Targeting consumers takes a lot of research and requires marketers to take a lot of different factors into consideration. This is well known as fact. However, when considering gender targeting, there are a few things that some marketers may not be aware of. With Facebook being the big name in targeted social advertising, Kenshoo Social, a social marketing solutions company, partnered with Resolution Media, a marketing insights company, on a social media insights report entitled, “Men are Cheap.” This report was compacted into a small infographic in a post on Kenshoo’s company resource page, and the image gives the best points that their research revealed regarding gender targeting on social media platforms.
I always love when a company takes all of the more important aspects of a report and organizes them in a way that takes only a few seconds to understand rather than the half hour it takes to read the multiple pages of their report. Anyway, in their infographic, Kenshoo first notes that only 42% of Facebook users are men while the other 58% are women. That’s easily believable, since my personal News Feed is just filled with women and not so much men. The reason that this fact is significant in the report, though, is because they then go on to state that marketers are spending more of their time and money marketing to the men on Facebook, statistically. The specific numbers say that on average, 53% of social marketing budgets are allocated to targeting men, and 47% to women.
With that said, it is clear that the marketing that is targeted toward men is bound to be more successful. As men are served more advertising on Facebook, they end up clicking more. The impression volume for men on Facebook was 58%, and for women it was 42%. In addition, the click volume was a 60-40 split, also with men in the lead.
What else does this mean, though? Well, as the title of the report states, men are cheap. It is less expensive to market to men on Facebook than it is to market to women. While the cost-per-thousand impressions for women on Facebook was at $0.20, the CPM for men is at about $0.16. This difference would eventually end up being a much bigger difference in the long run, which makes targeting men more cost efficient. Plus, the CPC for women on Facebook, as stated in the report, is at about $0.68 while for men, it is only about $0.50.
So, men are cheaper to market to on Facebook, and they tend to bring in more successful results, according to this new study. So, what does that mean for female Facebook users? They make up over half of Facebook’s user base, so it is absolutely necessary to divert a huge chunk of attention toward them. Well, I have always been told you have to spend money to make money, and if your target market is women, then the statement is even more true on Facebook. It would be interesting to see what results marketers would get if marketing to female Facebook users were as cheap and effective as marketing to men is, considering the difference in numbers.
Click on Graphic for Full Picture.
