DIVING DEEPER FOR

SOCIAL COMMERCE
SUCCESS
What brands are missing and how to get it right
 Introduction
For decades, the mall was our town square; consumerism – even pop culture –
revolved around how we spent our time there. Whether we were trying to be Cher
from Clueless, we absolutely needed the newest Jordans, or we just wanted to
window shop, we had to physically get in our cars and drive to the mall. We were
just getting started with accessing the internet on our phones and could not have
imagined how social media and digital commerce would grow over the ensuing
decades.

Today, we’re merging the two worlds together to create social commerce experiences
on every device and social platform. But there is still so much to discover.

Social commerce is more than putting marketing dollars behind shopping ads or
partnering with the latest influencers, and – we know this is hard to believe – it’s even
bigger than trending on TikTok. And when we say bigger, we mean there’s much more
to social commerce that you may not be considering. When most brands think about
social commerce, what they’re really thinking about are social shopping ads. While
this is an integral part of social commerce, it’s just the tip of the iceberg with a much
larger foundation below the surface that needs to be put into place. Social commerce
encompasses all in-app shopping experiences on social media.

Think about the experience of receiving a shopping ad by itself. You’re being served
an end-of-funnel tactic from a brand you may or may not know for a product you may
or may not already be interested in. There’s often a clunky user experience when
social ads don’t have a commerce solution and strategy to back them as potential
customers jump from social apps to mobile sites, microsites, or even the app store
to download a separate app to shop. And after all is said and done, if you don’t have
the right data strategy and platform connections in place, your brand can’t collect the
valuable first-party data that comes from online shoppers.

When you go beyond social shopping ads and build out a social commerce plan,
it becomes part of a brand’s larger commerce strategy that nurtures consumers
all the way through the funnel, from product exploration and building trust to
purchase. With the right technology in place, social commerce is built into a holistic
commerce ecosystem. Consumers can make in-app purchases for seamless shopping
experiences, while your brand also collects the right first-party data that will enhance
their brand experience in the future. This will be especially important as your brand
adapt to a cookieless future.

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 If you see the iceberg
now, don’t panic.
Research proves that now is the time to start building your brand’s social commerce
practice. In fact:

Social commerce sales will reach

$79.64B in 2025. 1

60%
of consumers say they are interested in
making a purchase via social media.2

45%
of consumers say they are interested in joining
a livestream event and 36% have already
participated in one.2

And as the first truly digital-native generation, Gen Z is more likely to engage with
seamless digital shopping experiences. This generation is growing rapidly in buying
power and will consequently lead consumer expectations for social commerce. So, if
your view of social commerce just expanded a bit and you see that there’s much more
below the surface to think about, that’s great news. This is still an emerging practice
across all industries, and this is the perfect time to prioritize it for your brand.

Not only is this the experience consumers are interested in, but having a solid social
commerce practice in place shortens the customer journey. Previously limited to
awareness and top-of-funnel tactics, consumers can now work their way down the
funnel all in one social app for a faster customer lifecycle and revenue growth.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean implementing social commerce is a quick process.

The practices of social and commerce together are best leveraged as a complete
enterprise solution, utilizing every facet of your business. While social commerce is
still emerging in the marketplace, we’re already seeing multiple brands around the
globe perfecting their approach. So, let’s get you started now for early adaptation and
longevity.

1
“US Ecommerce Forecast 2021” eMarketer. May 2022. Accessed September 27, 2022.
2
“Social Commerce Report,” Mintel. March 2022. Accessed September 27, 2022.

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 Quick wins are great.
Lifetime loyalty is better.
Don’t misunderstand; quick wins are a great way to dip your toes in the water and
rally your team around small wins as you play the long game with social commerce.
Your ads can show products or services to individuals who are searching for what you
provide but may not have heard of your company. If you’re linking to your website in
organic posts, you are sure to get more traffic to your website. And, with a great social
strategy, you’ll see purchases come in as well. But there is much more revenue to be
generated by doing the hard work of building a social commerce enterprise solution.

So, what exactly is an enterprise solution? This can mean many different things
depending on the structure of your brand, and it’s up to your team to determine that.
But at a high level, a social commerce enterprise is an integration between experience
creative and performance creative. It also requires your social, commerce, and
customer care teams and technology to connect seamlessly.

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When these teams and technologies connect,
you create connected experiences throughout
the customer journey. Instead of a one-off ad,
A social commerce enterprise
consumers are introduced to your brand, they
have avenues for product exploration and trust is an integration between
building, and they see shopping ads after you’ve experience creative and
already done the hard work to convince them why
performance creative. It
they should buy from you. If they have questions
while shopping, or at any point after purchase, also requires your social,
customer care is able to step in on the same commerce, and customer
platform they’ve already been using, meaning care teams and technology to
getting help is fast and easy. Lastly, having the
right enterprise strategy and tools allows you to
connect seamlessly.
take in feedback from consumers to build better
products and brand experiences in the future,
while also cultivating a brand community.

All of this combined will likely increase customer

retention to foster lifelong brand loyalists.
Because that’s what we all want, right? We want
to take a roadmap to our bosses and tell them
exactly how to increase brand loyalty and revenue
growth. While there’s no such roadmap, learning
where your organization falls on a social maturity
curve can help you understand the three phases
you’ll most likely go through to build a social
commerce enterprise.

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 Identify where you are on the
social commerce maturity curve.
As previously mentioned, social commerce is still an emerging approach across
all industries, so brands are all over the map with how sophisticated their
programs are. However, most will see themselves in the first three sections.
If your brand starts working its way up the curve now, it can still be early to
market.

The following buckets can help you understand where you are currently and
how you can climb up the social commerce maturity curve.

Social maturity curve

Dynamic

One-click

Integrated

Connected

Emerging

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Emerging One-click
• Established organic social following • E
 stablished organic following and robust paid
• Posts linked to website or product pages social strategy

• N
 o integration between commerce catalog and • Integration exists between commerce catalog
social sites and social media sites

• No influencers • Influencers are regularly used and critical to

performance
Connected • P
 roducts regularly tagged in social and paid
• E
 stablished organic following and paid social posts
strategy • P
 roducts are shoppable and consumers can
• Influencers are thought about or tested check out through one or more social platforms

• N
 o integration between commerce catalog and
Dynamic
social sites
• E
 stablished organic following and robust paid
• Customer care needs work
social strategy

Integrated • Integration exists between commerce catalog

and social media sites
• E
 stablished organic following and robust paid
social strategy • P
 roducts regularly tagged in social and paid
posts
• Influencers are tested and activated
• Influencers host live shopping events and tag
• Integration between commerce catalog and
shoppable products
social media sites exists
• P
 roducts are shoppable and consumers can
• P
 roducts regularly tagged in social and paid
check out through one or more social platforms
posts
• O
 rganic livestream shopping events are held and
• P
 roducts are shoppable through links to
utilized for paid marketing
ecommerce website

As you begin to think about working your way up the maturity curve, it’s also important to consider what
different social platforms offer, as well as their limitations. Utilizing the right platforms involves balancing
where your audience is and the capabilities each social platform offers.

Now that you know where your brand stands, it’s time to talk about how you can get to where you
want to be.

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 Build a social commerce
practice in three phases.
When social commerce started trending for retail and consumer goods brands, social
and commerce experts came together to hash out the best way to merge the two
practices together to build a brand community and drive revenue. This three-phase
framework is where the hard work comes in to build an enterprise solution.

Technical Social Social

Audit Commerce Commerce
Strategy Activation

A three-phase framework,
comprising a technical audit,
social commerce strategy, and
social commerce activation, is
where the hard work comes
in to build an enterprise
solution.

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 PHASE ONE:
Technical Audit

Your brand’s tech stack and its capabilities are the biggest determinants for its position
on the social commerce maturity curve. While you may work with each part of the
tech stack on a regular basis, it’s important to map out exactly what platforms are
being used, what they are used for, and what their full capabilities are (even if you
aren’t currently using all of them). Laying this out will not only make it easier for you
to understand how your tech stack is being used, it will also help you communicate
where you are and where the brand needs to go with your CIO, CEO, and others.

The biggest takeaway from your technical audit should be how your brand can enable
consumers to skip the traditional checkout process on social. Determine what steps
you need to take so consumers can use integrations like ApplePay, GooglePay,
ShopPay, and more to make in-app purchases seamless.

Here is a list of capabilities that are also required for a social commerce enterprise
solution and questions to ask yourself as you work through an audit of your tech stack.

• C
 atalog and inventory: How do you best integrate your product data and inventory
with social sites?

• C
 art, checkout, and order management: How will you seamlessly integrate social
checkout with your back-end systems?

• P
 ost-purchase and customer care: How do your customer service team,
transactional communications, chat, order tracking, and returns integrate with social
media?

• Influencer technology: Do you have the right technology available to find and work
with influencers and creators?

• M
 erchandising and operations: Is your team set up to successfully operationalize
your social commerce strategy?

• M
 easurement assessment: Is your analytics tool suite set up to capture and
attribute social commerce transactions? Do you have a live dashboard? How often
are you reporting?

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 PHASE TWO:
Social Commerce Strategy

You already have an organic social strategy in place, so now the question is, how do
you make your page and profiles shoppable? And then how do you incorporate paid
media to drive conversions? These questions are answered as you develop a social
commerce strategy that is specific to your brand goals and your different consumer
audiences.

Below are items to consider as you identify the best way to develop a cohesive social
commerce experience that is personal to each consumer’s shopping and product
preferences.

• Identity assessment: Once the technical audit is complete, identity characteristics

from an identity resolution platform, such as Merkury, can be used to develop the
social commerce strategy.

• S
 ocial strategy audit and opportunity assessment: A critical readiness assessment
of social commerce channels, branded content, customer engagement, and social
listening to identify the right social commerce opportunities.

• P
 aid media audit and strategy: Audit paid ads against social commerce goals
and objectives, plan media, and utilize connected social commerce functionality to
ensure proper conversion and attribution.

• Influencer strategy and planning: Identify the best influencers to activate against
social commerce goals and objectives.

• C
 ommunity engagement and UGC strategy: Assess community engagement
readiness in tandem with customer care technology applications to ensure a great
user experience, while also identifying the proper protocols to call for and utilizing
user-generated content in paid and organic social.

• C
 reative audit and campaign planning: Plan fresh creative content to connect with
customers and drive purchase consideration.

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 PHASE THREE:
Social Commerce Activation

Once you have a clear strategy in place, the next phase is to determine the logistics
of how to deploy your social commerce program. Build action plans around some of
these most common and impactful tactics:

• P
 roduct tagging, shops, and checkout: Create, post, and tag content that converts
while proving ROI through proper attribution.

• C
 onnected paid social and organic campaigns: Ensure that paid social campaigns
and organic social content complement each other and provide value for followers
with an eye toward conversion.

• C
 onnected influencer campaigns: Ensure that influencers are creating exceptional
content that converts on owned, paid, and influencer channels.

• S
 ynchronous shopping experiences: Create live shopping experiences that drive
buzz and inspire quick, emotional purchasing decisions.

• A
 ugmented reality and live event activations: Create unique opportunities
for followers to become advocates through unique experiences IRL or through
technology.

As you develop content for social commerce activation, keep in mind that each social
platform has different capabilities, advantages, and trajectories.

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Social commerce capabilities by platform

Product tagging on AR lens capabilities:

Brand shops Virtual try-on Shop tab Virtual try-on, 3D
ads & organic posts
body scanning tech

Facebook Live Shop tab Shoppable pins Collection Ads Brand profile videos

Live shopping “Drops” tab (limited Shoppable tab Shoppable links Shoppable product
edition/hype products) catalogues

Ads in Shop tab Product tagging Livestream events Bitmoji clothing for
avatar

Affiliate links Product tagging TikTok Checkout Snap Trends

in Beta

Live shopping Livestream Sponsored by tags

Instagram checkout

When phase three is complete, it’s time to optimize your social commerce plan.
What’s going right for consumers? Where are the hiccups in your back-end systems to
complete product fulfillment? How can the front-end experience get smoothed out or
how can you remarket similar products?

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 Conclusion
As with most market trends, it’s important to start
somewhere. And while social commerce is still
considered emerging, the future is coming faster
than you think. Like 2025 or sooner kind of fast.
But it takes time to build an enterprise solution
and connect each facet of your business to
combine social and commerce into one practice,
so it’s wise to start thinking about how social
commerce can work for your brand now. Once
you understand where you are on the social
maturity curve, you can lay out a plan of attack
with the tech audit, social commerce strategy
for your specific brand, and social commerce
activation – and you can build from there.

Merkle, a dentsu company, is a leading data-driven customer experience management (CXM)

company that specializes in the delivery of unique, personalized customer experiences across
platforms and devices. For more than 30 years, Fortune 1000 companies and leading nonprofit
organizations have partnered with Merkle to maximize the value of their customer portfolios. The
company’s heritage in data, technology, and analytics forms the foundation for its unmatched
skills in understanding consumer insights that drive hyper-personalized marketing strategies. Its
combined strengths in consulting, creative, media, analytics, data, identity, customer experience/
commerce, technology, and loyalty & promotions drive improved marketing results and
competitive advantage. With more than 14,000 employees, Merkle is headquartered in Columbia,
Maryland, with 50+ additional offices throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. For more
information, contact Merkle at 1-877-9-Merkle or visit www.merkle.com.

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