# Facebook 'likes' widget on product pages: no measurable change

- Outcome: Flat / inconclusive
- Page type: Product page (Ecommerce)
- Elements: Social proof, authority & press
- Test run by: [FietsPunt](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/fietspunt/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://wingify.com/success-stories/fietspunt/
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/fietspunt-facebook-likes-widget-product-page/

Adding a Facebook widget that showed more than 1,000 likes to product pages made no measurable difference to bounce rate or orders. FietsPunt, a Dutch online store for bike parts and cycling wear, ran this test itself, and it was published as a VWO case study. A second placement of the widget also made no difference.

## Result

**no measurable change**

- Bounce rate: no meaningful change. The high bounce rate the team wanted to fix stayed the same.
- Orders: no meaningful change reported.
- Second placement: also no difference. No numbers were shared for either version.

## Control

Product pages had no social proof widget.

## Variant

A Facebook widget showing more than 1,000 likes was added to product pages. A later variant tried the widget in a different spot.

## Why it likely came out this way (our reading)

- Page likes say a brand is popular, not that a shop delivers. Shoppers worried about a small store may need proof of service, not fans.
- A count of around 1,000 likes may not seem large enough to reassure anyone.
- Facebook widgets are easy to ignore and can look like page decoration.

## Caveats

No numbers, sample size or duration were shared, so we can only say the widget made no clear difference. Traffic was split 50/50.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we show our Facebook likes on product pages, then fewer visitors will bounce because they will see that many people trust the shop.
- Primary metric: Product page bounce rate
- Guardrail: Orders per visitor
- Guardrail: Page load time
- Who should test it: Small or little-known stores where trust is the main worry. If you have customer reviews, test those first; in FietsPunt's case a reviews widget did far better than likes.

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Credit: FietsPunt ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/fietspunt-facebook-likes-widget-product-page/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.