Data capturing, traffic driving and operational limitations
Clients at VaynerMedia see single to low-double-digit traffic to sites from Shops, according to Jon Morgenstern, evp and head of investment at VaynerMedia. Morgenstern did not share brand names.
Nearly all of VaynerMedia’s ecommerce brands have set up Shop across Instagram and Facebook and only 40% of those brands have enabled the checkout feature. Typically, brands can capture more consumer behavior on Instagram.
About half of Collective Measures’ clients have adopted Meta Shops, and most use the existing checkout feature that directs people to brands’ websites.
However, this mandate by Meta will push marketers to treat Facebook and Instagram Shops as their own conversion touch points, putting more thought into what products they feature in their Shops.
“Shops is more of a discovery channel right now,” Fischer said.
Brands could take a hit on conversions plus encounter logistical challenges.
“The deepest impact will be for brands that are not direct-to-consumer and use Shops as a way to drive website traffic,” said Briana Finelli, head of commerce, U.S, Wavemaker.
Meanwhile, brands could also be limited by operational capabilities. For example, Meta plans to work with Shopify for the new feature, but if a brand’s website is not built on Shopify, it wouldn’t be able to enable the Shop feature.
“It’ll warrant conversations within brands to determine whether making that shift is worthwhile to enable social commerce,” Finelli added.
Marketers won’t be able to replicate a brand’s website experience within Shops, such as people cashing in on loyalty program points or managing customer experience. Another pain point could be capturing limited user data.
“Meta will be more user protective and may not share as much of that data back to the advertisers,” said Morgenstern.
Changing shopping behavior
Marketers are optimistic that Meta’s move to bring shopping and purchasing within the platform will be convenient for people.
“Because the idea that you can pre-populate all of your shipping, billing, and credit card information in one click as opposed to needing to go and fill out an entire farm is really attractive,” said Finelli.
Still, the tech giant has come under fire from regulators over privacy concerns, as recently as last week, over allegedly violating a suite of child privacy protections such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).