Comparing the Sobel Test and Bootstrapping in the Effect of Social Media Marketing on Purchase Intention

Niel Ananto, Cherry Efraim Lumingkewas

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Marketing studies in Indonesia still frequently test mediation with the Sobel test, although the test assumes a normally distributed indirect effect and cannot evaluate moderated mediation. This study compares the Sobel test and percentile bootstrapping in testing brand trust as a mediator of the effect of social media marketing on purchase intention, and examines product involvement as a moderator of the brand trust–purchase intention path. An online survey of 200 followers of a brand's social media accounts was analyzed using PROCESS Models 4 and 14 with 5,000 bootstrap samples. Social media marketing increased brand trust (b = 0.593, p < .001) and purchase intention directly (b = 0.333, p < .001). In the full sample, both methods detected the indirect effect (Sobel z = 3.89; bootstrap 95% CI [0.090, 0.281]), but in random subsamples of 30 respondents the Sobel test detected it in only 19.0% of cases compared with 35.7% for bootstrapping. Product involvement strengthened the effect of brand trust on purchase intention (b = 0.250, p < .001), and the index of moderated mediation was significant (0.148, 95% CI [0.065, 0.227]). The indirect effect was not significant among consumers with low involvement. These findings support bootstrapping as the default test for indirect effects in marketing research, particularly for conditional process models.
Keywords: bootstrapping; brand trust; moderated mediation; product involvement; purchase intention; Sobel test

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37531/mirai.v12i1.12969

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