A/B Testing Idea #55 - Display social sharing buttons after customers have finalised their purchase

Description

It's important not to miss an opportunity to offer your clients the chance to share your content or their actions on your site on social media as this can greatly boost awareness and popularity.

However, if you bombard your customers with social media links and suggestions at all times it will both be quite irritating and also possibly distract them from what you would like them to do (i.e. make a purchase). Having these displayed will also increase the loading time of your pages so it is all round better to concentrate solely on conversion on your pre-purchase pages.

However, giving customers the opportunity to engage with social media once they have made a purchase is an excellent idea. Not only will this timing avoid distracting your customers from their pre-purchase process but it will also catch your customers when they are most likely to give positive feedback about your product, having just purchased it themselves.

Studies have shown that we have a tendency to attribute much more value to things that we own and that we also tend to consider choices we have made to be the best possible. Due to these cognitive biases, your customers are likely to have only good things to say about your site and product - and be more inclined to do so on social networks - once they have completed a purchase as it is a type of self-justification.

The Research

Cognitive Dissonance

We prefer it when all our attitudes and beliefs are held in harmony and, when they aren’t, this produces an uncomfortable and detrimental Cognitive Dissonance.

Choice-supportive bias

The fact that when we recall a past decision, we distort our memories so that the choices we made appear to be the best possible.

Endowment Effect

The Endowment Effect is the way in which we tend to give greater value to things that we already possess.