What is the cost of a social bounce?

New research reveals why social media users bounce off retailers’ websites, what it costs retailers, and how to stop them.

The average cost of a customer “bouncing” (immediately leaving without making a purchase) from a retailer’s website after linking there from a social media platform is $5.11, according to  SimplicityDX's new study, “The Cost of a Bounce.”

The total cost per bounce is calculated based on the advertising cost to get each social visitor to the site and the lost revenue opportunity when they bounce. While the overall lost opportunity cost is $5.11, it encompasses lost opportunity costs of $4.89 when a new customer bounces and $5.24 when an existing customer bounces.

As part of the research, SimplicityDX conducted 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. Key findings included:

Why shoppers bounce?

The top three reasons respondents 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.

Frequency of social bouncing

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

Impact of a bounce?

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

Sharing of frustration

• 39% of respondents share their frustration with friends or on social media.
• Only 9% of respondents choose to share with the brand.

Other findings

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

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

“The math of customer acquisition is broken,” said Ruth Peters, co-founder and chief marketing officer 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.”

[Read more: How popular is social shopping?]