53% of Facebook ad dollars are spent targeting men, compared to 47% targeting women, according to [download page] new research from Kenshoo Social and Resolution Media. This budgetary preference comes despite the Facebook audience skewing female (58%), and leads to a higher ad impression volume among men than women (58% vs. 42%), as well as a higher click volume for men (60% vs. 40%). Of note, though, an April 2012 report from Social Fresh found that Facebook advertisers were far likely to target by age and country than by gender, with just one-third of advertisers surveyed saying they target gender. It isn’t clear from the Kenshoo Social study whether or not the dataset examined is limited to Facebook ads that targeted a specific gender – an update will be provided shortly with Kenshoo’s response to this question. [Update: Kenshoo confirms that the data is limited to clients who used gender targeting in their campaigns.]
Men Said Cheaper to Reach
Data from the study, “Men are Cheap” reveals that, well, men are less expensive to reach on Facebook. Overall, ads targeting men cost less on both a cost-per-thousand impression ($0.16 vs. $0.20) and a cost-per-click ($0.51 vs. $0.68) basis.
This finding appears to contrast with study results released in June by Inside Network Research. That report found that female-targeted ad rates were 8% higher on Facebook than male-targeted rates. The discrepancy may be related to geography – while the Kenshoo Social data is gleaned from across the world, the Inside Network Research ad rate specified above is unique to the US. (In India, for example, that study found ad rates targeted to women to be only 1% higher than to men.)
Other Findings:
- According to the Kenshoo Social report, the exposure rate for Facebook ads is more than 50% higher for males than females.
- The frequency of ads served to males is also higher than to females.
About the Data: The Kenshoo Social report reflects aggregated global data across a wide range of brands whose Facebook ad campaigns are managed by Resolution Media using Kenshoo Social. Industry verticals represented include entertainment, finance, retail, and insurance, among others. Brands represented include HBO, Hewlett-Packard, Monster, ING, Visa and Activision among others. The dataset examined for this report spans nearly 65 billion Facebook ad impressions and 20 million Facebook ad clicks during the 12-month period beginning March 1st, 2011 and ending February 29th, 2012.
