Fast fashion giant Shein goes big on social media ad spend

Shein is soundly beating fast fashion rivals PrettyLittleThings and Princess Polly when it comes to social media spend, according to research from BrandTotal.

BrandTotal analysed paid ad campaigns by the likes of Shein, Boohoo, Princess Polly, Fashion Nova, PrettyLittleThings, and Zaful across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, over a 90 day period, 8th July to 5th October.

In an analysis of paid Share of Voice (SOV), which is defined by percentage of sponsored impressions, Shein won, with 94% paid SOV, compared to 3% for PrettyLittleThings and 2% for Princess Polly.

Our favorite fall look of the day 🍁
IG: sweetinstabella
Shop now>> https://t.co/3diYN1D4LG https://t.co/Em55S6szx1 #SHEIN #SHEINgals #SHEINFW21 #SHEINX pic.twitter.com/mP7A1MzEGN
— SHEIN (@SHEIN_official) October 20, 2021

Princess Polly and boohoo were the most likely to advertise to Gen Z (18-24) on social, as almost all of their ad impressions (94%) and (90%) targeted that demographic. For comparison, 44% of Shein’s impressions and 68% of Zaful’s impressions targeted Gen Z.

Though Zaful and Fashion Nova are lower on paid SOV, they jump to the top three (one and three) when it comes to ad engagement.

Additionally, regarding engagement, Princess Polly saw the most video ad views with 449.9k, followed by Shein (350.4k) and PrettyLittleThings (303.2k). PrincessPolly (50%), PrettyLittleThings (35%) and boohoo (23%) were the most reliant on video vs. non-video ads.

Boohoo, PrettyLittleThings, and Princess Polly focused the majority of their social ad budgets on YouTube

“boohoo, PrettyLittleThings and Princess Polly have very similar social ad strategies, allocating most of their social media mix on YouTube,” says Alon Leibovich, CEO and Co-Founder, BrandTotal.

“FashionNova has opted for a very different strategy focusing only on Facebook while Shein focused their ad strategy solely on Twitter.”

He adds: “Keep in mind, this media mix analysis strictly covers ad units and does not cover sponsored content with influencers. Though Zaful and Shein, for example, aren’t spending on YouTube ad units, they’re very likely paying influencers to do try-on hauls.”

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