Men love shopping as long as Facebook is involved

Take a man to the high street and he’ll dig his heels, stick out his bottom lip and complain like a bad-tempered child until he’s back at home in his slippers and the terrible memory of the shoe shop has faded away – or so conventional wisdom goes.

But sit a man in front of Facebook, it seems, and he can’t resist a bargain.

The Social Media Insights survey – conducted by Resolution Media in partnership with Kenshoo Social – has found that when it comes to Facebook Adverts, male users of the site are the softest targets.

The survey analysed the current state of the Facebook Adverts market, examining how marketing companies are handling promotional spending in the social arena and which target groups are proving to be the most lucrative.

Whilst Facebook's user base is made up of more women than men, the paid ads receive far more clicks and conversions from male users. This is why 47% of a typical marketer's budget will be invested in ads that are aimed at women.

60% of clicks made on Facebook Adverts originate from male users, which means that they are actually providing marketers with much better value for money given that only 53% of the promotional budget goes on ads for men.

It is estimated that the cost per click (CPC) for men is 0.51 USD (0.32 GBP) against the more expensive CPC of 0.68 USD (0.42 GBP), which is attributed to female Facebook fans.

The authors of the study have drawn a number of conclusions about the statistics which were discovered, because the clear disparity between Facebook Adverts performance for male and female users requires further explanation in order to help it shape marketers' strategies.

It is advised by analysts that Facebook Adverts should be specifically tailored for the different genders so that they are more likely to prove a hit with the target audience. This means that even if two ads lead to the same offer or landing page, they should use different imagery and copy in order to appeal to men or women distinctly.

The segmentation of a Facebook audience along gender lines is not a revolutionary idea, but the survey does indicate that spending on social ads should focus on the importance of the distinctions and the different values which are offered by male and female users in this particular instance.

When it comes to ad spending on Facebook, the study found that there was a 36% increase in the budgets allocated to this area during the first six months of the year.

Meanwhile, PPC budgets have increased by just 12% over the same period, which implies that social marketing is being increasingly harnessed by companies that want to generate clicks and drive traffic away from traditional SERPs.

The study did not take into the account whether men tended to click on the ads whilst making a pouty face and complaining about the cost of parking.