With more than five billion social media users worldwide, businesses have an unprecedented opportunity to reach and engage global audiences. But follows, likes, and comments alone don’t pay the bills. Businesses must demonstrate the return on investment of their social media efforts to validate their marketing strategy—and that’s where social media conversion comes in.
Analyzing this metric lets you understand how effective your social media strategies are so you can optimize them to achieve your desired objectives.
Learn more about social media conversion rate, how to calculate it, and 10 tips to improve your chances of social media conversions.
What is social media conversion rate?
Social media conversion rate is a performance metric that measures what percentage of your social media audience took a desired action (signed up for marketing emails, downloaded an app, made a purchase, etc.).
Social media conversion rates can help you analyze the effectiveness of a single social media campaign, a particular influencer you partnered with, a specific social platform, or your overall social media marketing strategy. Depending on your goals, you might include users who click organically on shared social links, those who click on ads, or both.
A high conversion rate means your strategy is leading to successful outcomes. A low rate means you need to identify factors preventing your audience from converting. Social media conversion rate optimization can lead to increased revenue, higher return on investment (ROI), improved customer insights, and a better user experience.
How to calculate social media conversion rate
To calculate social media conversions, you need to know two things: your total audience and the total number of conversions.
There are a few ways to measure your total audience. Typically, you would look at all those who clicked on a link to your website or a shopping-related post, but you may also include all those who liked and commented on a particular post.
Then, divide the total number of conversions (the number of people who took the desired action) by this number and multiply the total by 100.
The resulting formula looks like this:
Social media conversion rate = (number of conversions/ total audience) x 100
For example, if you’re trying to measure the success of a particular Facebook ad for a t-shirt, you would take the total number of people who bought the t-shirt after following the link in the ad. Then, divide that by the total number of people who clicked the link, and multiply that number by 100. If 10,000 people clicked on the link and 1,000 people bought the t-shirt, your social media conversion rate would be:
(1,000 / 10,000) x 100 = 10%
A conversion rate above 3% is generally considered a success; however, conversion rates vary depending on the type of conversion, social media platform, type of campaign, industry, and business size.
Here are a few average conversion rates for popular social media platforms to benchmark against:
- Facebook: 9.21%
- TikTok: 3.4%
- Instagram: 1.08%
- YouTube: 1.4%
- Snapchat: 1.8%
- Twitter: 0.77%
- Pinterest: 0.54%
Tips for increasing social media conversions
- Optimize landing pages
- Use high-quality visuals
- Use social commerce
- Craft compelling calls to action
- Personalize content
- Post user-generated content
- A/B test
- Analyze and adjust
Small tweaks can have big impacts on your social media performance. Here are 10 ways to boost social media conversions:
Optimize landing pages
A good landing page guides the user without friction or confusion. From your social posts, you can either link to existing landing pages on your website or create targeted, social media-specific pages relevant to current campaigns. Here’s how to optimize your landing pages for conversions:
- Clear and relevant messaging. The page should be relevant to the ad or post that drove the user there and match customer expectations. Users should easily understand the content and what action they should take when they get there.
- Mobile-friendliness. As the majority of social media traffic is from mobile users, make sure your landing page is responsive and mobile-friendly. Test the page on various screen sizes to ensure a smooth experience.
- Load time. A slow-loading page can increase bounce rates and reduce conversions, so aim for a load time of less than two seconds. Optimizing image sizes and minimizing third-party scripts can help you improve load time.
💡Resource: Website Image Size Guidelines for 2024
Use high-quality visuals
The average person spends two and a half hours on social media daily. That equates to hundreds, if not thousands, of memes, videos, ads, images, and other visuals flashing before their eyes. Well-crafted, visually appealing images and videos can stop potential customers from scrolling past your content.
Use social commerce
Social commerce enables users to shop directly from social platforms without needing to visit a separate webshop. Social commerce activities include shoppable organic posts on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, and product tags on ads. Another social commerce activity is hosting livestreaming sessions where users can purchase featured products in real time.
Social commerce introduces a new layer of seamlessness to the shopping experience, often improving conversion rates. Shopify can help you set up social shops with Facebookand Instagram using Meta sales channels.
Craft compelling calls to action
Like your landing pages, your social media content should have a clear call to action (CTA) guiding the user to take the desired action. Do you want them to click through to your website? Share the post? Sign up with their email address? Get creative to encourage engagement. You can also test adding a sense of urgency to improve click-throughs with wording like “limited time offer,” “act now,” or “while supplies last.”
Not all organic social media posts need CTAs, and too many can look disingenuous. Aim to have a healthy mix of posts with various CTAs, including on the image itself and in captions. Ads should always have clear CTAs to maximize conversion rate.
Personalize content
Users like to feel that companies know them intimately and are responding to their wants and needs. In fact, 89% of marketers see improved ROI when they use personalization in their campaigns. Some ways to personalize your content include:
- Audience segmentation. Divide your audience into segments based on demographics (age, gender, location), behavior (purchase history, browsing habits), interests (preferences, hobbies), or other relevant factors. Then, tailor content to each segment’s characteristics.
- Dynamic ads. Dynamic ad tools like Meta Ads Manager let you use multiple headlines, images, videos, CTAs, and copy for a single ad, displaying various combinations based on customer behavior, demographics, and more.
- Behavioral targeting. Track users across your website and social media platforms to deliver personalized content or recommendations to boost conversions.
Post user-generated content (UGC)
User-generated content (UGC) consists of images, videos, and reviews from real customers. UGC builds trust and credibility with your audience because it seems more authentic than branded content. UGC is also social proof of your product or service’s benefits and quality. If real people take the time to post a review or share a photo, it must be worth it, right?
UGC can also unlock fresh content and viewpoints for businesses with tight budgets without spending extra cash on content marketing.
A/B test
Continuously test different versions of your ads, CTAs, and landing pages to see what works best. Most ad platforms offer A/B testing tools to facilitate this. Then, use the data to refine and optimize your strategies to improve conversion rates. Here are some ideas for tests:
- Ad formats (carousel, single image, video)
- Headline copy
- Visual variations
- Ad placements (news feed, sidebar)
You can also run tests by experimenting with different audience segments, adding a link in bio, sharing certain types of content, or varying post times. When testing, stick to changing one variable at a time to avoid muddying results.
Analyze and adjust
Use analytics tools like Google Analytics, Facebook, and Instagram Insights, or third-party analytics tools to gather data on your audience and campaign performance. For example, you could use Google Analytics to understand which platform drives the most traffic to your website and double down on ad campaigns there. Facebook and Instagram Insights can give you data like content interactions so you can continue to adjust and optimize your campaigns.
Social media conversion rate FAQ
Why are social media conversion rates important?
Social media conversion rates are important because they provide insights into how well your social media marketing tactics are working. Understanding conversion rates can help you iterate and optimize your campaigns accordingly to maximize business results.
What is a good social media conversion rate?
In general, experts agree that anything above 3% is a good conversion rate; however, this number can vary depending on the social media platform, type of content, business size, industry, and more.
How do you improve conversion rates on social media?
Optimizing your content for relevance and engagement, using clear and compelling calls to action (CTAs), and regularly analyzing and refining your targeting and messaging strategies can improve conversion rates on social media.
