Social commerce is projected to comprise more than 8% of total US ecommerce sales by 2027 reaching $144B–a forecast that makes incorporating these partner types into your partnership programs critical to expanding your reach and driving profitable growth. Partnerize streamlines integration with one of the leading social commerce partners, Soreto, with one-click deployment through the Partnerize Tag. As a result, marketers can easily incent consumers to share their favorite brands and products with their networks to cultivate a community of brand advocates.
In light of the growing social commerce trend, I had the opportunity to connect with James Lovelace, Vice President at Soreto, to get an expert’s opinion on the critical importance of optimizing social commerce as a part of a diversified partner portfolio. Read on to gain insight into James’ perspective.
Q: Why should brands prioritize social commerce as a part of their partnership programs?
Research has shown that 90% of consumers will make a purchase if it comes with an endorsement from a friend, which is the exact word-of-mouth recommendation that Soreto monetizes and tracks for brands. With such a huge portion of consumers relying on suggestions from their network to buy (or not buy) a product, it’s untapped revenue to overlook incorporating social commerce tech into your partnership program as a diversification strategy.
Q: What separates Soreto from other social commerce providers?
Not only are we bringing an existing customer back and turning them into brand advocates, we’re making it easy for this community of advocates to share their experience with friends so that brands get the benefit of new eyes on their products. And, we’re doing that on a performance-based model. Soreto is the only social commerce provider that works with brands in the partnership channel, and now we’ve made that even easier with streamlined deployment of our tech through the Partnerize Tag.
Q: What are some best practices that brands should consider for optimizing social commerce partners?
The top three considerations that I tell brands to focus on when implementing Soreto are:
Business goals. If you’re a brand that is interested in not only fostering relationships with existing customers but also gaining insight into how those customers impact new customer acquisition, implementing a tracking mechanism for these endorsements will help you to gain control over social commerce optimization.
Incentive. Ensure that you’re providing your customers with an incentive that pushes them to share your brand with their network. For example, free shipping may not be enough to prompt a share. But, 10% off of your next purchase could do the trick.
Which solutions they’re implementing. Soreto gives brands the freedom to choose from a range of customizable solutions including on-site overlays at the point of sale, emails following the conversion and presence on our standalone marketplace. Brands should consider what their unique goals are, and how involved they’d like Soreto to be in the on-site experience when determining the best combination of solutions to optimize.
Q: How does a brand know if social commerce is a right fit for them?
Social commerce is not a new concept–it’s just been more recently tracked and monetized for optimization within the partnerships channel. Therefore, it’s a great fit for any brand that is interested in diversifying their partnership portfolio to tap into a revenue stream and gain insight into a promotional method that is already benefiting their brand.
To implement Partnerize’s rapid-deploy integration with Soreto, check out our quick guide or get in touch with james.lovelace@soreto.com.
About James Lovelace
James is a sales leader with over 20 years experience in digital marketing and 15 of those within affiliate and performance marketing. Having worked both on the tech publisher and network side, James is a results driven professional known for building and leading teams and achieving outstanding business growth.
