Authors: Bello Kamarudeen Babatunde, Alkali A. U.
Abstract
This paper examined the influence of digital advertising platforms (social media, email and website) on customer bank patronage decisions, along with the mediating effect of brand awareness. Data for the study were collected from 366 customers of major Deposit Money Banks (DBMs) in Jimeta Metropolis in Adamawa State, Nigeria, using a structured, self-administered questionnaire. The data were subjected to descriptive and regression analyses in SPSS, and the PROCESS Macro was used to test mediation effects. The results indicated that advertising via social media (β = 0.386; ρ ≤ 0.000) and websites (β = 0.346; ρ ≤ 0.001) have significant positive effects on patronage decisions, while e-mail has positive but insignificant effect (β = 0.079; ρ ≥ 0.100). Likewise, brand awareness was also indicated to have very strong significant positive effect (β = 0.778; ρ ≤ 0.000) on patronage decisions, just as it positively mediated the effects of the three digital advertising platforms examined. The paper, therefore, recommends that banks should ensure that advertisements on digital platforms are designed in an informative and interesting manner to attract customer attention and memory retention. Future researchers are encouraged to investigate moderating factors that could enhance understanding of the influence of digital advertising platforms.
Keywords: Digital advertising; social media; email; website; brand awareness; bank patronage decision.