Perceived personalization of social media ads and online compulsive purchase

Abstract

The increasing integration of social networking, online shopping, and personalized advertising has created a digital environment in which consumers are continuously exposed to consumption-related cues. This study examines the effects of heavy social networking, financial social comparison, materialism, and perceived personalization of social media ads on online compulsive purchase. It further investigates whether perceived personalization of social media ads strengthen the effects of heavy social networking, financial social comparison, and materialism on online compulsive purchase. Data were collected from 361 consumers in Türkiye and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS 4. The results show that financial social comparison, heavy social networking, materialism, and Perceived Personalization of Social Media Ads all have significant positive effects on online compulsive purchase. Financial social comparison has the strongest effect, followed closely by heavy social networking and materialism, while the direct effect of Perceived Personalization of Social Media Ads is comparatively smaller. Contrary to expectations, Perceived Personalization of Social Media Ads do not significantly moderate any of the three proposed relationships. The model explains 50.2% of the variance in online compulsive purchase, and PLSpredict and CVPAT results further support its out-of-sample predictive ability. The findings indicate that personalized advertising contributes directly to online compulsive purchase rather than intensifying the effects of consumers’ social networking, financial comparison, or materialistic tendencies. The study provides a more differentiated understanding of how consumer-related factors and personalized advertising operate together in online compulsive purchasing.