An analysis by media buying company Nanigans has found that retailers make a 10 per cent loss on their investment when advertising to Android users of Facebook. But when advertising to iOS users, they see an average 162 per cent return on their investment.

Although Android averaged the highest click-through-rate during the year at 2.75 per cent and cost-per-click is lower – $0.18 compared to $0.40 – revenue-per-click reaches $0.94 on iOS, while it comes in at just $0.15 on Android.

Retailers have shifted their mobile ad budgets over the course of 2013, the company found, going from spending less than 25 per cent of their budgets on iOS in Q1, to using over half on Apple handsets in Q3. Three times more retailers are now tracking their Facebook mobile campaigns than were at the start of the year, Nanigans found.

The company analysed nearly 200bn impressions from more than 100 retailers for its Facebook Advertising Benchmark Report, which gives recommendations on Facebook ad buying strategy.