Although Instagram only accounts for about one-fifth of Facebook’s total ad spend, in Q2 2019 the 50 largest business profiles had the same audience size on Instagram as they did on its parent company. Not only that, user engagement on Instagram was significantly higher than on Facebook for those top 50 business profiles during Q2 2019, per a report [download page] from Socialbakers.
That being said, the data for Q2 2019 also shows that advertisers seeking clicks might be better served directing their attention to Facebook than to Instagram. Indeed, the click-through rate (CTR) on ads in Facebook’s news feed stood at 1.7%, while the CTR for Facebook suggested video ads was close to 0.8%. By comparison, Instagram did not fare as well, with ads in its feed and Stories producing CTR at roughly 0.25% or lower.
While CTRs for Facebook news feed ads are higher than other ad placements, additional Q2 2019 data from Merkle found that, among its North American clients, CTR for ads in Facebook’s news feed decreased by about one-quarter (26%) year-over-year (y-o-y).
There does seem to be some potential when it comes to Facebook suggested video ads. Not only does Facebook suggested video have the second-highest CTR of the 5 placement types analyzed, but it also has the lowest cost-per-click (CPC) and CPM of the placements.
Currently, though, advertisers are allocating just a small fraction of their spend to suggested video ads, with Facebook feed ads instead receiving the lion’s share of investment.
Distribution of Facebook and Instagram Post Types
As a platform primarily based on visual content, it’s not surprising that nearly three-quarters (73.5% share) of posts on Instagram during the second quarter were images. Images also make up the largest share of Facebook posts, at 69.9%. For both platforms, video takes up the next largest share of post types (13.7% for Instagram; 16.6% for Facebook).
Socialbaker did reveal that carousel posts, which account for the smallest share (12.7%) of Instagram posts, had the highest organic post interactions. This is in contrast to Instagram benchmark data from Quinty which found that video had the highest interaction rate of all of the types of posts, a difference in result that may owe to variance in the profiles analyzed.
Instagram Influencer Use Grows
Influencer use by brands does not appear to be slowing down. In fact, the number of posts that used #Ad grew by one-third (33%) y-o-y in Q2 2019. The report notes that this figure does not include influencers who do not include #Ad on sponsored ads (although they are required to).
Walmart tops the list of brand mentions by influencers for the second quarter of 2019, with more than 1,500 mentions and 616 influencers.
You can find the complete report here.
About the Data: Chart data is based on Socialbakers’ Brands Ad Accounts Benchmarks. Ad spending data is based on a global sample of 143,385 Facebook Brand Pages.
