How Instagram’s New Checkout Feature will Positively Impact Influencer ROI

Big news this week in the social marketing sphere: Instagram is rolling out a shopping checkout process in the app.

This means when a brand has shoppable Instagram posts linked to their e-commerce site, the user will not have to visit the brand’s website to make a purchase. They will be able to simply tap the product tags on shopping posts and check out entirely within the app.

For brands, this is a big deal because it ultimately means higher conversion rates on Instagram. It also means it’s now more important than ever to have your brand’s Instagram profile reflective of your brand as a whole, as it essentially negates the need to drive a user to your website to check out. You need to be serving the same level of content, information, and the brand aesthetic that’s on your e-commerce site all within your Instagram feed if you want to provide a comprehensive user journey and convert your followers.

What Does it Mean for Influencer Marketing?

In short, ROI on influencer campaigns – something that has historically been hard to measure – is taking another step in the right direction. We expect this to mean an even higher return when working with influencers for a brand that has the in-app shopping and checkout capability.

Ultimately, the return on investment for influencer campaigns has much more to do with the user journey, the checkout process and ease of checking out, than simply who the influencer is. Sure, there are many ways that you can have a successful or unsuccessful influencer campaign based on who you work with and how their audience demographic relates to your brand, but if your conversion rate on your site is low, or there is a poor user experience, you can work with the BEST influencers and still yield no return.

The fact that the checkout process means an overall easier, faster, more user-friendly experience means we will inevitably see more conversions through influencer campaigns as there is less barrier to entry.

Here are 3 Reasons Why:

1. Payment information will be stored in one place. One of the reasons why Amazon conversion rates are so much higher than other e-commerce brands is because people have stored information within the platform and access to hundreds of thousands of brands and products in one place. It means less time filling in your payment information, and less time to reconsider a purchase. Impulse buys are more inevitable on Amazon. Instagram’s checkout will store a user’s payment information after their first checkout, which is step one towards a higher conversion rate.
2. User journey is decreased. Rather than someone seeing a shoppable post on Instagram, clicking on the website to purchase, going to the site and perusing around – with many opportunities to exit or to get distracted by other items – this keeps the user in one place with fewer steps to checking out. The fewer steps, the higher the conversion rate.
3. Increased intent to purchase. User intent when on Instagram is typically not to shop or make a purchase, it is to stay on the app and engage with social content. However, with this update, a user will not have to leave the app itself. A user can check out within the app and then continue to scroll through the feed or tap through Stories. This increases the likelihood of purchase simply because it makes it easier and more seamless.

What’s Next?

While the checkout feature has now only rolled out to select brands like Warby Parker, Outdoor Voices, Adidas, and Kylie Cosmetics, we expect within the next quarter for other businesses to have access to this feature after its smaller-scale launch.

Who knows if this feature will roll out to the general public as well, but I could see Instagram offering a feature for Influencers where they can use brand shoppable posts to get direct sales within the app. That would be the ultimate driver of conversions for influencer campaigns, as it would continue to eliminate steps in the checkout process where a user would have to click onto the brand page itself to shop.

Want to learn more about the Instagram checkout update from TechCrunch? Check it out here.