• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, September 9, 2011

SocialCode, reporting on a new Facebook advertising research study, examining over four million data points from a wide variety of industries, says that for ads with a 'Like' button, older Facebook users have a higher CTR while younger Facebook users will tend to click 'Like' directly within the Facebook ad.

While propensity to click-through on Facebook is positively correlated with age, writes Marketing Charts, propensity to like is not. Age has a strong positive effect on whether a user will click, but has a less pronounced opposite effect on the likelihood of them becoming a fan of a page.

Fifty-plus-year-old users, the oldest segment in the study, are 28.2% more likely to click through and 9% less likely to like than 18-29-year-old users, the youngest group observed. Compared to the rest of the younger population, 50-plus users see a 22.6% higher CTR and 8.4% lower like rate.

Laura O'Shaughnessy, CEO, SocialCode, observes that "... younger Facebook users are more comfortable using the 'Like' button than older users at this point... (though) older users have a high level of interaction and curiosity about the ads... (but) are also the newest subset to join the social network... "

When broken down by gender, age has a much more pronounced effect on CTR for women than it does for men, whereas for men there is a stronger effect on 'Like' rate than women:

• Overall, women are 11% more likely to click on an ad
• 'Like' rates are almost even for men and women; men are actually 2.2% more likely to 'Like' an ad than women
• For women, CTR is 31.2% higher for the 50+ age group versus 18-29 year olds; men only see a 16.2% difference between the age groups
• Versus all age groups, 50+ women's CTR is 22% higher versus a 16.4% difference for males
• The oldest male segment has an 11.7% lower 'Like' rate than the youngest segment, and 9.5% lower 'Like' rate versus all age groups; Women only see a 7.2% and 7.9% difference respectively

To read more from Social Code on Business Wire, please visit here.