Guide
Generational marketing
How to advertise to different generations, from zoomers to boomers
Generational marketing is a strategy for tailoring your marketing efforts to appeal to specific age cohorts based on their unique characteristics, values, preferences, and behaviors. Gain tips and inspiration for how to best connect with relevant customers from different generations, including Generation Z, millennials, Generation X, and baby boomers.
Explore the global trends that are shaping our culture.
Start using Amazon Ads to display your products and create campaigns.
If you’re interested in additional support, get in touch to request services managed by Amazon Ads. Budget minimums apply.
Create cost-per-click ads to help customers find your products on Amazon.
What is generational marketing?
Generational marketing is a marketing strategy that involves engaging with customers by age group. This approach is based on the recognition that every generation has its own unique characteristics, experiences, and cultural influences that help drive their purchasing decisions. By understanding and playing to these distinctions, marketers can be more effective at increasing customer engagement and loyalty.
What is generational segmentation?
Generational segmentation is a type of demographic segmentation that involves grouping your audience into separate groups based on their age, and then tailoring your marketing efforts to each cohort in a way that reflects their characteristic wants and needs, communication styles, shopping habits, and life stage considerations. Although the exact dates used to define each generation vary slightly by source, the following categories are commonly used to describe the four generations most active in today’s consumer landscape:
- Adult Generation Z: Born 1998–2006
- Millennials: Born 1982–1997
- Generation X: Born 1966–1981
- Baby boomers: Born 1946–1965
Why is generational marketing important?
Generational marketing is important because it can allow advertisers to more effectively engage specific age groups who may represent high-potential and/or high-priority customers. The better you understand your core audience’s shared experiences, values, and preferences, the more fine-tuned your messaging can be.
What are the benefits of generational marketing?
The benefits of generational marketing can include improved customer engagement, increased conversion rates, a better return on ad spend, and increased brand loyalty. Even if your customer base spans multiple generations, you can help advance these marketing goals by adapting your approach according to each age cohort.
Considerations and best practices for generational marketing
Advertisers can use a generational marketing strategy to help inform their ad content, ad creative, and choice of marketing solutions. As a first step, advertisers should focus on understanding the key characteristics that help drive the behavior of their core audience—such as product interests, technological fluency, personal values, and spending priorities. Consider the following recommendations for effectively marketing to specific generations.
Marketing to Generation Z:
Generation Z has a strong preference for interactive advertising experiences that feel personalized and immersive—with 67% of adult Gen Zers surveyed saying they “believe advertising should enable creative interactions.”1 Accordingly, advertisers should adopt a digital-first mindset, with a particular focus on integrating interactive marketing techniques, such as livestreaming, video marketing, audio marketing, and social media. Advertisers should also prioritize inclusive storytelling as they develop their messaging, content, and creatives—with 65% of adult Gen Zers saying they “would like to see a greater variety of countries respected for their contributions to culture” (more so than any other generational cohort surveyed).2
Marketing to millennials:
Millennials are values-driven consumers who appreciate connection, authenticity, and transparency—with 71% of those surveyed saying that “it’s important for them to find commonalities with others” (more so than any other generational cohort surveyed).3 They also place importance on authentic brand messaging and seek out brands that support social and environmental causes. Like Gen Zers, a large majority (67%) of millennials agree that advertising should “enable creative interactions.”4 Consistent with these preferences and expectations, advertisers should consider using interactive ad formats, a robust social media strategy, values-based marketing techniques, and creator marketing to help engage millennial audiences.
Marketing to Generation X:
A unique differentiator for Gen X is its adaptability to both traditional and digital media. Therefore, advertisers can leverage the four P’s of marketing and various channels to help ensure they reach Gen Xers through the many mediums they engage with. At the same time, Gen Xers expect a high level of personalization in advertising—so avoid using clichéd marketing jargon, and consider using loyalty programs and/or tailoring product or service recommendations to this audience based on their past interactions with your brand.
Marketing to baby boomers:
Although baby boomers are accustomed to traditional forms of media (such as television, radio, and print), they tend to have longer attention spans than younger audiences and are willing to dedicate time to researching products and services. To engage this group, consider using established marketing tools like email marketing, direct mail, and print media while still focusing on delivering informative, value-adding content that showcases your brand’s value proposition.
Generational marketing examples and related research
Case-studies
Retirement services provider TIAA worked with hip-hop superstar Wyclef Jean and Amazon Ads to spark important conversations around financial literacy with younger generations. The first-of-its-kind branded entertainment campaign took the form of an original song, “Paper Right,” including a music video featuring multiple artists who discussed the importance of generational wealth and preparing for a financial legacy.
Case-studies
To increase consideration among adult Gen Z and millennial audiences, Reebok collaborated with Amazon Ads on a campaign built around a video-first strategy, leveraging insights that showed that adult Gen Z and millennial audiences engage most frequently with video content online. The strategy involved leveraging key Amazon entertainment channels where video is native and highly engaging: Fire TV, a digital media player and streaming device that helps drive reach and engagement by delivering full-screen videos on the largest screen in the home, as well as Twitch, a popular streaming destination that has a large following among adult Gen Z and younger millennial audiences.
Case-studies
Between November 2022 and January 2023, Amazon Ads and Kantar conducted a global study to better understand how consumers from different age groups are responding to an uncertain economic climate. Their findings help shed light on how adult Gen Z and millennial respondents are making purchase decisions—including by seeking out discounts and prioritizing brands whose values align with their own.
FAQs
Demand generation, lead generation, and marketing operations are separate marketing functions that work in tandem to support an organization’s overall marketing strategy. Demand generation focuses on creating awareness and interest in your product or service within your intended audience so you can establish a pipeline of prospective customers, whereas lead generation focuses on converting customer interest into actual sales. Marketing operations, on the other hand, is the function of overseeing an organization’s broader marketing program, campaign planning, and annual strategic planning activities—with the aim of increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of both demand generation and lead generation.
Millennials are the largest generation group in the U.S., with an estimated population of 72.24 million as of 2022.5
Baby boomers are the wealthiest generation in the U.S., with an aggregate total net worth of $78.55 trillion.6
1-4Amazon Ads custom research with Crowd DNA. From Ads to Zeitgeist. Dec 2023–Feb 2024. BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, IT, JP, KSA, MX, UAE, UK, US. Total n=21,600. Per country n=1,800.
5 Statista, 2023
6 U.S. News and World Report, 2024