Keeping up with age demographics for advertising is an ongoing process. With that in mind I periodically update this post with the best information that I can find! If you have any great data I am missing, please shoot me an email ... tara(at)marketingartfully.com. This post was updated March 2019.
Customer demographics are about how old your customers are. It may surprise you to know HOW much age demographics for advertising effects your marketing efforts in this always on world.
Let's start our talk with the age ranges that advertising execs look at when planning marketing campaigns:
12 – 17
18 – 24
25 – 34
35 – 44
45 – 54
55 – 64
65+
Some telling data for social media marketing....
- LinkedIn has more than 530 million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide (Linkedin - 2018)
- LinkedIn has 260 million monthly active users (12/6/18)
- 7 in 10 people use social media to connect (Pew - 2017)
- Facebook has 1.52 billion daily active users on average for December 2018 (Facebook) ... up from 1.37 in Sept 2017
- Facebook has 2.32 billion monthly active users as of December 31, 2018 (Facebook) ... up from 2.07 September 30, 2017
- Instagram has over 2.3 billion monthly active users (Viralyft - Oct 2023)
- Pinterest has over 250 million monthly active users (Pinterest - 2019) ... up from 200 million in 2017
Want More Customer Demographics?
- Customer Demographics – Age Ranges, Generational Names and Numbers
- What are important customer demographics? (updated Jan 2018)
- Customer Demographics For Social Media
Great info about social media by age range (source wizcase.com)
Age Demographics For Advertising Resources
- Official Facebook Statistics
- Official Twitter Company Statistics
- Official Instagram Company Statistics
- Official Pinterest Statistics
- Official LinkedIn Statistics
- AWESOME post about Age Demographics For Social Media from Sprout Social
- Blog post: Customer Demographics - Age Ranges, Generational Names and Numbers
- Demographics of Key Social Networking Platforms from Pew Research
- How Millennials use and control social media from API
- Good post about Linkedin Statistics from (2019)
2018 Customer Demographics Marketing Stats
Pew Research .is very up to date and age matters greatly in choice of platform (Pew -2018).
Age withstanding, the majority of the US is on Facebook and YouTube
However, age does matter in choice of platform. If you want to target 12 to 24 year olds (the chart says 18 because most, of not all social media have restrictions on how old children can be to use the platform. For instance, Facebook restricts anyone 13 or younger from having a profile) you should be using Snapchat and Instagram for your marketing efforts.
Here is another chart showing how age determines platform marketing choices (SmartInsights)
Age demographics were more significant than race, gender, income, education and community. Not only in use but also in platform chosen…which leads us to:
So how do those age demographics affect your marketing campaigns?
Targeting your marketing message and platform to the right age demographic
So what does that mean for you, my reader who are mostly college educated, women between the ages of 35-54 (site statistic data from alexa.com).
Now that’s not to say that I don’t have male readers, I do (I know because they make comments!). It also doesn’t mean that my readers aren’t also a little older or a little younger than that, BUT primarily I attract people who are like me! You know, marketing nuts who are similar in age, education and, obviously sense of humor, to me: workaholic woman, college educated, 46 years old.
So if we take a peek at the age demographic data, my best social media response would come from WordPress (my blog), Pinterest, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Pretty on the money although I do rather okay on Twitter too!
Social Media Age Demographic Stats Over The Years
It is somewhat difficult to find current information about age distribution for the different social media networks. BUT I have started collecting this info from over the years to see the changes over time. Please note the dates of this data before citing it.
Pew Research graph from 2016 (crazy how dominant Facebook is! 79% of all online adults use it!)
Older info, but still interesting...
Pew Research graph from 2015 showing the progression of social media.
A breakdown of the demographics for each of the different social networks from Business Insider - 2014
If you notice, the more “instant” of the platforms, Snapchat, has the youngest majority.
Age distribution on social networks from Royal Pingdom...there is some great age demographic as well as gender information - 2012
