Dive Brief:
- TV advertisers are increasingly using Facebook to extend their campaigns and reach younger segments of the population that do not watch traditional television.
- According to research conducted by Nielsen, Facebook-only entertainment ad campaigns reached 13.4% of the targeted 18-to-24-year-old demographic; cross-platform campaigns reached 27%.
- For people that are between 25 and 34, TV ad campaigns may be more effective: Facebook-only campaigns reached 9.4% of the targeted segment, whereas TV-only campaigns reached as many as 39.3%.
Dive Insight:
These trends are significant because they allow advertisers to be more specific when targeting youth. Seventy-percent of the people reached on Facebook were between 18 and 34 years old. If advertisers know that their target population is between these ages, Facebook advertisements are an excellent option.
Facebook-focused ads also pose a good opportunity for small businesses to expand their reach since they are an inexpensive alternative to TV ads.
“Over one million SMBs have posted a video on Facebook, which is pretty amazing because I doubt one million SMBs have ever run what is a video or TV ad,” Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, told Re/code.
While shifting budgets entirely to the digital medium are not likely, at least not immediately, expanding TV campaigns to Facebook can be effective because advertisers can target a smaller and more specific group of people at a lower price.
