Dive Brief:
- Almost one-third (30%) of shopping transactions performed online that were generated through ads on Facebook are now made via mobile, according to Facebook IQ, the social network’s consumer research division.
- Young consumers are driving the move toward mobile, especially millennial moms and U.S. Hispanics, the social network says.
- Mobile purchases increased by a third in the first five months of 2015, Facebook’s figures indicate, and the holidays should sustain that growth.
Dive Insight:
More than a third of holiday shopping will be driven by mobile this year, if Facebook’s latest figures are accurate. The social network’s research division says that 30% of the purchases made after clicking on a Facebook ad from January through May came from mobile devices, not desktops. Mobile purchases increased by a third (35%) at the same time, and the network expects to see similar growth in mobile purchasing during the holiday season.
While Facebook ads do not represent the entire universe of online purchases, the platform had a whopping 172 million active users in the U.S. as of June 2015. And three quarters of Facebook’s total advertising revenues—$3.8 billion in the second quarter alone—result from mobile.
Not surprisingly, millennials and Gen Z consumers tend to use smartphones to do their shopping, while baby boomers are more likely to use tablets. U.S. Hispanics are the biggest mobile shoppers, performing 43% of their digital shopping on mobile. Young moms are a prime target, too, since half of millennials are parents now.
