Key consumer insights to drive your sales this Ramadan

Only one more week to go before the fasting season is upon Malaysians. Ramadan is a time of togetherness, when celebrants spend time with family and friends for a month of religious observance and festivities. Be it clothing, supplies for the home, recipe ideas or gifts, a lot goes into preparing for the season.

Based on a study of over 1,000 Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia, Facebook found that the discovery of products and services can begin as early as April, and purchasing goes beyond the Ramadan month.

During the season, people start discovering information, services and products in April. There’s a 19% higher click-through rate on Facebook compared to the first quarter of the year on average, which shows higher shopping intent and mobile feed activity 1.

On top of this, online conversions peak in the Ramadan month with 27% more purchases compared to the entire season.

Mobile is where people shop and buy this season. In Malaysia, 4 in 5 Facebook conversions during Ramadan happen on mobile.

But the momentum doesn’t stop there—shopping continues post-Ramadan. In Malaysia, there are near equal conversions in Ramadan (June) and post-Ramadan (July) month. 

People are also downloading more mobile apps during and after Ramadan compared to the first half of the year on average, with over 20% more mobile app installs in Malaysia.

Many families are likely looking for on-demand services, such as transport and food delivery, during and after Ramadan to ease the stress of the season. This opens doors for businesses and advertisers to promote app downloads and app re-engagement in the lead up to and after Ramadan.

However, according to Apsalar research, Southeast Asia app uninstall rates are among the highest globally—up to 31% during the 2016 Ramadan season. Of uninstallers, 2 in 3 would have uninstalled their apps by the third day. This highlights the need to re-engage app downloaders and promote retention.

Why mobile?

Many businesses turn solely to TV advertising for branding campaigns this season. But how does ROI improve when paired with other platforms? The Advertising Research Foundation discovered that TV campaigns paired with digital activations deliver up to 60% more ROI.

Most TV ad campaigns start with a 30-second spot with complex emotional messages, followed by a trimmed down 15-second version, before being taken off-air. As campaign impact decreases over time along with a slowdown in sales, digital advertising offers an additional outlet to drive incremental reach and impact.

Year round, Malaysians already spend 3 hours every day on their smartphones 2. It’s where people get their Ramadan information and post their favourite moments – 96% of Facebook posts are on mobile during the season.

Grabbing people’s attention in today’s mobile-first world is difficult for many brands who focus only on TV ads. Especially when many complement their TV viewing experience with mobile. Between time with family, meals and prayers, there’s more demand than ever for people’s attention across screens.

It’s proven that TV ads paired with digital advertising help brands deliver better ROI by 60%. And for brands using Facebook, incremental reach and cost efficiencies are the big draws. Facebook can help extend the effectiveness of TV campaigns by capturing the attention of people typically difficult to reach, including light TV viewers (+10% reach) and non-TV viewers (+59% reach). It’s also 4x more cost efficient than TV ads when comparing campaign reach to the share of investment on the platform.

[Definition: Heavy TV viewer: 4 – 6 hours average per week, medium TV viewer: 2 – 3 hours average per week, light TV viewer – under 2 hours average per week]