News
Robyn Hardman, Digital Consultant
The Facebook App Is No Longer Indispensable
Two years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t have the Facebook app on their phone. Today, even though the world’s largest social network isn’t going anywhere, we’re starting to see a shift in how it’s being accessed.
According to a recent study, in which 13,000 people across the globe were surveyed, Facebook usage is going down across the US, UK, Germany and Scandinavia. Just 21% of US respondents said that Facebook was their most indispensable app, as opposed to 29% in 2017, and across the board, people under 25 would have the least problem living without Facebook.
We’re not exactly surprised by this news. For the under 25s, Facebook hasn’t been their main port of call for a long time – as we’ve mentioned before – and content on apps like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok is more likely to engage that audience. However, Facebook is the most popular social network for people over 45, which is something we used to our advantage when creating ads for a gentlemen’s outfitters in London.
Example of a Facebook advert created by us for a gentleman's outfitter
During a retargeting campaign, we discovered that more people aged 45 and above were engaging with their adverts on Facebook than any other age group. When it came to a Christmas campaign to drive traffic to a landing page about the brand's new pop-up store, we focused our attention on targeting this older age group with a more disposable income, and made sure that our ads were tailored for mobile, Messenger and desktop placements, as well as Audience Network.
We also ran another retargeting campaign, then created lookalike audiences so that we could reach people with similar interests in London. As a result, we gained a clickthrough rate of 3% with a conversion rate of 9.29% – a great result considering we were mostly targeting people that had never heard of the outfitters before.
So it isn’t time to give up on Facebook just yet, but as always, it’s important to make sure you’re putting your resources into the best place for your audience – otherwise, you won’t see that all-important return.
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