EFFECT OF DIGITAL ADVERTISING ON CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR IN LOKOJA METROPOLIS

Digital advertising plays an imperative role to stimulate consumer preferences, build a positive consumer attitude and influence consumer buying behaviour about the products and services offered in advertisements. The level of development in digital advertising has had a dramatic change on the conduct of business in this era of globalization. Businesses today embrace the use of digital advertising without adequate attention to salient issues concerning the digital advertising platforms and information that can affect consumer buying behaviour. Thus, this study was designed to: (i) examine the effect of digital advertising platforms on consumer buying behaviour in Lokoja metropolis; (ii) determine how digital advertising information affect consumer buying behaviour in Lokoja metropolis. The study used descriptive survey design. The population of the study comprised of customers in Lokoja who make online shopping. The entire population of Lokoja is 195,520 as at 2006 census. Using Yaro Yamani formula, a sample size of 399 respondents were selected for the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the respondents. Data were collected through structured questionnaire. Correlation and regression analysis were employed for the analysis at 0.05% significant level. The findings of the study showed that there was a statistically significant correlation with r = 0.973 at significant level of 0.001. The second hypothesis showed that digital advertising information has a significant effect on consumer buying behaviour with r = 0.887 at the significant level of 0.000. The study concluded that the online update information, digital message coding, social media platform information and buyers’ patronage information affect consumer buying behaviour. The study commended that management of the organisations and other businesses must develop a strategy that would fully embrace digital advertising as a promotional mix in the marketing of their products to the digital populace.