Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Aug 14, 2019
Date Accepted: Oct 20, 2019
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Cost and effectiveness of using Facebook advertising to recruit young women for research: the PREFER (contraceptive preferences study) experience
ABSTRACT
Background:
Social media is a popular and convenient method for communicating online. The most commonly used social networking website, Facebook, is increasingly being used as a tool for recruiting research participants due to its large user base and its ability to target advertisements according to demographic information made available by Facebook users. We evaluated the cost and effectiveness of using Facebook to recruit young women into an online intervention study (PREFER).
Objective:
The PREFER study aimed to determine if an educational video could increase preference for and uptake of long-acting reversible contraception.
Methods:
We placed an advertisement on Facebook over a 19-day period from December 2017 to January 2018, inviting 16 to 25-year-old women from Australia to participate in an online study about contraception. Those who clicked on the advertisement were directed to project information and their eligibility was determined by a screening survey.
Results:
Our Facebook advertisement delivered 130,129 impressions, resulting in over 2,000 clicks at an overall cost of $918 ($0.44/click). Online project information was accessed by 493 women. Of these, 462 completed the screening survey and 437 (95%) were eligible. A total of 322 young women participated in Surveys 1 and 2 (74% response rate) and 284 participated in Survey 3 (88% retention rate) with an advertising cost of $2.85 per consenting participant.
Conclusions:
Facebook proved a quick, effective and cost-efficient tool for recruiting young Australian women into a study investigating contraceptive preferences. Online recruitment may however result in socio-demographic biases. Further research is required to evaluate whether Facebook is suitable for recruiting older study populations.
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