count is critical.

Use Instagram Insights to optimize your paid performance so you can make better use of your budget.

Analyze your organic content performance to identify trends, themes and creative elements that resonate with your audience. Then, leverage that data to take your paid marketing efforts to the next level.

Gauge the impacts of an algorithm shift

An Instagram algorithm update feels like a monthly occurrence at this point. Keeping up with all the changes is one thing. Understanding how they impact your social media strategy is a different beast entirely.

Next time you hear about a rumored or confirmed algorithm update, use Instagram Insights to see how your strategy is weathering through the change. If everything is going according to plan, then you’re good to go. If you notice any performance dips, it’s time to investigate further using a tool that can provide a more comprehensive analysis.

Use Instagram Insights to create a picture-perfect social strategy

Instagram’s landscape is constantly changing. Trends come and go quickly, and what’s popular today may not be tomorrow. Use Instagram Insights in combination with a tool like Sprout to stay informed and up-to-date on what works and what doesn’t.

Of course, data is only part of the story. For practical advice on building your brand identity and expanding your community on Instagram, check out this comprehensive guide to Instagram for brands. It’s packed with valuable tips to help you achieve your platform goals.

The post Instagram insights demystified: How to access and analyze your metrics appeared first on Sprout Social.

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