Facebook continues to be fertile ground for advertisers, with News Feed ads outperforming all other ad units, according Socialbakers’ latest trends report. The social media management platform looked at Facebook and Instagram ad performance for more than 140,000 branded accounts during the second quarter of this year and found that 60% of the total ad spend on Facebook and Instagram is going to Facebook News Feed ads.
“Instagram feed came in a distant second at 20%, and the rest of the top five — Instagram Stories, Facebook suggested video and Facebook in-stream video — combine for about 10%,” reported Socialbakers.
What’s converting? Facebook vs. Instagram ads
It’s no surprise Facebook News Feed ads are getting the biggest piece of the pie when you look at what’s driving conversions. Per Socialbakers’ data, The placement was the highest converter compared to the other four ad placement options (Instagram News Feed, Instagram Stories, Facebook in-stream video and Facebook suggested video).
The report found Facebook News Feed ads averaged a 1.7% click through rate (CTR) during the second quarter of the year, followed by Facebook suggested video ads which earned a .75% CTR.
Facebook best for action-oriented campaigns
Socialbakers reported cost-per-impressions (CPM) across Facebook News Feed and Instagram News Feed ads are nearly the same at $1.80 and $1.65 respectively, but cost-per-clicks (CPC) are a different story when comparing the two platforms.
Facebook News Feed and Facebook suggested video ads offer the lowest CPC across both Facebook and Instagram ad units. In fact, the combined total CPC for Facebook News Feed, in-stream video and suggested video ads is the same as an Instagram Story ad — just over $0.05. The highest CPC was Instagram News Feed ads, which were slightly higher than the platform’s Story ads.
As Socialbakers points out, with CPMs nearly the same across both Facebook and Instagram feeds, there likely won’t be much cost disparity between Facebook and Instagram for brands running brand awareness campaigns — but for marketers looking to optimize ads designed to drive engagement or campaigns with specific call-to-actions (CTAs), Facebook’s lower CPCs represent the better deal.
Organic content performance on Facebook and Instagram
Socialbakers also looked at the types of organic content driving the most engagement across Facebook and Instagram. For Facebook, Live video far outperformed any other type of content when ranking it by the number of interactions a Live video post receives compared to a link, photo, status update or regular video.
Unfortunately, Live video posts accounted for less than 1% (0.4%) of organic posts published by the brands Socialbakers analyzed. That leaves a lot of room for brands to earn more organic engagement simply by hosting more Live video events on the platform.
On Instagram, organic Carousel posts drove the most interactions, but are only used 15% to 18% of the time in terms of branded organic content.
On Instagram and Facebook alike, most branded organic content are image posts. (Images account for 69% of branded organic content on Facebook and 73.5% on Instagram.)
Why we should care
Last year, multiple reports revealed Instagram ad spend was booming compared to ad spend on Facebook. Not only did Instagram outshine its parent platform on ad spend, Facebook’s daily active user growth rate remained flat during the second quarter of this year — but neither of these data points appear to be impacting Facebook’s standing as the ad giant among social platforms.
For marketers charged with delivering high performing CTRs — while keeping CPMs and CPCs in check — Socialbakers data confirms Facebook continues to prove itself, delivering strong and sturdy ad results.
About The Author
Amy Gesenhues is a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.