Our world-class social media team here at evok advertising recently participated in a study of advertising trends on various social media channels through OTR Global.

In total, there were 16 participating social media experts, hailing from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Online agency media buyers, search agency directors, and social media analytic directors, all from different agencies and backgrounds, participated in this research to gather the most comprehensive data possible. The research findings for advertising on Facebook and Instagram are summarized here.

Larger User Base, Increased Ad Spending

Facebook has been the leading social media platform for most of the digital age, and it doesn’t show any signs of letting up just yet. At the end of quarter one 2016, Facebook alone had a total of three million active advertisers.

This number has grown by 50 percent since last year. It is becoming even more all encompassing with its highly successful photography focused subsidiary, Instagram. To this day, our views on Facebook as an advertising tool remain positive. In the future we expect video advertising on Facebook and Instagram to become the next big thing.

Spending on Facebook is continuing to grow in Q2 of this year just as fast as it had in the previous quarter. Advertising spending with Facebook is up quite a bit because of its subsidiary, Instagram. One reason for this sudden increase is the new trend of short form video advertisements, a form of video that fits Instagram’s platform perfectly.

Auto-play videos are also beginning to be implemented on Facebook. These videos do have a higher CPM than any other options for advertising on these platforms, but they are the top performers due to higher engagement.

Changes in Pricing Models

Instagram is predicted to generate $2.81B in mobile ad revenues worldwide by the end of 2017. Even though spending on Instagram is continuing to increase, it’s in no way taking money from Facebook advertising. Now that it is possible to push Facebook posts onto Instagram, the two platforms are working hand in hand better than ever before.

One negative thing about Facebook’s video advertising is its continued increase in pricing. This isn’t completely bad news for advertisers, because it means that the ads are effective and in high demand among other brands. If your brand is competing for the same demographic as the brands that are already buying video ads in these spaces, then you know that you’re looking in the right places.
An Emphasis on Ad Tracking

Both Facebook and Instagram have excellent ad tracking services, and the reason why advertisers are continuing to spend with them, as opposed to other site with less developed tracking services. Facebook’s new tool, Delivery Insights, is helping advertisers figure out which ads are performing well and those that aren’t delivering as well.

This brings us to the importance of ROI. It’s so easy now to figure out what type of ads deliver the best ROI in each target demographic with this new reporting tool. A lot of advertisers are saying that video ads are the best at delivering reach and a tremendous ROI.

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