Social Commerce: A Global Look at the Numbers

Social Media’s Impact on the Bottom Line Around the World

As social networks continue to gain traction at incredible speeds, many corporations and small businesses are investing heavily in building communities online, and grasping for ways to measure the impact of this investment.  In 2010, Eventbrite was the first company to offer data in terms of the cold, hard cash benefits of “sharing.” That initial social commerce report revealed that every time someone shared a paid event on Facebook, it drove an additional $2.52 in revenue back to the event organizer, and 11 additional page views of their event page. Cha-ching!
And that was just the beginning…

Taking a Global Look

Since the first report in 2010, Eventbrite has experienced incredible international adoption and was used in over 175 countries in the last year. Given this global expansion, we have expanded our study of social commerce behaviors and trends to a global community.

The Nuts & Bolts

We’ve identified two important metrics to track this social commerce behavior:

• Visits Per Share—the amount of additional traffic generated by each act of sharing.
• Dollars Per Share—the average value of the additional tickets sold through this share.

Note: all figures are represented in US dollars, but can be converted to preferred currency.
Here are the key highlights and trends we have found:

• Dollars Per Share have almost doubled across social networks – and Facebook drives more revenue from ticket sales than any other platform. Since we first reported these numbers in 2010, the average, aggregate Dollars Per Share has increased (81%) from $1.78 to $3.23. Twitter saw the greatest increase (330%) from $0.43 to $1.85, while Facebook saw healthy growth (65%) from $2.52 to $4.15. Dollars per LinkedIn share increased only slightly (2%) from $0.90 to $0.92.

This means that every time an event is shared on Facebook, it drives on average $4.15 in additional revenue back to the organizer.  And on average across all social networks, the value of a social share drives $3.23 in additional revenue for the event each time someone shared.

• Visits Per Share have also increased, with Twitter driving more event page traffic than Facebook and LinkedIn. Over the last two years, the average number of people who click on an Eventbrite link shared by organizers and attendees through social media has increased from 7 to 17 visits per share. Links shared on Facebook now drive 14 visits back to Eventbrite, compared with 11 in 2010. Twitter drives the most visits with 33 visits per share, while LinkedIn users visit Eventbrite event pages an average of 10 times for every link that’s shared.

The Social Commerce Effect by Country
As mentioned above, Eventbrite has experienced incredible international growth. It’s been exciting to see how sharing behavior and impact differs across countries.  Highlights below:

• Italy shares the most. If we look at the number of people who share an event, compared to the number of people who buy a ticket, the highest sharing activity on Eventbrite occurs in Italy (14%), with share rates that are double those of Australia and Ireland (each at 7%), the two countries with the lowest share rates.

• The Brits click the most. When it comes to sharing events created on Eventbrite, the data shows UK users clicking on their friends’ links the most. For every time someone in the UK shares an Eventbrite event on Facebook, 22 of their friends and contacts click on the link.

• Ireland has the lowest share rate, but the highest Dollars Per Share. While users in Ireland are less likely to share, when they do, it has the highest impact among all of the countries in our report. When a user in Ireland shares an event on Facebook, on average it drives $10.37 in additional ticket sales. On Twitter the number is similarly high, driving $9.03 in additional ticket sales for every tweet.

• Canada also boasts high Dollars Per Share and is more evenly shared across networks. Every Facebook share in Canada delivers $4.51 in additional ticket sales, while Canadian tweets drive $2.97. LinkedIn is also high compared to other countries, driving $3.13 per share.

The Global Platform Showdown
While Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have all embraced international expansion, we see varying levels of adoption and engagement when it comes to sharing events around the world.

• Facebook: Australia shows a high Dollars Per Share on Facebook at $5.32. While the highest dollars per Facebook share award goes to Ireland at a whopping $10.37, Australia is the next in line. Third on the list is Canada with $4.51 in value per share.

• Twitter:  Tweet value is highest in Ireland, Canada and The Netherlands. Ireland gets the prize at $9.03 in value per tweet, Canada shows $2.97 per tweet and The Netherlands brings in an additional $2.42 each time an event is shared on Twitter.

• LinkedIn: Dollars Per Share on LinkedIn is highest in France at $12.56. This is roughly four times the Dollars Per Share values for LinkedIn in the Netherlands and Italy, which are $3.33 and $3.21, respectively.

How We Did It

We use a custom suite of social analytics tools that we have developed entirely in-house. Our reporting lets us track and analyze not only which sharing options our users leverage, but also where on our site each share action takes place. These tools also tie back into our conversion funnels, so we are able to attribute ticket purchases to the specific social distribution channel that drove them. So, for example, we can compare not just the value created by a Facebook “Like” vs. a tweet, but also the performance of shares initiated before or after a purchase. For the purposes of this report, Eventbrite defines social commerce as transactions that are driven through sharing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.