FEATURE ARTICLE: Beyond the Targeted Customer: Spillover Effect through Social Influence — Consumers with Weak Ties Are More Effective Targets in Social Advertising

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Sept 2023 (Vol. 64, Issue 3)

Beyond the Targeted Customer: Spillover Effect through Social Influence — Consumers with Weak Ties Are More Effective Targets in Social Advertising
Further insight into spillover effects in advertising comes from Zhen-Zhen Wang (Shenzhen University, China), Zhihua Zhu (Tencent, Shenzhen), Xiaoke Xu (Beijing Normal University), and Naipeng Chao (Shenzhen University). Using data from an innovative, large-scale field experiment, their work shows that social media advertising can make a greater impact on people who have weak social ties and are socially connected to the viewers of ads, rather than influencing the originally targeted viewers. This effect is strongest among consumers with weaker rather than strong social ties. “Even when the campaign does not have a significant effect on the targeted customer, the spillover effects could remain significantly positive on their friends,” the authors write. With support from Chinese multimedia conglomerate Tencent, the study is “contextualized in WeChat Moments.” Like Facebook, WeChat displays ads in real time, in the personalized feeds of targeted users. Researchers performed an analysis of three sets of data: advertisement exposure in an ad-launching platform, social relations in the ad display platform and product order placement on the advertiser’s website. Among the takeaways:

“Given the importance of the spillover effect in social advertising, the marketing industry should reconsider the prevalent application of customer centricity in targeted advertising.”
Advertisers may wish to target based on the size and makeup of a consumer’s social network, “instead of their interests in the products.”
“Because the spillover effect spreads through weak ties instead of strong ones, targeting those with broad weak connections instead of limited strong connections could enhance the effect.
“Social advertising might also have created a higher return on investment than expected because of the spillover effect. Future design of the advertising effectiveness measurement should consider the spillover effect.”

Read the full article here.