Millennials May Differ from GenXers and Boomers, But Not When It Comes to Online Shopping

Millennials May Differ from GenXers and Boomers, But Not When It Comes to Online ShoppingThe media lives to tell us how different we all are from one another — whether that’s described in terms of age, race, location, income, and more.

But maybe we’re more alike than we know, at least when it comes to advertising and online shopping.

There’s some proof from Adroit Digital, a performance marketing technology company that leverages shared shopper data to drive marketing outcomes for global agencies and brands. The company’s new research report studied Millennials’ online shopping behavior and response to digital advertising differs.

Are they different than older shoppers? Not so much, as it turns out.

“The results from this latest survey show that Millennials are not that different,” reports the Android Digital team. “For instance, both Millennials and those 35 and older do the majority of retail browsing in-store — 57 percent and 61 percent, respectively. The majority of respondents are also more likely to click on a mobile ad over a desktop ad — 55 percent of those 18-34 and 52 percent of those 35 (or older).”

There are other similarities, too.

Seventy five percent of those 18-34 and 73 percent of those 35+ replied that online and/or mobile advertising affects what they purchase. In addition, 73 percent of those 18-34 and 71 percent of those 35+ are “likely to change their plans to visit a retailer or restaurant if they are away from home and receive an ad on their mobile device for a local deal or discount in the area.”

And here’s a comparison with hardly a hair’s worth of difference: 68 percent of Millennials and 69 percent of those 35+ agree that one-click purchasing makes a difference in their likelihood to buy something.

“Our study shows that, in many instances, Millennials don’t shop or respond to digital advertising any differently than their older counterparts,” said Jacob Ross, President of Adroit Digital.

“This indicates that behavioral data is a better predictor of how someone will respond to a message than age alone,” Ross added. “But when it comes to sourcing a sufficient amount of behavioral data to build relevant models, where can an advertiser look beyond their own walls? To do this, we believe strongly in the power of second-party data cooperatives — first-party data shared from many advertisers. Second-party data gives advertisers accurate and valuable insights that combine the quality of first-party data with the scale of third-party data.”