DMN3 Blog

Is age one of the demographics that is important to you and your online marketing dollars? If so, then the data from Pew Research will be of interest to you…

Larger businesses often use a marketing agency like DMN3 for their online marketing and advertising strategies. Whether you do or not, as a marketing professional you need to understand the basis for online advertising decisions.

If your target markets include generational demographics, then differences in online activities should help guide your online advertising and marketing approaches. Why?… because there are still notable differences by generation in online pursuits.

The Pew data explores how different generations use the Internet. Their data describes six different generational (age) groups. They include Millennials (ages 18 to 33); Gen X (ages 34-45); Younger Boomers (age 46-55); Older Boomers (age 56-64); Silent Generation (age 65-73); and G I Generation (ages 74 and above) as of 2010 when the study was done.

Online Users:

• 79 percent of all American adults go online, a number that has been relatively consistent over the last several years.
• The percent that go online range from 95 percent for Millennials to 30 percent for the G I Generation, with each older generation showing a decline in use of the Internet.

While there are many reasons given for not using the Internet, they fall into two categories: those who don’t feel an interest or need for it (42%); and those who are some way handicapped by access or education issues (51%).

Home broadband adoption parallels the use of the Internet. Approximately two-thirds (66%) of American adults have broadband Internet connection at home. Younger generations have higher broadband adoption rates that decrease with each successive older generation. This same pattern extends to use of wireless mobile devices as a means to access the Internet.

Online Activities:

• The activities that are most popular with Teens & Millennials include: visiting social networking sites; communicating via instant messages, watching online videos, playing online games and reading blogs.
• The activities where Gen X and older generations dominate include: visiting government websites and getting financial information online.
• Many activities are becoming increasingly common across generations. They include using email, using search engines, looking for health information, getting news and making travel reservations. Even with these common activities you still may see differences between younger and older generations, particularly those over 65 in age.
• Email and the use of search engines continue to be the cornerstone of online activities, with 88 percent of the oldest generation using email. It should be noted that email use among teens is falling in popularity as they increasing use social networking sites to communicate with friends.
• Searching for health information is the third most popular activity by Internet users (83%).

What are some of the implications for advertisers from this data? It’s easy… follow your audience.

If your target age demographic is age 33 or lower, your online advertising strategies should consider mobile marketing, social media marketing, digital video advertising and advertising on certain online game sites. Search engine marketing, email marketing and advertising on news websites are also pertinent marketing strategies to the Millennial generation.

If your advertising target age demographic is 34 and above, you should consider advertising on financial information websites if your product or service is relevant to banking, investment or financial interests. Email marketing, search engine marketing and advertising on health information and online news websites are also pertinent to reaching these older generations.

Use of Ecommerce sites and travel reservation sites are also becoming more common across all of the generations. It should also be noted that growth in online activities by older generations is increasing faster than younger generations as older Americans become increasing comfortable with using the activities dominated by younger generations. While younger generations dominate these activities, older Americans are slowly and surely hopping on the bandwagon.

For example, the use of social networking sites by Internet users 74 and older has increased 400 percent - from 4 percent in 2008 to 16 percent in 2010.

You can find the full report at: Generations 2010

While targeting online advertising involves more than age demographics, it is important that marketing professionals understand the differences in online activities by different generational age groups.