Nicotine pouch adverts reach ten times more young men than women: targeting and reach on Meta social media platforms in the UK

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.