Investigation of the effects of consumers' attitudes towards social media advertisements on their purchasing behaviours

Abstract

Today, brands and businesses widely use social media ads to reach targeted customers. Therefore, examining the effect of social media advertisements on consumers' purchasing decisions stands out as an essential research topic. For this reason, it is crucial to reveal the factors that are effective in the purchasing behaviour of consumers in advertisements made on social media. In the light of these facts, effects of the ad credibility, perceived personalisation, ethics of social media advertising, attitude towards social media advertising variables on social shopping intention and the moderating effects of gender, age and educational status were examined. The research gathered data from 421 individuals living in Kocaeli via a questionnaire technique, and the obtained data were analysed using hierarchical regression tests. Findings of the analysis indicate that ad credibility, ethics of social media advertising and attitude towards social media advertising positively affect social shopping intention. Furthermore, age was found to have a moderating role between social shopping intention and ethics of social media advertising and attitude towards social media advertising. In contrast, educational status was found to have a moderating role between social shopping intention and ad credibility and attitude towards social media advertising. This study is expected to clarify the factors for the social shopping intention with demographic differences.