Email and Search Deliver More Customers Than Social Media

Organic search still leads as the largest channel for online e-commerce customer acquisition, and email as a channel has exploded in growth over the past four years, according to a recent report by Custora.

The study, which examined data from 86 US retailers across 14 industries, found organic search to be the largest source of e-commerce customers (15.8% of all customers acquired), followed by cost-per-click (9.8%). Since 2009, customer acquisition via email has quadrupled, growing to 6.8%. Affiliate referral traffic has also grown significantly, and now accounts for 6.3% of customers acquired.

In contrast, Facebook accounted for just .17% of all e-commerce customers acquired, and Twitter was responsible for less than .01%.

Customer Lifetime Value

• Overall, customers with the highest projected lifetime value arrive through organic searches (54% higher than average), according to the study.
• Customers acquired through Twitter tend to be worth about 23% less than average. This may be attributed to the frequent discounts offered in tweets.

This post taken from: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2013/11170/email-and-search-deliver-more-customers-than-social-media?utm_content=buffercc307&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer