Facebook Drives 130% Purchase Lift for Euro Retailer ASOS

Data from comScore and Facebook suggests that Fans and Friends of Fans of retail brands often represent higher valued customers. “The Power of Like Europe: How Social Marketing Works for Retail Brands” report focused on European retail brands such as ASOS, H&M, La Redoute, Topshop and Zara, and is the third in a series of reports commissioned by Facebook in the hopes of convincing marketers that Facebook ads and marketing work.

In the report, fans of trendy apparel retailer ASOS were 3.6 times more likely to visit the ASOS website than non-fans. While this may come as no surprise considering their stated affinity with the brand, more interesting is the persuasive effect of earned media exposure on friends of fans, who were 2.7 times more likely to visit the ASOS site.

Branded marketing messages delivered to fans can be virally amplified to extend brand reach to friends of fans when fans engage with the message on Facebook. The research shows that European retail brands such as ASOS, H&M and Zara have the ability to disseminate marketing messages to up to 44 friends of fans for every fan the brand has on Facebook.

Social impressions were not the only thing effective in generating positive brand engagement for ASOS. The research showed that paid impressions were also resulted in more purchases. Facebook paid ads generated a 130 percent uplift in purchase behavior on the ASOS website in the four weeks following ad exposure, compared to consumers who were not exposed but had a similar affinity to ASOS.