Nicotine pouch adverts reach ten times more young men than women: targeting and reach on Meta social media platforms in the UK
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Aims
To examine which demographic groups nicotine pouch advertisers chose to target on social media, and which groups Meta’s algorithms actually delivered the adverts to.
Design
Cross-sectional analysis of advert-level data from the Meta Ad Library.
Setting
Meta social media platforms (including Facebook and Instagram) in the UK.
Cases
A random sample of 741 nicotine pouch adverts shown in the 12 months up to December 2025, and a comparison sample of 1,125 general adverts. Analyses of reach were restricted to adverts eligible for all genders and adult ages (444 pouch adverts; 674 general).
Measurements
Outcomes were advertiser-set gender and age-group targeting criteria (i.e., groups eligible to be shown each advert) and estimated advert reach to each group (i.e., number of people who saw each advert). Male-to-female reach ratios within age groups, and reach ratios comparing age groups, were calculated per advert and summarised using geometric means. To assess whether patterns were pouch-specific, comparisons with general adverts were made using ratios of reach ratios (RRR).
Findings
Advertisers of nicotine pouches targeted a broad sample; most adverts (79.1%; 586/741) were eligible to be shown to all genders, the remainder were restricted to men only. All were restricted to adults (minimum age 18 years) and most (95.6%; 708/741) had no upper age limit. Despite this, of pouch adverts eligible to be shown to all adults, adverts were more likely to reach men, particularly among younger men. Among 18–24-year-olds, pouch adverts reached around ten times as many men as women (RR 10.0, 95% CI 8.7–11.5), compared with a slight skew towards women for general adverts (RR 0.81, 95% CI 0.71–0.94), corresponding to an RRR of 12.3 (95% CI 10.0–15.1). Pouch adverts also showed a skew in reach towards younger age groups. Relative to those aged 35–44 years, reach was higher among 18–24-year-olds for nicotine pouch adverts (RR 1.33, 95% CI 1.17–1.51) but much lower for general adverts (RR 0.19, 95% CI 0.17–0.21), corresponding to an RRR of 7.0 (95% CI 6.0– 8.2).
Conclusions
Nicotine pouch adverts on social media are often eligible to be shown broadly to all demographic groups but are disproportionately delivered to young men.
