Shipping and free returns for fashion ads

There are many messages you can tell customers about when you are a fashion brand.

The big one news, there’s sales too, but right behind that is shipping (which also includes returns).

During the last several years, consumers have moved online, and shipping is a topic that is on the back of their mind.

Brands that take notice of this and reassure consumers about their shipping policies will have an advantage.

It’s especially important within fashion, as your feelings about a product is that important. In a brick-and-mortar store, the fitting room is probably your most important asset.

Let’s take a look at some data about using shipping as your fashion ad messaging.

Shipping is among top messages to use in ads for fashion brands

Even though sales messaging always make a lot of consumers buy, shipping messaging is also an effective message to advertise.

When it comes specifically to fashion brands, it’s among the top ad messaging types to use.

Shipping messaging that includes things like “fast shipping” or “free returns” do well and are a close second to sales when it comes to performance.

Just using shipping as an ad messaging is great, but how else can we optimize this type of ad?

Logo + shipping combination works great

When it comes to shipping ads, keep it mind that it’s a bottom-funnel message.

If someone is already looking to buy, they will be interested in shipping.

On the contrary, people that are usually on the top-funnel are just browsing and don’t care too much about shipping. If the product isn’t interesting, it doesn’t matter whether I can get in delivered in a day or not.

This is why showing your logo in shipping ads works so great.

The logo/brand is there to reassure the consumers that this is the right place to buy, in other words, ‘this is the brand I want”. You need to know who’s shipping the product.

On the other hand, showing your logo on ads about “new” decreases performance, where people want to focus on the new product instead of the brand behind it.

With shipping, it’s a good idea to show your logo with shipping messages for better-performing ads.

However, logos aren’t the only thing you can show with your shipping ad types.

Models work great in shipping and free return content for fashion brands

Using models in ads about new products is a great idea, but you should consider using them in shipping ads too.

Using models with shipping increases performance by 69%, only beaten by ads about news.

The concept is the same with new ads; the consumer can see what the product looks like on a person, which also gives them an idea of how it will look on themselves.

This combination along with offering free or fast returns is extremely effective because it takes away the risk factor; you can ship the product back if you don’t like it. But, hey - it looked great on this model. So let’s try.

So try to use models not only ads about new, but also ads about shipping.

In general, models are very effective in your ads as a fashion brand.

Don’t just focus on sales messaging in your fashion ads

Don’t forget that shipping is among the top ad messages for fashion brands when it comes to performance.

And, it’s especially important if you don’t want to give discounts.

By using some quick tips like showing your logo and utilizing models in your ads, you could see some significant performance boosts.

Try utilizing more shipping-type messaging for your ads and see what kind of difference it makes with your brand.

As always, every fashion brand is different, so do some tests for yourselves and see what kind of results you come up with!

Data section

The dataset from this article is based on 967m+ impressions and 9500+ pieces of individual content on Meta (Facebook) platforms from Fashion brands ONLY. It takes into account data from only brands within fashion industry in all countries, with the campaign objectives of conversions only. The period is from 01.09.2021 - 16.09.2022.

Numbers are looking at correlation only, not causation. Remember to check your own data: numbers for different brands, industries, and contexts will vary. If you were intrigued about a specific insight, you can go in-depth into the various dimensions and how data can be segmented in Confect, here.