Much of the recent marketing fodder has been aimed at women and/or moms, and in many ways, that makes sense. Moms and women use Pinterest, buy kids' clothes and food, download online shopping apps, and make many household purchasing decisions. But as we approach Father's Day, it's worthwhile to take a look at how dads make purchasing decisions online, specifically from their smartphones.
IAB's Millennial Media took a look at comScore data and put together the infographic below. And at first the results are what you might think: dads spend less time (57%) on mobile devices than moms (71%), and the gap is greater if you look at millennial dads. However, 45% of those millennial dads and 37% of all make mobile purchases, with a larger amount of money: over half of mobile dads have an income of over $75,000, about a third higher than the average mobile income. Dads are 2x more likely to spend upwards of $500 on a mobile purchase, and millennial dads are 3x as likely.
Takeaway: Even if the segment of the buying population is smaller when you look at mobile dads, they still make mobile purchases at a rate comparable with moms and with more money to spend.
Marketing goal: Target household with higher price points items to dads with ads that are designed to pack a punch in fewer views. With mobile dads, you don't have the luxury of inundating the feed towards a goal of brand awareness over time. Instead, identify what products or services you have that dads might be more likely to buy, and create an ad that's pointed directly at them.
The research also found a few more pieces of information you might expect: mobile dads access weather, social media, sports news, financial news, and tech news at the same rate or more than mobile moms. But what's remarkable is that the research found that mobile dads share photos, use shopping apps and access maps more than mobile moms.
Takeaway: Believe it or not, mobile dads are more eager to shop from their phones than mobile moms, and also use that time to gather practical information and news. Design your marketing strategy to satisfy both needs in mobile dads.
Marketing goal: Design your content marketing tor reach mobile dads by including the kinds of tangible news tidbits they're looking for. Because of mobile dads' interest in both shopping apps and maps, perhaps use push notifications targeted to dads and with a map component that
Take a look at this infographic below and share with us some of your ideas for mobile dad-targeted campaigns.