Twenty-five percent of retailers cite Facebook as a top customer-acquisition platform, according to the State of Retailing Online 2015 study, conducted by Shop.org, Forrester Research and Bizrate Insights. While paid search and email marketing still top retailers’ list of effective customer-acquisition channels, social media has moved up the ranks to become an important tool for engaging with and attracting new customers.

Retailers are increasingly using social media to complement search, email and affiliate marketing tactics. Fifty-eight percent of retailers increased their year-over-year spending on social media marketing, second only to the number of companies who increased spending on search engine marketing (63 percent).

“It was not a surprise to see that search and email marketing tools are still powerful, but to further engage consumers, retailers understand that using complementary marketing channels, including the use of social media, makes a tremendous difference in reaching new markets and diversifying their outreach,” said NRF Senior Vice President and Shop.org Executive Director Vicki Cantrell. “With so much marketing ‘noise’ and competition these days, retailers are testing and investing in a variety of acquisition media to appeal to their customers and to make the most effective use of their tight marketing budgets.”

When it comes to paid social media specifically, 50 percent of retailers surveyed said they are spending more this year than last year on paid Facebook options, such as promoted posts and paid ads. YouTube came in second; 29 percent of retailers said they are spending more on paid options for the video website. Fewer retailers said they planned to spend more on Pinterest (27 percent), Twitter (22 percent), Instagram (20 percent) and Snapchat (6 percent).

This survey was conducted with 240 companies in May and June. Industries surveyed included apparel, footwear, general merchandise, home furnishings and personal care.

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