Dive Brief:
- Retailers increased their ad spending on Facebook by 200% over the last year, according to social media advertising company Nanigans and as reported by Internet Retailer.
- Retailers' average return on investment for ad spend on Facebook increased by 75% over the last year.
- 80% of retailers' ad dollars on Facebook went to reach consumers on mobile devices.
Dive Insight:
Facebook is far and away the most popular social media platform for advertisers worldwide. A recent eMarketer forecast predicted that about 68% of all ad spending on social media will go to Facebook this year.
Even though all advertisers are moving ad spending on Facebook to mobile, Internet Retailer reports that breakdown isn’t quite as dramatic for online retailers, who are allocating 65% of budgets to mobile ads. Still, that figure is up 13% over the last year, showing the clear trend toward mobile ads on Facebook.
Dynamic ads are one ad format that appears to be especially popular with retailers on Facebook, with online retailers increasing their spending on the format by 14% over the last quarter. The platform's dynamic ads enable brands to serve targeted ads to users who have already looked at products on the retailer's site or mobile app.
In an online ecosystem fraught with ad blocking, Facebook has been very good about keeping users and advertisers happy. Facebook wants to serve its users with ads that provide a good user experience, and it also wants to provide its advertisers with value. Sometimes that means Facebook has to make tough decisions that impact its ad revenue: Recently, the platform dropped banner ads from its ad platform entirely after testing discovered the ads were providing a poor user experience and were not bringing advertisers the same value as native and video ads.
