These social media advertising statistics will inspire you to start your own campaigns (if you haven’t already). Learn how people are consuming ads across social networks, and how advertisers are connecting with the audience with increasingly relevant and targeted content.
Bonus: Download a free guide that shows you how to get the most out of your Facebook ad budget. Learn the tricks and tactics that will stretch your advertising dollars and improve ROI.
General social media advertising statistics
We all have to justify our budgets. The value of social media advertising can be hard to pin down, depending on which metrics you want to use (or how hard you squint).
But the latest numbers show that as ads get more relevant, users are turning to social media for purchasing research and inspiration. Even better, they’re taking action while they’re here.
A million new social media users are ‘born’ every day
As of 2018, there are 3.196 billion people using social media on the planet, up 13 percent from 2017 to 2018.
Seventy percent of people use social media daily in North America, but social media penetration is still at 42 percent globally.
People are spending more time on their feeds
On average, people around the world spend two hours and 15 minutes every day on social media, which is one out of every three minutes spent online.
In fact, people are spending more time on social than watching TV
Fifteen minutes more, to be precise. On average, 50 percent of people use Facebook daily, while only 39 percent watch television.
Ad revenue is up
Social media advertising revenue is forecast at $51.3 billion USD for 2018. That’s $17.24 per user. Revenue is set to grow 10.5 percent annually.
Budgets will double over the next five years
According to the latest CMO survey, social media advertising budgets are predicted to increase by 32 percent in 2018, and almost double by 2023.
Video spending is way up
In 2017, social video advertising spending leapt 130 percent compared to 2016. Forty-six percent of respondents in Hootsuite’s annual customer survey said they are already implementing social videos, with another 26 percent planning to implement at some point in 2018.
People want to be entertained and informed
The top four reasons people say they use social media are:
- To stay in touch with friends (41 percent)
To stay updated on current events (40 percent)
To fill up spare time (39 percent)
To find entertaining content (37 percent)
And they also want to buy stuff
The number eight reason people use social media? Research new products to buy.
Intrusive and irrelevant ads are easy to ignore
Forty-five percent of Americans used ad-blockers in 2017, though they may not use them all the time or on every device. China is blocking the most ads at 54 percent of users, but only 18 percent of users in Japan do. Meanwhile, 50 percent of people think ignoring online ads is easy.
The ads on social media are relevant to the people that see them
Fifty percent of Gen Z (18- and 19-year-olds) and 42 percent of millennials (20- to 36-year-olds) think social media is the most relevant channel for ads, according to Adobe’s State of Digital Advertising 2018 report. Meanwhile, everyone over the age of 37 thinks TV ads are more relevant, but they still rank social media second.
Across age groups, 35 percent of women and 22 percent of men identify social media as the most relevant channel for advertising.
Young people especially think ads are getting even more relevant
Fifty-seven percent of millennials and 45 percent of Gen Z—the demographics most likely to be on social media—agree that the ads they see are getting more relevant.
But marketers are still struggling to prove value
According to Altimeter, 84 percent of social marketers track and measure the effectiveness of social media efforts against defined goals and objectives, yet 29 percent are still trying to prove its value.
This makes sense given the disconnect between platforms’ return on investment (ROI) metrics like reach or engagement, and more complex business outcomes like reputation, customer insight and loyalty growth, which are tougher to measure. For a pragmatic approach based on interviews with hundreds of social media leaders, check out our comprehensive guide to social media ROI.
Social media users are primed for discovery
PwC’s Total Retail 2017 survey concluded that 59 percent of global consumers use social media as a source of inspiration for purchases; 34 percent of global consumers use social platforms to receive promotional offers; and 16 percent of global consumers will click on an ad that is relevant to them.
Meanwhile, Adobe Analytics says that social media ads drive three times more non-customers than existing customers to retailer websites as of 2018. This is up from 2.5 times in 2016.
They want to see brands in real life with real people
Fifty percent of US consumers say user-generated content—images and video from satisfied buyers—makes them more likely to buy a product from a brand’s social media channels.
Social media users are clicking the ‘buy’ button
Curalate found that 76 percent of U.S. consumers have purchased a product they’ve seen in a brand’s social media post. But your conversion rates might not show it: 65 percent of these people purchased the product at a later date. And 20 percent of them bought in-store, meaning social is sending foot traffic to brick-and-mortar.
Instagram advertising statistics
Only 11 percent of people around the world are on Instagram, but given the platform’s popularity with teens and millennials, that number is set to skyrocket.
Businesses are flocking to Instagram
As of September 2017, the platform had 2 million active advertisers (double what it was six months prior, in March 2017). Similarly, from July to November 2017 business profiles went from 15 to 25 million, out of 800 million users overall.
Accordingly, eMarketer predicts that Instagram will earn $5.5 billion in ad revenue in 2018, claiming five percent of the US digital ad market.
Users are keen on businesses
200 million users visit at least one business profile page every day; and two-thirds of those visits are from people who don’t follow said profiles (yet!).
Social video is hot like fire
Instagram launched Stories in 2016, and now 300 million accounts use Stories daily. Chalk it up to increased mobile usage, shorter attention spans, or the thrill of novelty, but social video is what the people want.
According to Instagram, there’s been an 80 percent increase in time spent watching video from 2016 to 2017. So it makes sense that 62 percent of marketers are planning to increase their social video spend in 2018.
Marketers are making really great Stories
Instagram reports that one-third of the top-viewed Stories are made by business accounts, and one in five Stories receive a direct message from viewers.
Even more telling: 60 percent of Instagram Stories video ads were viewed with the sound on in 2017. Compare that to Facebook’s seven percent (more on that below).
Stories ads keep getting better
Instagram wants their Stories ads to be as robust as their feed ads, so new features are added all the time—like scheduling or Carousel ads. The former has historically driven 30 to 50 percent lower cost-per-conversion and 20 to 30 percent lower cost-per-click than single-image link ads).
Instagram’s users want to chat
More than 150 million users have a conversation with businesses through Instagram Direct each month. One third of those messages start with an Instagram Story. This lines up with Instagram’s stated goal of increasing conversion naturally, using messaging and improved calls-to-action.
Facebook advertising statistics
The Facebook algorithm is undergoing big changes in 2018. Everyone’s wondering what, exactly, that’s going to mean for Facebook’s 6 million advertisers.
Facebook is still gaining users
With 2.2 billion monthly active users, (up 15 percent since 2017) advertisers can rest assured that Facebook is still the world’s social media heavyweight.
Advertisers are increasing spends
By the end of 2017, Facebook advertisers increased their spending 49 percent, to just shy of $40 billion. That growth stayed steady through the tumultuous first quarter of 2018, with ad revenues still up 50 percent at $11.8 billion. And remember that around 90 percent of those ads are mobile.
Advertisers are focusing on video
Thanks primarily to Facebook and WhatsApp, says eMarketer, mobile video viewing will rise 11.9 percent in 2018 to 1.87 billion viewers. Traditional advertisers are paying attention to those numbers: Facebook reported that during the 2018 Super Bowl,…
