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The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour

Article  in  Middle East J of Management · January 2021

DOI: 10.1504/MEJM.2021.10037485

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344 Middle East J. Management, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2021

The influence of social media advertising on

consumer behaviour

Fayq Al Akayleh
College of Business Administration,
Al Yamamah University,
P.O. Box 45180, Riyadh 11512, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Email: f_alakayleh@yu.edu.sa
Email: bsbann@gmail.com

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of e-marketing

in the context of consumers in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia. The research
methodology is of quantitative type using the simple random sampling. Data
were collected through a questionnaire distributed to a sample of 1,425 social
media consumers. The study variables include consumer buying decision as a
dependent variable and social media advertising as an independent variable.
Income, education level, gender, age and culture were used as moderating
variables. The results of the study indicate that social media advertising
significantly influence consumer buying decision. Gender, age, and culture of
consumers have significant moderating effects whereas income and education
have insignificant effects on the relationship between consumer buying
decision and social media advertising. This paper is pioneering in that it
investigates the effects of social media marketing on consumer buying decision
in the context of consumers in Riyadh City.

Keywords: consumer behaviour; social media marketing and advertising;

Saudi Arabia; utility maximisation; cultural differences.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Al Akayleh, F. (2021) ‘The

influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour’, Middle East J.
Management, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp.344–366.

Biographical notes: Fayq Al Akayleh is currently an Associate Professor of

Economics at the Al Yamamah University. Previously, he was the Director of
Postgraduate Studies and the Founder and Head of Quantitative Business
Department. He was a founding member of College of Business Administration
as well. He has taught at the University of Jordan and served as a financial and
administrative auditor in the Jordan Audit Bureau for 16 years. He was the
winner of the ‘Top 100 Leaders in Education Award’, GFEL, in 2019 and the
winner of the ‘Distinguished Faculty Award’ in 2017 at the Al Yamamah
University.

1 Introduction

Although a relatively recent phenomenon, social media has had an impressive impact on
people’s lives. Every day, more people are joining the growing number of social media
followers, reflecting the strength of this new trend (Voramontri and Klieb, 2018). Today,
social media is a term that everyone recognises. Even in remote and far away areas of the

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 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 345

world, people have heard of Facebook and Twitter, and may be using them on a daily
basis (Edosomwan et al., 2011). However, social media in its present form has existed for
a relatively short time and though we probably cannot imagine living without it now, one
short decade ago, everyone did (Wasserman and Faust, 1994; Ahuja and Galvin, 2003).
The evolution of social media has shaped a new environment, creating new means for
personal connection. Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and
Instagram, offer huge opportunities to reach the billions of consumers who are using
social media every day. Social media includes collaborative projects such as blogs,
Wikipedia, and social networking sites (e.g., Cyworld, Facebook), consumer generated
content communities (e.g., YouTube, Flicker, Todou), virtual game worlds (e.g.,
EverQuest), and virtual social worlds (e.g., Second Life), as identified by Kaplan and
Haenlein (2010).
Many studies confirm that social media is widely used as an effective information
source for perceived convenience and credibility. E-marketers estimated that in 2016
about 16.1 billion people were logging on to networking sites monthly through electronic
devices with the growth expected to double by 2017 and the number of social network
users expected to be more than 2.33 billion by the end of 2018 (MCMC, 2017). This
estimate has materialised with the number of social media users exceeding 2.3 billion in
2019 (Statista Surveys, 2019).
For decades, traditional advertising has been the only major channel for marketers.
Today, social media has evolved to become a significant channel for companies to use to
market their products (Gilbert and Karahalios, 2009), but is it a better way to reach
consumers? Although the importance of social media to companies has grown, without
clear evidence that social media is a significant channel, the question remains whether
social media is as effective as marketers think.
Thus, there is a need to determine the influence social media has on consumer
purchasing patterns and decisions. The question is: what effect does social media
advertising have on consumers’ purchase decisions?
Although many extant studies address the reasons why businesses should utilise
social media as well as ways to help them gain a better foothold in their transition into
this market, few studies look at this from the perspective of the consumer (Ashman et al.,
2015; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Moreover, as consumers may feel differently than
marketers predict, brand engagement through social media may not be quite what
marketers expect. As growth in social media has provided marketers with a new avenue
for contacting customers, organisations have increased their spending on social media
sites. However, it is difficult to find data on actual return on investment valuations in this
context.
Our objective is to investigate the relationship between social networks and consumer
purchase intentions. Specifically, this study attempts to identify and assess the impact of
the use of social media on consumer buying/purchase decisions from the consumer
perspective and investigate how social media advertising impacts consumer decisions in
the Saudi Arabian market context. To the best of our knowledge, after reviewing the
literature, this has not been done before in the City of Riyadh.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 briefly reviews the literature
that forms the basis for the research and our hypotheses. Section 3 describes the study’s
methodology. Section 4 presents our data analysis and results. Section 5 includes a
346 F. Al Akayleh

discussion of the research findings. Section 6 concludes and Section 7 highlights the
study’s limitations.

2 Literature review and hypotheses

2.1 The role of social media advertising in utility maximisation

The revealed preference hypothesis (RPH) (Samuelson, 1938) states that consumers will
maximise their utility when faced with multiple options to choose from. This can be
generalised to the online social media context where the RPH has been shown to play a
role in consumer utility maximisation (Aprem and Krishnamurthy, 2017; Beigman and
Vohra, 2006). The RPH supports the argument that social media advertising gives more
options to consumers and, hence, enables a higher level of utility (Zadimoghaddam and
Roth, 2012). The positive effect of social media advertising in maximising consumer
utility is reflected as well in the comparison of consumer surplus before and after the
introduction of social media advertising (Aprem and Krishnamurthy, 2017).

2.2 Variables in the social media literature

Social media advertising is considered to be the sum of activities on social media that
increase consumer awareness of the value of the firm’s product and services (Paquette,
2013). These social media platforms offer practical programs and online media to
facilitate cooperation, interaction, and content sharing (Richter and Koch, 2007). By
acting as a platform for exchanging information and ideas among individuals, the channel
can reduce prejudice and misunderstandings about a brand’s equity (Kim and Ko, 2012).
Specifically, social media can enhance communication among consumers and brands.
The success of online advertising, however, depends on product characteristics (Kiang
and Chi, 2001). Social media advertising can be effectively utilised as a strategy in times
of sales decline and during economic crises (Mohr, 2013).
One past study has shown that social media is cost effective and is an appropriate
option for accessing and collecting information (Godes and Mayzlin, 2004). A study
conducted by Chevalier and Mayzlin (2006) suggests that increasing visits to the
webpage of a specific book can lead to increased sales of that book. As study by Bayne
(2011) finds that Facebook and similar social networking sites, are good ways to enhance
awareness of and participation in campus recreation.
Today, marketers are increasing their efforts to enhance the number of consumer
engagements on social media platforms (Barger et al., 2016). However, to engage
consumers, it is important to keep posting new and fresh content (Bayne, 2011). Social
media has proved to be beneficial because the information reaches a large number of
people in a short span of time, thereby making it a cost effective means of advertising.
Smith and Zook (2011) also find that social media platforms are effective tools for
validating purchase decisions. However, most consumers are still deemed to be
‘inactive’, namely, passive about sharing word of mouth with others on available social
media platforms. Although social media offers an overwhelming amount of information
to consumers, before making a decision, consumers still go through various stages of
consideration before a purchase, rather than buying instantly (Bandyopadhyay, 2016).
 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 347

Nonetheless, recent studies show that the role of social media in buying decisions is
startling. Many companies have realised this and have been putting greater emphasis on
enhancing their social media strategies (Ioanăs and Stoica, 2014). However, devising a
strategy before moving into the social media arena is important, as many businesses that
have entered the fray without a strategy have been disappointed with the consumer
response (Zeelenberga and Pieters, 2004).
In the relationship between consumer purchase decisions and social media, social
media has been shown to have an effect on brand attitude, advertising attitudes, and
purchase intention as well. Although it may not have a direct effect on consumer decision
making, it may have a mediating effect (Taining, 2012). Further, social media advertising
from businesses can affect both purchase intention and brand attitude (Yun and Ko,
2006).
Online purchasing is spreading globally and creating globalised segmentation across
different cultures (Vinerean et al., 2013). If consumers have an issue or problem with a
product, they can reach the company directly through social media, which provides a
direct connection and rapid response.
The top three consumer benefits of social media are considered to be entertainment,
information, and social interaction (Heinonen, 2011). Consumers are motivated to use
social media as a means to achieve personal benefits. These can be grouped under
rational motivations, which achieve advocacy and knowledge sharing, and emotional
motivations, which achieve self-expression and social connection (Krishnamurthy and
Dou, 2008). These motivations can be connected to business reviews and friends’
recommendations that support their purchase decisions and provide information about the
value of the dollar spent. One study by Von Helversen et al. (2018) indicates that
business reviews have a strong effect on the motivation of consumers.
It is crucial for marketers and retailers to increase their awareness of the factors that
influence customer attitudes and motives as consumers are frequently creating content
about brands, which, in the past, has been controlled solely by the companies (Heinonen,
2011). In analysing the effects of social media advertising on consumer purchasing
decisions, this study suggests a number of moderating variables including age, gender,
income, and education level. The age of the consumer has been considered as a direct
independent variable in qualitative and focus group studies on the effect of social media
on consumer purchasing decision (Diffley et al., 2011) but has yet to be quantitatively
examined. The effect of social media advertising on consumer’s buying decision by
considering consumer’s age and education level as moderating variables was examined
quantitatively (Ertemel and Ammoura, 2016) and found insignificant. Consumers’ gender
differences have been considered as factors affecting some marketing aspects such as
brand loyalty intention (Rialtia et al., 2017). However, a gender effect on the relationship
between social media advertising and consumer purchasing decisions has not been
addressed. Moreover, the impact of the cultural factor in this relationship has yet to be
studied in the literature.
To sum, although many studies examine the influence of social media advertising on
consumer purchasing decisions, the literature has not used age, gender, income, and
education level as moderating variables. Further, no prior study has investigated the
consumers in Riyadh City. Thus, this study makes two significant contributions to
literature. First, the study presents a new model in consumer behaviour research that
considers culture, age, gender, income, and education level as moderating variables in the
348 F. Al Akayleh

relationship between social media advertising and consumer purchasing decisions.

Second, this study is the first to investigate the influence of social media advertising on
consumer behaviour in the context of Riyadh City. Thus, as the literature on social media
and consumer buying decisions indicates that social media has a strong impact on
purchase intention, this study aims to identify this impact on consumer decision making
and purchase intention in Riyadh.

2.3 Hypotheses development

Social media advertising helps the consumer to make the final decision of buying because
it provides consumer with free and easy-accessed information that influence the five steps
of buying decision including need recognition, search for alternative, evaluate the
alternatives, take the decision, and evaluate the decision. These influences can be
summed up in one total effect of social media advertising on consumer buying behaviour.
Regarding to that, we can form the first hypothesis as:
H1 Social media advertisements influence consumer purchasing behaviour.
A large number of researches have been conducted to examine the influence of social
media advertising on consumer behaviour but a very few focus on examining the effect of
demographic variables on consumer behaviour in social media context. One demographic
factor is consumer’s gender (Kishari and Jain, 2016). The literature in recent years is
interested to assess the gender differences in terms of social media usage. Gefen and
Straub (1997) found significant differences among male and female perceptions in terms
of email usage. Similarly, Venkatesh and Morris (2000) found differences among male
and female in terms of software and internet usage. This can be evidenced from different
cultures and, therefore, we can establish the following hypothesis:
H2 The gender of the respondent moderates the effect of social media advertising on
consumer purchasing behaviour.
The relationship between social media advertising and consumer behaviour may be
moderated by the consumer age. Younger adults may have psychological factors that let
them spend more time on internet and, hence their buying behaviour may be more
affected by social media advertising than old adults (Kishari and Jain, 2016). This nature
of the relationship should be examined through the following hypothesis:
H3 The age of the respondent moderates the effect of social media advertising on
consumer purchasing behaviour.
A common sense regarding income groups is that higher and middle income groups tend
to spend more time on internet and so, they will be more exposed to online advertising
that will affect their buying decisions. Many studies (Valarezo et al., 2018;
Von Helversen et al., 2018) have shown that income can make differences in the
relationship between social media advertising and consumer behaviour. Since the
population of this study is the consumers in the Riyadh City, the income moderating
effect has not been tested for this study population and, therefore, we are establishing the
fourth hypothesis as follows:
H4 The income of the respondent moderates the effect of social media advertising on
consumer purchasing behaviour.
 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 349

The educational level of consumer may be considered as a facilitating factor that enables
the consumer of having more skills on online access process and hence reaching out to
ore social media advertising (Ertemel and Ammoura, 2016). For another group of
consumers, educational level does not make differences in moderating the effect of social
media advertising on their buying decisions (Xiao et al., 2019). In this context, we will
test the following hypothesis:
H5 The educational level of the respondent moderates the effect of social media
advertising on consumer purchasing behaviour.
Cultural factors influence consumers’ attitude toward the information provided by social
media and subsequently influences their online buying decisions (Smith et al., 2013).
Generally, people in the Riyadh City are influenced mainly by Islamic and Arab culture.
Internet and social media contents that suit one culture may not suit another cultures.
Therefore, and in line of the objectives of this study, the following hypothesis will be
tested:
H6 The culture of the respondent moderates the effect of social media advertising on
consumer purchasing behaviour.

3 Methodology

The study framework was established to address our hypotheses in the Saudi Arabia
market context. Although many methods can be applied to different types of research
(thus, no single method applies for all issues and problems and there is not necessarily
one best method), we used the survey technique here. We chose the questionnaire survey
method as it facilitates in-depth insight into the beliefs of the respondents and is an easy
and cost-effective way of obtaining data, which can be readily interpreted to induce
results. Due to time limitations, some techniques, such as conducting personal interviews
and direct observations, were not applied. After choosing surveys as the main method of
data collection, we applied cross-tabulation, correlation, and t-tests to analyse the
collected information. We framed the questions that needed to be answered and
prioritised these based on their importance and value to individuals and companies. The
questionnaire was designed to answer the overriding research question and gain
responses in the following areas.
• Do social media advertisements impact consumers’ decisions?
• Is the content in social media advertising appropriate for the Saudi Arabia culture?
• Do demographic factors, such as gender, age, educational level, and income, have a
mediating effect on consumer purchasing decisions through social media
advertisements?

3.1 Sampling method and sample size

Our sample was selected from Riyadh, as it is the largest city in Saudi Arabia, and the
study’s focus is on the purchasing behaviour of residents based on advertising campaigns
and advertisements on social media platforms. In addition, Riyadh is the most developed
350 F. Al Akayleh

city in the country and the best area for the study based on its high internet usage and
diverse population. Moreover, we assume that online purchasing power is high in Riyadh
as well.
The study adopted probability sampling to provide equal opportunity for all
respondents to participate in the survey process. Thus, the random probability sampling
technique was used to ensure the data were collected readily and represented the stratum
distribution of the target population. We employed simple random sampling (SRS).
The SRS procedures have been conducted as per the following steps:
Step 1 The study population have been identified as the adult population of Riyadh
City. According to World Population Statistics, the Saudi population in 2019 is
approximately 34.2 million, with 25% of that population in its capital city
Riyadh (World Population Review, 2016). Accordingly, total population of
Riyadh City is 8,550,000, of which 65% is the adult population (18+).
Therefore, the study population size is 5,557,500.
Step 2 We have identified the sampling frame to be equal to study population namely,
5,557,500, since all elements of the population can be sampled.
Step 3 Based on the given data on population size considering a margin of error (ME)
of 0.03 and confidence level of 0.95, the sample size using sample size online
calculator is 1,067. But to assure a response at least equal to calculated sample
size, we sent out the questionnaire to 2,000 emails and we get 1,425 responses.
Hence, for more accuracy we considered the sample size equals to 1,425.
Step 4 The survey was conducted using survey monkey and the questionnaire was sent
to the required sample size consisting of 48% females and 52% males,
consistent with the gender strata in Riyadh City.

4 Data analysis and results

SPSS 21 software was used to obtain the statistical analysis of the impact of social media
advertisements on consumer purchasing behaviour. In addition, Microsoft Excel was used
to chart and diagram the results of the questionnaires. SPSS 21 generated the data sheet to
run other tests to confirm the association of social media and consumer purchase patterns.
To ensure valid data analysis, the questionnaires with missing values were excluded.
Then, the descriptive analysis tests were performed to describe the percentage
distribution of the results regarding the demographic factors (gender, income, etc.). The
data are described in tables, diagrams, and charts to facilitate a better understanding of
the information. The statistical tests have been conducted to overcome the issue of bias
and reliability and determine the significance of the quantitative results. The statistical
tests offer a clear image of factors that can be incorporated into future research and help
justify the association among the involved variables.
We discuss the statistical results and the responses to the specific questions (see
Appendix 2, questions 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13) that assess consumer buying behaviour and
the impact of social media advertisements (see Appendix 2, questions 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15,
and 16).
 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 351

4.1 Statistical analysis (cross-tabulation)

Cross-tabulation was conducted using the cross-tabulation function in Microsoft Excel.
Figure 1 of Appendix 1 shows the cross-tabulation between gender and the consumer
buying decision after looking at an online advertisement (cross-tab: questions 1 and 10).
We can see that 269 out of a total of 406 female respondents said they purchased a
product after looking at an online advertisement on social media (or 66.3%), while 572
out of a total of 1,019 male respondents (or 56.1% among males), said they purchased a
product after looking at an online advertisement on social media, a difference of 10.2%.
Figure 1 of Appendix 1 also shows that 59% of Riyadh adult population purchase a
product after looking at an online advertisement. Although this percentage represents the
majority of Riyadh population, yet the buying decision of 41% of the population is not
directly affected by online social media marketing.
Figure 2 of Appendix 1 shows that there is some difference among the age groups for
the consumer buying decision after looking at an online advertisement (cross-tab:
questions 2 and 10). Ages 18–45 show a high response degree to social media advertising
and will affect their buying decisions, which implies that these age groups cope with
technology well and have greater buying power compared with the old group.
It is worth mentioning that the most affected age group by social media marketing is
the age group 26–35. This is attributed mainly to two reasons. On one hand, almost all
people in this age group are employed and have their own budget, where such a factor is
more or less not available for ages 18–25 because the vast majority of this age group are
students and do not have their own income resources. On the other hand, the age group
36 and above naturally have more responsibilities and less enthusiasm to stay longer time
on internet and social media than younger age groups. Therefore, people within the age
group 26–35 have both their own budget resources and enthusiasm to stay longer time on
internet that render them to be the most affected age group by social media advertising.
The study confirms that consumer buying behaviour varies positively with level of
education (cross-tab: questions 3 and 10). That is, the higher the education of the
consumers, the greater the percentage of consumers purchasing online or through social
media, and vice versa, as shown in Figure 3 of Appendix 1. A higher educational level
leads to more purchasing after looking at online advertisements. Of the postgraduates,
65.2% indicated they had purchased online after looking at an advertisement; the highest
response compared with the other educational levels. Of the undergraduates, 59.3%
expressed that they purchased online after looking at an advertisement whereas 51.8% of
people whose education level is less than bachelor, had purchased online after looking at
an advertisement.
In terms of percentages, as explained in Figure 4 of Appendix 1 (cross-tab questions
4 and 10), those with salaries over SR 30,000 were more likely to make a purchase based
on online advertising (63.6%) than the other groups with lower salaries. It is also found
that consumers with salaries SR 10,000 or less are less likely to make purchase based on
social media advertisement. However, the differences were insignificant among the
groups.
Figure 5 of Appendix 1 (cross-tab: questions 16 and 10) analyses the response to the
following question: “do you think Saudi culture should be involved directly in the social
media ads?” Of the respondents, 64.5% who agreed that Saudi culture should be
considered in the ads also said they had purchased online after viewing an online
advertisement compared with 53% of the respondents who did not pay attention to Saudi
352 F. Al Akayleh

culture in online advertisements; namely, more respondents felt that Saudi culture should
play an important role in the content of the advertisements in social media marketing.
Instagram users were the most influenced by online advertisements in their buying
decisions, with 68.5% of such users making purchase decisions after viewing these ads,
followed by Google Plus (63.9%), Tweeter (57.9%), Facebook (55.4%), and others
(53.3%), as presented in Figure 6 of Appendix 1 (cross-tab: questions 5 and 10).
Furthermore, the study shows that the most used social media platform for purchase is
Tweeter (43.6%) followed by Instagram (24.6%), Facebook (8%), and Google Plus
(2.7%).
More respondents pre-judged products and indicated they were attracted to the online
advertisements (69.6%) than the number of respondents who never pre-judged products
and were attracted to the online advertisements (40.1%), as shown in Figure 7 of
Appendix 1 (cross-tab: questions 13 and 10).
From the information shown in Figure 8 of Appendix 1 (cross-tab: questions 14 and
10), 49.8% of the respondents stated that they preferred traditional media but still
purchased a product after looking at its online advertisement, while 64% did not prefer
traditional media and purchased a product after looking at its online advertisement. This
implies that social media advertisement is particularly effective and has a significant
impact on consumer behaviour in Riyadh.
In Figure 9 of Appendix 1 (cross-tab: questions 8 and 10), we show the respondents
who stated they were strongly (70.4%) and highly (72%) satisfied with the content of
social media and purchased a product after looking at its online advertisement. This is
greater than those who were strongly dissatisfied with the content of social media
advertisement but still purchased a product after looking at its online advertisement
(40.1%).
Figure 10 of Appendix 1 (cross-tab: questions 6 and 10) shows that the time spent on
social media does not relate to the buying decision after looking at an advertisement
online as the percentages vary from one segment to another.

4.2 Statistical tests

The detailed results of the statistical tests for the hypotheses are shown in Appendix 2.
The study’s reliability and robustness are explained as follows:

4.2.1 Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient

Table 1 of Appendix 2 shows the correlation between the dependent (consumer
behaviour) and independent variables (social media marketing). There is a significant
correlation between both variables with the correlation value of 0.129 at 0.01 significance
(F-significance; p-value ˂ 0.001). Table 2 of Appendix 2 shows a clear indication that
there is a strong relationship between consumer behaviour and social media
advertisement.

4.2.2 Chi-squared test

Table 3 of Appendix 2, shows that all p-values in the chi-square tests are positive and
have a significance of p < 0.001, which clearly indicates that there is a significant and
strong relationship between gender and social media advertisement as well as between
 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 353

gender and consumer buying behaviour. Age also shows a significant and strong
relationship with both social media advertisement and consumer buying behaviour, as
does education. Further, the relationships between income and social media
advertisement, on the one hand, and income and consumer buying behaviour, on the other
hand, are strong and assessed with positive values of p and less than 0.05 significance.
This means there is no chance of finding the observed (or a larger) degree of association
between the variables if they are perfectly independent in the population.

4.2.3 t-test for gender

The t-test describes the impact of gender on the dependent variable. In Table 4 of
Appendix 2, the p-value is greater than 0.05 in the case of the social media advertisement
effect and clearly indicates that difference in gender does not affect the results with
respect to social media advertisement effectiveness. However, in the case of consumer
purchasing behaviour, the p-value is less than 0.05. Therefore, consumer purchasing
behaviour is significant and the difference in gender produces different results in this
research.

4.2.4 Does age matter?

Table 5 of Appendix 2 shows the significant impact of age on consumer behaviour and
social media advertisement. Based on the p-value (less than 0.05), age significantly
affects consumer behaviour and social media advertisement effectiveness.

4.2.5 What about education?

Table 6 of Appendix 2 shows that the p-value is less than 0.05 in the case of consumer
buying behaviour, a clear indication that education has a significant impact on the buying
behaviour of consumers. In the case of social media advertisement, however, the p-value
is greater than 0.05, which indicates that education does not have a significant impact on
social media advertisement effectiveness.

4.2.6 Does a consumer’s income make a difference?

The findings support the argument that income level has a significant effect on consumer
buying behaviour, with the p-value with respect to consumer buying behaviour less than
0.05 as shown in Table 6 of Appendix 2. In the case of social media advertisement
effects, however, the p-value is greater than 0.05. Hence, income differences do not
produce significantly different results here.

5 Discussion

This study investigates the influence of social media advertisements on consumers’

purchase decisions in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. First, this study supports the theoretical
argument of consumer utility maximisation, which implies that with more options, easy
access and free information about products, and consumer opinions and feedback on
products, consumers have greater opportunities to maximise their utility of product
354 F. Al Akayleh

consumption. Social media advertisements can facilitate such consumer utility

maximisation. Thus, social media advertisements can significantly affect consumer
purchase decisions. This validates Hypothesis H1 and matches with the findings of
Diffley et al. (2011) and Edosomwan et al. (2011). Thus, there is a significant positive
effect of social media advertising on consumer buying decisions in the City of Riyadh.
Second, the quantitative results here and in past literature agree that social media
advertisements have a positive and significant impact on consumer behaviours and their
purchasing patterns. Today, social media plays an important role in shaping purchase
behaviours and the majority of the respondents indicated that they purchase products on
the basis of advertisements they see on social media. Thus, social media advertising has a
significant impact on the Riyadh people’s purchasing behaviour and they appear to prefer
buying goods through online sources.
Third, for gender moderating effect, p-value in the chi-square test is positive and have
a significance of p < 0.001, which clearly indicates that there is a significant and strong
relationship between gender and social media advertisement as well as between gender
and consumer buying behaviour, which implies that the study shows that gender of
consumers makes difference with respect to the impact of social media advertising on
their buying decisions and validates Hypothesis H2. This finding supports the findings of
Gefen and Straub (1997) and Kishari and Jain (2016) but does not support the argument
of Rialtia et al. (2017).
Fourth, the study result also proves the validity of Hypothesis H3, which states the
argument that age moderates the effect of social media advertising on consumer
behaviour. Ages 18–45 show a high response degree to social media advertising and will
affect their buying decisions, which implies that these age groups cope with technology
well and the ages 26–45 have greater buying power compared with the old group. The
age group 18–25 is more likely to consist of students and, therefore, their buying power is
expected to be less but their buying decisions are more affected by social media
advertising. This result also matches with the finding of Kishari and Jain (2016).
Fifth, the research result with respect to income as a moderating variable in the social
media advertising and consumer behaviour relationship shows insignificant effect, which
does not validate Hypothesis H4. This is shown in Table 7 of Appendix 2. Where the
income differences with respect to consumer buying decision are statistically significant
(p-value ˂ 0.001) whereas the mean differences of income with respect to social media
advertising are statistically slightly insignificant (p-value = 0.056). Of course, income
affects significantly consumer’s buying decision but not through social media advertising
in some communities like the population of Riyadh City. This might be attributed to the
fact that people tend to make their decisions based on their need and income regardless of
the existence of social media advertising. This finding matches with the findings of Xiao
et al. (2019) but does not match with the findings of Ertemel and Ammoura (2016).
Sixth, our study shows that education level as a moderating variable in the consumer
behaviour and social media advertising relationship is insignificant, where the p-value of
chi-squared test found greater than 0.05, which does not support Hypothesis H5.
Therefore, we accept the null hypothesis and reject the alternative hypothesis. In other
words, education does not significantly affect consumer’s buying decision through social
media advertising. There might be a direct way other than social media advertising
through which education level affects the consumer’s buying decision. This result
supports the findings of Xiao et al. (2019) and Ertemel and Ammoura (2016).
 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 355

Seventh, the nation’s culture shapes the nature of the relationship between social
media advertisements and consumer behaviour. Evidence in this study indicates that
Saudi culture plays an important role in shaping or changing the effect of social media
advertising on consumer purchase patterns. The study findings validate Hypothesis H5.
This finding agree with the findings of Smith et al. (2013). For this reason, companies
should try to develop advertisements keeping in mind the culture of Saudi Arabia, as it
directly affects the impact of the advertisement on the buying decision of consumers.
Eighth, traditional means of advertising, such as television, radio, or newspapers, are
less significant for Saudis due to changing life styles. The Saudi people today are more
focused on the use of Twitter and other social media websites, thereby reflecting the
ultimate power of social media advertising on consumer buying behaviour. Additionally,
Instagram is the most effective platform in terms of influencing consumer buying
decisions.

6 Conclusions

This paper contributes to the literature in two ways. First, the influence of social media
marketing on buying decisions in the Middle East has received little attention. Our results
show that social media advertising has important influence on consumers’ buying
decisions. The majority of Riyadh population uses various social media platforms in
shopping. Social media advertising has been proved to be more effective method of
marketing than other traditional means of advertising such as newspapers, TVs, and radio
channels. This is because social media marketing is cheaper and easier to access, and
includes larger contents and information, which influence consumer buying decision,
than the traditional marketing media, which implements that focusing on social media
marketing will be an effective profit maximisation strategy.
Second, the study results show that gender, age, and culture of consumers have
significant moderating effects on the relationship between consumer buying decision and
social media advertising. The study shows that the buying decision of female consumers
are more likely to be affected by social media advertising than male consumers. Based on
Saudi culture, and until recently, females stay longer time at home than males and,
therefore, they have higher opportunity to spend time on internet and getting online
advertisements. This tendency, however, is expected to change in the near future because
Saudi bylaws are relaxing restrictions on Saudi females with respect to travel and outdoor
activities. The results also tell us that middle age group (26–45) is the most influenced
age group by social media advertising. This result is attributed to the fact that this age
group has both more purchasing power of income and more independence in
decision-making that the other age groups. Furthermore, the study shows that culture is
still an important factor in shaping the contents of social media advertising. To make
social media advertising an effective profit-maximisation strategy, the differences in
gender, income, and cultural values should be taken into account in a way that considers
the social media advertising contents and information that suit each stratum of
consumers.
To sum up, the main and new contributions of our research is of twofold; First, many
researches have been conducted to examine the influence of social media advertising on
consumer behaviour. However, few researches were carried out by considering cultural
356 F. Al Akayleh

differences. This study proves that Saudi culture plays an important role in shaping or
changing the effect of social media advertising on consumer purchase patterns, which is
different from the results of other studies (Pookulangaran and Koesler, 2011) in the sense
that they focused only on the networking effect as a proxy for cultural aspects but our
investigations included all cultural aspects such as tradition, values, religion, in addition
to social networking. Second, education and income levels are not always significantly
moderating variables in the relationship between social media marketing and consumer
buying decision, which is different from the mainstream results of many researches in the
same field such as Ioanăs and Stoica (2014) and Godey et al. (2016).

7 Research limitations

This study focused on examining the impact of social media advertisements on consumer
buying behaviour in Riyadh. The study fulfilled all ethical considerations along with
adopting tactics to ensure unbiased and reliable research results. However, this study is
limited to social media users in Riyadh City and, therefore, cannot be generalised. The
future research should focus on examining the relationship between social media
marketing and buying decisions as a comparative study for different cultures by
employing pooled data analysis techniques. Future studies could be done to learn about
the specific cultural and behavioural aspects that can be used in social media
advertisements to change the buying behaviour of consumers.

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 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 359

Appendix 1

Cross tabulation for and questionnaire analysis (Figures 1–10)

Figure 1 Gender (see online version for colours)

Figure 2 Age (see online version for colours)

360 F. Al Akayleh

Figure 3 Education level (see online version for colours)

Figure 4 Income level in Saudi Riyals (see online version for colours)
 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 361

Figure 5 Do you think Saudi culture should be involved directly in the social media ads?
(see online version for colours)

Figure 6 Which social media platform do you mostly use? (see online version for colours)
362 F. Al Akayleh

Figure 7 Have you formed a pre-judgement (positive/negative) towards a product or service

before actually buying/consuming it? (see online version for colours)

Figure 8 Is traditional media (e.g., TV, radio and newspaper ads) more relevant to you than the
online ads? (see online version for colours)
 The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour 363

Figure 9 Overall, are you satisfied with social media advertisements’ content?
(see online version for colours)

Figure 10 Time spent on the social media sites approximately/week? (see online version
for colours)
364 F. Al Akayleh

Appendix 2

Statistical test results (Tables 1 to7)

Table 1 Correlation

Consumer behaviour Social media ad

Consumer behaviour Pearson correlation 1 0.129**
Sig. (2-tailed) p-value ˂ 0.001
N 1,425 1,425
Social media ad Pearson correlation 0.129** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) 0
N 1,425 1,425
Note: **correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Table 2 Analysis of variance (ANOVAa)

Model Sum of squares df Mean square F Sig.

1 Regression 5.111 1 5.111 24.261 p-value ˂ 0.001
Residual 299.762 1,423 0.211
Total 304.873 1,424
Notes: adependent variable: consumer behaviour.
Table 3 Chi-square

Variables Chi square value Significance level

Gender
Social media advertisement 61.735 p-value ˂ 0.001
Consumer buying behaviour 41.990 p-value ˂ 0.001
Age
Social media advertisement 156.273 p-value ˂ 0.001
Consumer buying behaviour 252.482 p-value ˂ 0.001
Education level
Social media advertisement 190.476 p-value ˂ 0.001
Consumer buying behaviour 315.036 p-value ˂ 0.001
Income level
Social media advertisement 128.462 p-value ˂ 0.001
Consumer buying behaviour 158.859 p-value ˂ 0.001
 Table 4
T-test for gender

Independent samples test

Levene’s test for
t-test for equality of means
equality of variances
95% confidence interval
Sig. Mean Std. error of the difference
F Sig. t df
(2-tailed) difference difference
Lower Upper
Consumer behaviour Equal variances assumed 6.10 0.01 0.34 1,423 0.73 0.009 0.03 –0.044 0.063
Equal variances not assumed 0.34 713.1 0.73 0.009 0.03 –0.045 0.06
Social media ad Equal variances assumed 0.29 0.59 –5.54 1,423 0.000 –0.12 0.02 –0.17 –0.08
Equal variances not assumed –5.60 761.5 0.000 –0.12 0.02 –0.17 –0.08
The influence of social media advertising on consumer behaviour
365
 366 F. Al Akayleh

Table 5 ANOVA

Sum of Mean
df F Sig.
squares square
Consumer Between groups 21.337 3 7.112 35.646 p-value ˂ 0.001
behaviour Within groups 283.536 1,421 0.200
Total 304.873 1,424
Social Between groups 5.359 3 1.786 12.403 p-value ˂ 0.001
media ad Within groups 204.661 1,421 0.144
Total 210.020 1,424
Notes: Mean differences on consumer behaviour, social media advertisement, and age.
Table 6 ANOVA

Sum of squares df Mean square F Sig.

Consumer Between groups 1.735 3 0.578 2.712 0.044
behaviour Within groups 303.138 1,421 0.213
Total 304.873 1,424
Social Between groups 0.334 3 0.111 0.754 0.520
media ad Within groups 209.686 1,421 0.148
Total 210.020 1,424
Notes: Mean differences for consumer behaviour, social media advertisement, and
education level.
Table 7 ANOVA

Sum of Mean
df F Sig.
squares square
Consumer Between groups 11.730 4 2.932 14.205 p-value ˂ 0.001
behaviour Within groups 293.143 1,420 0.206
Total 304.873 1,424
Social Between groups 1.360 4 0.340 2.313 0.056
media ad Within groups 208.660 1,420 0.147
Total 210.020 1,424
Notes: Mean differences on consumer behaviour, social media advertisement, and income
level.

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