Any marketer worth their salt knows the importance of eCommerce social media marketing. Social commerce contributed an estimated 19.4% of the total eCommerce revenue in 2024 and is expected to contribute over 21% by 2028.
With social media playing a critical role, finding ways to drive social traffic to your online store is essential. In this post, we’ll dive into proven social marketing tactics that can help you turn eCommerce social media platforms into powerful drivers of your website traffic.
Let’s dive in!
Best eCommerce Social Media Marketing Tactics to Drive Traffic
1. Run Social Media Ads
One of the quickest and most effective social marketing tactics to drive social media traffic to your eCommerce site is paid advertising.
According to Statista, marketers are expected to spend almost $219 billion on social media advertising in 2024. This is a testament to the effectiveness of social advertising.
Running social media ads with CTAs and links that drive social media traffic to your eCommerce site is quite effective.
Here are some actionable tips when running social media ads:
- Choose the right eCommerce social media platforms for running ads, depending on where your target audience is most active. This guideline will help you decide.
- Create targeted ad campaigns based on your goals and target audience.
- Use dynamic or interest-based audience targeting options that most social media platforms provide to optimize your return on ad spend.
- Create high-converting landing pages for all your ad campaigns, as this is where these ads will drive traffic. Alternatively, you can directly drive social media traffic to your product pages to buy the products being advertised.
To quickly build engaging landing pages and product pages for each ad campaign, you can use a powerful Shopify page builder like Foxify - Smart Page Builder. The visual drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to design every page detail, just like Canva. You can also choose from 150+ prebuilt templates to customize to match your brand. With Foxify, you can design and publish your pages within hours.
🎁 Special gift: 20% off on Foxify page builder for 3 months with the code BFCM2024WIN. Deal ends on December 24th.
- Use persuasive copy, high-quality images, and compelling calls to action with a link to your website. You can use AI tools to create efficient content quickly for your campaigns. Explore top Shopify AI tools ⇒
- Lastly, ensure that you A/B test different variations to optimize your social media ad campaigns over time.
📚 Further Reading:
- 5 Inspiring Ecommerce Product Page Examples & Best Practices
- How to Create a Shopify Landing Page that Converts
- How to Use Shopify AI to Streamline Your Business
Check out this simple Instagram Stories ad by Kiehl’s. It features impressive product visuals and copy that explains the USPs of the product. It also includes a clear “Shop Now” CTA. When people click on the CTA, they’re directed to the brand’s website, where they can buy the product being advertised.
2. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
Optimizing your eCommerce social media profiles is the most basic yet important marketing strategy to drive social traffic to your website. It’s often overlooked, but your social profiles are the first touchpoint to potential customers. By adding your website links and CTAs to your profile, you make it easy for users to move from social platforms to your site.
Some eCommerce social media platforms, such as Instagram, allow only one link in your profile. In such cases, it’s best to add your homepage link or link to landing pages for any ongoing campaigns.
Other platforms, such as Facebook, also allow you to add CTA buttons with links to your website in your profile. Add your homepage link in the bio and use the CTA buttons to drive social media traffic to specific landing pages.
Take the Facebook profile of H&M, a popular apparel brand. It has added the homepage link in the “About” section and a “Sign Up” CTA button to get email newsletter subscribers.
3. Share Excerpts of Blog Posts on Social Media
If your goal is to drive social media traffic to your blog and engage people with your content, then social media can help with that as well.
All you have to do is share a small excerpt from your latest blog post on eCommerce social media platforms where you’re active, along with a link to the actual post. This will help pique the audience's interest, and they can click on the link to read the full article.
This is a very common strategy brands use for LinkedIn content, as people use the platform for more professional content. However, don’t limit yourself to LinkedIn and share blog excerpts on other platforms like Facebook, or X as well.
This is how Adidas drives social media traffic to its website. They often create LinkedIn posts where they share excerpts and link to articles on their website. These posts engage social media users and encourage them to visit their blog posts.
4. Host Giveaways and Contests
Hosting social media giveaways and contests is a great eCommerce social media marketing strategy to boost your presence and follower base.
But did you know that you can also use these to drive social media traffic to your website?
Well, you can if you create dedicated landing pages for participation and announcing winners. Basically, you host the giveaway or contest on your website but promote it on eCommerce social media platforms to drive traffic to your contest landing pages.
This is a simple and effective tactic that should be a part of your social media strategy.
If you don’t know how to design a landing page for a giveaway, you can use the predefined templates from Shopify page builders. Most page builders on the Shopify store come with beautiful, predefined templates. We recommend using Foxify, one of the best Shopify landing page builders.
Foxify offers a large library of stunning, highly customizable templates for all popular niches and important holidays of the year. With the easy-to-use visual editor, you can freely design these templates to fit your purpose.
Check out this Instagram giveaway example, where Geekshare has added a link to their website to drive social media users to land on their website. This is a great strategy to increase visitors and nurture more leads for their online store.
💡 You may also like: Best Tips for Successful Instagram Giveaways 2024
5. Add Links to Your Social Media Content
Building a significant audience base on social media requires regular posting. You must find the best times to post on social media for the best results.
When you’re making an effort to create and share content frequently, it makes sense if you use the opportunity to drive social media traffic to your eCommerce site as well.
Many eCommerce social media platforms allow you to add links to your posts, tag featured products, or add shopping links for featured products. Use these shopping features to direct people to specific product pages from where they can buy the products they’re interested in.
This eCommerce social media strategy works best for content that features your products. This could be as simple as sharing a product picture and adding a link to the product’s page.
Some other types of content you can share include:
- Posts that share product features and benefits, along with high-quality product visuals.
- How-to videos or product tutorials that teach consumers how to use a product the right way.
- Customer reviews and testimonials, both images and videos, provide social proof and encourage product sales.
- Informative content that explains what makes a product unique, its formulation or production process, and other useful information.
- Announcements for new product launches and any launch offers you may be running.
- Promotional content for ongoing offers and sales, especially seasonal and holiday sales.
Use a mix of different types of content and add purchase links to your products or any relevant links that fit with the content you share.
👀 Explore more: Ecommerce Branding: Connecting with Audiences on Facebook
Check out this Instagram post by Sephora with the “View Shop” CTA to drive social media traffic to its online store and boost sales.
If you need help coping with the frequent posting requirements for social media, hire a social media manager to help you. This will save you time and ensure that you effectively use this eCommerce social media tactic to drive traffic to your site.
6. Collaborate with Influencers
Every brand that wants to build a solid social media presence should leverage the power of influencer marketing. According to the GetHyped guide, collaborating with relevant local influencers in your niche is a great eCommerce social media strategy to capitalize on their following and influence.
If your goal is to drive social media traffic to your eCommerce site, plan your influencer marketing campaign strategically to use formats that allow influencers to share CTAs and links to your website. Depending on the eCommerce social media platform, only certain content formats would have this option.
Here are some pro tips you should consider when applying this eCommerce social media strategy:
- Use UTM tracking links to track the performance of each influencer you work with. Retain the top performers for the long term and let go of low-performers after a campaign.
- Give each influencer unique discount codes they can share with their audience. This will encourage their followers to try out your products while also letting you track the influencers’ performance.
- You can even set up performance-based incentives for influencers and pay more to those who drive the maximum traffic or conversions.
- Lastly, ensure that you have the usage rights for the content influencers create for you. This will allow you to reuse the content to get the most out of your collaborations.
Here’s an example of an influencer collaboration where the influencer promotes the brand on Instagram Stories. Dr Sheth’s worked with SHIKHA, one of the top content creators in the beauty industry. She featured the brand on her story and added the “Shop Now” CTA links to the product page. This story engages her audience interested in Beauty and Health, thereby driving social media traffic to the brand’s eCommerce site.
🔥 Related Articles:
- The Power of Influencer Marketing for Small Ecommerce Businesses
- Choose the Right Influencers: A Simple Guide for Small Ecommerce Businesses
7. Create an Instagram Shop
Did you know that 43% of consumers browse social media to find new products or services?
Per the same report, here are the numbers for the percentage of people buying from each platform.
Given its social commerce features and visual nature, Instagram is one of the top platforms for eCommerce brands, especially in the B2C category.
Instagram offers numerous social commerce features, such as the ability to add product tags to posts with links to the respective product pages.
However, the standout feature is the ability to create an Instagram shop for Shopify or any other eCommerce platform you use. Earlier, brands did this using third-party apps that allowed them to create shops using a link in the bio.
Now, Instagram has released its Instagram Shop feature to allow businesses to create their shops directly on the platform. You just need a business account, upload your catalog, and design your shop. Read the guidelines here.
Here’s an example of a brand with an Instagram Shop. Summer Fridays opened an Instagram shop to sell their product on this eCommerce social media platform.
Once you click on the Shop button, you’ll find a product catalog with direct purchase links for each product, as shown below.
Want to know the best part?
Instagram has launched a shopping feature where people can see a “Shop” tab on their dashboard. Consumers can use this to find brands and shop for products from the Instagram app. This is great because it will help people organically discover your brand, but only if you have an Instagram Shop.
While Instagram is currently at the top of its social commerce game, it doesn’t mean you should explore other platforms. Utilize the social commerce and shopping features on other platforms as well. This is, by far, one of the best social commerce strategies for using social media for eCommerce.
Ready to Leverage Social Media to Boost Traffic to Your ECommerce Site?
Well, there you have it—some of the best eCommerce social media tactics to drive traffic to your eCommerce site.
You can now experiment with these social marketing tactics to see which ones work the best for your business and use those to leverage social media for eCommerce. All the best!
