Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising DIFFERENCES & BEST PRACTICES
A SOCIALBAKERS STUDY Facebook and Instagram are two of the biggest social media platforms, with a combined audience of over 2.7 billion users. The massive size of the networks’ community is currently being leveraged by more than 6 million marketers, which makes Facebook and Instagram some of the most popular spaces for social media advertising.
The large number of users is just one of many assets, though. Facebook and Instagram are offering businesses many possibilities to customize their marketing strategies, including multiple ad formats, a variety of precise ad objectives, and advanced targeting options. That’s why it’s not surprising that so many companies turn to the networks to advertise.
While both Facebook and Instagram can help marketers achieve their business objectives, it’s important to understand the differences between the platforms. In order to tap into the networks’ marketing potential, companies need to develop effective strategies that will play to Facebook and Instagram’s varying strengths.
In this whitepaper, we discuss the platforms’ distinct features and explain how to best leverage them for advertising. We also provide valuable insights based on our exclusive data to help marketers get the most out of their Facebook and Instagram presence. Table of Contents
Facebook and Instagram’s Audiences in Numbers 4
How Engaging Are Facebook and Instagram? 7
How to Select the Best Advert Format 9
What Ad Placements Should You Choose? 13
What Are the Most Popular Ad Placements? 15
How Engaging Are Different Ad Placements? 16
What Can You Achieve With Facebook and Instagram Ads? 17
What Are the Most Common Ad Objectives? 19
How Much Are Marketers Paying for Different Ad Objectives? 20
What’s the Correlation Between Engagement and Advertising Costs? 21
The Takeaway 23 Facebook and Instagram’s Audiences in Numbers
Whether you already have a strategy in place or you’re beginning to build one, knowing the key differences between Facebook and Instagram’s communities is necessary to develop a marketing game plan that’s properly tailored to each of the platforms. Here are some facts that will allow you to get a better idea of the audiences you are advertising to:
Monthly Active Users 1.94 800 billion million
Sources: VentureBeat: “Facebook Passes 1.94 Billion Monthly Users, 1.28 Billion That Use It Daily”; TechCrunch: “Instagram Now Has 800 Million Monthly and 500 Million Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 4 Daily Active Users” Facebook and Instagram’s Audiences in Numbers
Biggest User Age Group
25-34 25-34 year-olds year-olds (21% of user base) (25% of user base)
Average Time Spent on Platform 35 15 minutes minutes
Sources: Statista: “Distribution of Facebook users in the United States as of December 2016, by Age Group”; Statista: “Distribution of Instagram Users in the United States Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 5 as of December 2016, by Age Group”; Mediakix: “How Much Time Do We Spend on Social Media?” Facebook and Instagram’s Audiences in Numbers
Top User Locations India U.S. 241 million 88 million U.S. Russia 240 million 28 million Brazil Brazil 139 million 27 million
Sources: The Next Web: “India Overtakes the Usa to Become Facebook’s #1 Country”; Statista: “Leading Countries Based on Number of Monthly Active Instagram Users” Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 6 How Engaging Brands Receive More Engagement on Instagram Compared to Facebook Are Facebook Total Number of Interactions on Facebook and Instagram (in Millions) and Instagram? 7 7
Audience differences are not the only thing marketers should prioritize while developing their Facebook and Instagram strategies. The platforms also vary in terms of the engagement
volume, which can affect companies’ results and, consequently,
the way they are distributing their digital marketing resources. i ions 3 3
On Facebook, media companies receive over 4x more interactions than on Instagram. However, if you’re a brand, you might want to focus on Instagram, where brands’ engagement is over 3x higher compared to Facebook. Therefore, companies 7 7 unable to generate desired engagement solely on Facebook’s ntertainment e ebs edia rands ommunit marketing platform should use Instagram as a social media marketing tool as well. Some brands are more successful in achieving the results they require when they optimize their use of both platforms.
Chart Date Range: January 2016 - March 2017; Sample: 20,686 Entertainment, Celebrity, Media, Brand, and Community Facebook Pages and 9,972 Entertainment, Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 7 Celebrity, Media, Brand, and Community Instagram Pages TIP Just how much engagement your content will receive largely depends on the right timing. Knowing your audience’s behaviors is key to ensuring your posts will achieve maximum exposure and response. With PrimeTime Publishing in Socialbakers Suite, you’ll be able to publish at the optimal time and easily increase the number of interactions.
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 8 How to Select the Best Advert Format
In order to take full advantage of Facebook and Instagram’s potential to engage, it’s important to know the ad formats that drive the interactions. And because the platforms are different, marketers need to develop a slightly different strategy for each.
Single Image Photo An ad which allows you to create 6 An ad using 1 photo different versions of one ad using one image What to Use It For Drawing attention to your business through eye-catching photographs
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 9 How to Select the Best Advert Format
Single Video Video An ad using 1 video that’s up to An ad using 1 video that’s 120 minutes long up to 60 seconds long What to Use It For Complementing your TV advertising campaigns Telling more complex business stories
Carousel Carousel An ad using 2 - 10 An ad using 2 - 10 scrollable images scrollable images What to Use It For Directing users to specific places on your website Showcasing multiple products or services Explaining how your business or product work Telling a compelling story one image at a time
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 10 How to Select the Best Advert Format
Slideshow Stories An ad using a looping video with An ad consisting of one photo up to 10 images or video that’s up to 15 seconds long that appears between What to Use It For people’s stories Telling a brand story across devices What to Use It For Telling a brand story
Canvas An interactive ad allowing you to tell a story using a mix of photos and videos What to Use It For Grabbing users’ attention and encouraging them to interact with your ad Acquiring new customers Raising brand awareness
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 11 How to Select the Best Advert Format
One of the things marketers should consider while picking the right ad format is the story they want to tell. For example, if there’s one product in particular that a company wants to showcase, a single image ad might be sufficient. If marketers aim to promote a whole range of products or provide customers with additional information about the business, carousel or canvas ads would be a good choice.
The choice of the platform is even more significant. Facebook is great for driving sales while Instagram has potential to raise brand awareness, which means that your presence on both of these platforms should be closely tied with your business objectives.
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 12 Selecting a suitable ad format is equally important What Ad Placements to deciding where to place your ad. On Facebook, Should You Choose? you can select five different ad placements, while on Instagram your choice is limited to two different slots.
Feeds Stories Your ads appear within users’ News Feed. Your ads appear between people’s stories. Groups Your ads appear in Facebook groups. Feeds Your ads appear within users’ Feed. Right-Hand Column Your ads appear in a column on the right-hand side to users accessing Facebook on their computers.
Instant Articles Your ads appear within Facebook Instant Articles in the mobile app and Messenger.
In-Stream Video Your ads appear within videos on Facebook that are watched both on desktop and on mobile.
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 13 What Ad Placements Should You Choose?
The placements listed on the previous page only concern ads that appear directly within the platforms. Facebook offers marketers two additional placements that aren’t platform-bound: Messenger and Audience Network. In the case of Messenger, ads are delivered as messages directly to the users through the Messenger app. Audience Network is more comprehensive, as it enables marketers to go beyond Facebook and place their ads in third-party mobile ads and websites.
When choosing between the ad placements, keep in mind that the Right Column ads are only available for desktop while the Instant Articles, Messenger, Audience Network and Instagram ads will only appear on mobile. This information is essential to appropriately selecting ad placements for the stages of your audiences’ customer journey. Since most purchases are happening on desktop, marketers should consider desktop ads for the conversion stage and use mobile ads to reach users at the awareness stage.
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 14 Facebook Mobile and Desktop News Feed Are the Most Popular Ad Placements What Are Average Ad Placement Distribution on Facebook and Instagram
the Most Popular e s Feed obi e
Ad Placements? e s Feed es top
We discovered that Facebook is a more popular space obi e 6 for adverts over Instagram by researching how companies leverage available ad placements. Ri ht and o umn es top
Facebook News Feed is the most frequently chosen ad nstant rtic e placement, with 83% of ads appearing in its mobile and 79% in 1 its desktop version. Instagram is far behind, as only 27% and udience et or obi e 0.1% of ads were put within the platform’s Feed and Stories, 11 1 respectively. This means that businesses choose Facebook as their main advertising channel, while Instagram seems n tream ideo obi e to just be complementing their strategy. n tream ideo es top As the chart shows, there’s still a lot of room for adverts on Instagram, which is great news for marketers willing to essen er ome 4 move away from Facebook’s increasingly crowded advertising space. But which platform’s ad placements have returned best tor 1 1 results for marketers? We researched some of the longest existing slots to find out. essen er 1
Chart Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 587,767 ads published by Brands Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 15 How Engaging Are Different Ad Placements? We analyzed over 94,000 ads placed within the News Feed and Right-Hand Column across Facebook and Instagram to see how they differ in terms of engagement. Facebook Mobile News Feed Ads Have the Highest Click-Through Rate Median Ad Engagement by Placement Facebook mobile and desktop News Feed ads lead
. % the way with the median Click-through Rate (CTR) of 1.6% and 0.8%, respectively. On Instagram, marketers . % experience significantly lower engagement compared
. % to Facebook, as their CTR equals 0.3%. Finally, Right- Hand Column ads achieve as little as 0.1% CTR. . %
.8 % These numbers demonstrate that marketers’ business goals can be impacted by ad placement. For example, . % if a business aims to direct people to their website, they . % should consider investing in Facebook News Feed ads on mobile. Being aware of the marketing goals a company . % can achieve through particular ad placements will help . % ews Feed obile ews Feed esktop Instagram obile Right and olumn esktop you maximize your conversion rates.
n a ement edian R in
Chart Date Range: May - September 2017; Sample: 94,153 Facebook and Instagram ads, sourced from Socialbakers data; Note: Only ads with one ad placement Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 16 were considered Awareness
Brand Awareness — Improve brand recall and recognition by showing an ad multiple times to people more likely to pay attention.
Reach — Let the maximum number of people know about your business by reaching the highest possible number of members of your audience. What Can You Achieve with Facebook and Consideration Instagram Ads? Traffic — Increase the number of visits to your website and your app installs. App Installs — Direct users to an app store where they can get your apps.
Driving website traffic is not the only goal you can achieve Engagement — Make the maximum number of users interact with your content or Page. through advertising on Facebook and Instagram. In fact, Video Views — Get the maximum number of users to watch your videos. the platforms enable marketers to choose from a variety of Lead Generation — Gather information about your audience, such as email addresses, phone numbers, ad objectives that can effectively power business results. personal data, etc.
Conversion
Conversions — Encourage users to visit your website or use your Facebook, Instagram or mobile app.
Product Catalog Sales — Show users products from your product catalog. (Facebook exclusive)
Store Visits — Drive users to visit your brick-and-mortar business location. (Facebook exclusive)
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 17 What Can You Achieve with Facebook and Instagram Ads?
Even though ad objectives on Facebook To make the most of their ads, companies and Instagram might seem identical at first need to take an all-encompassing approach sight, we can see that Instagram lacks two - one that is aligned with the platforms’ conversion-related goals - product catalog varying marketing potentials and supportive sales and store visits. For this reason, the of the customer journey. Since many people platform has limited capabilities to drive use both Facebook and Instagram, you can direct sales, which is something marketers target them on Instagram at the awareness should keep in mind when developing their stage and subsequently retarget them social media strategy. with consideration and conversion-stage content on Facebook. This way, you will be Instagram can be best utilized for brand able to successfully nurture your audience marketing, that is building relationships further down the marketing funnel towards with your audience, increasing loyalty, the completion of your advertising goals. and raising brand awareness. Facebook, in turn, is great for performance marketing and advertising that brings measurable results, such as purchases and store visits.
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 18 Post Engagement is the Most Common Ad Objective on Facebook Distribution of Ad Objectives on Facebook What Are the Most Post Engagement 48% LinkLink Clicks Clicks 15% Common Ad Objectives? VideoPost Views Engagement 8% PageBrand Likes Awareness 8% Conversions Video Views 7% To help you gain a better understanding of the way marketers Brand Awareness are advertising on Facebook and Instagram, we researched Conversions 6% Reach 4% the most common ad objectives across the platforms. Reach Lead Generation 2% Other Other 2% Our analysis of roughly 9,000 brands’ Ad Accounts showed that companies are leveraging the platforms mainly to drive engagement and website traffic. These goals make up Link Clicks Are the Most Common Ad Objective on Instagram over 60% of all the advertising objectives across the Distribution of Ad Objectives on Instagram Ad Accounts we examined.
Link Clicks 36% The third most common advertising objectives reflect the Post Engagement 31% maturity of marketers who tap into Facebook and Instagram’s Brand Awareness 11% strengths. With the increasing consumption of video Video Views 9% content on Facebook, it makes sense that companies aim to Conversions 6% maximize the number of views of their video ads. In the case Reach 5% of Instagram, marketers are smartly leveraging the platform’s Other 2% high engagement to increase the number of link clicks.
Chart 1 Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 8,094 Brands’ Ad Accounts; Note: Ads targeting Facebook placements Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 19 Chart 2 Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 865 Brands’ Ad Accounts; Note: Ads targeting Instagram Mobile placement only Post Engagement Ads Receive the Biggest Share of Marketers’ Budget on Facebook How Much Are Distribution of Ad Spend by Ad Objective on Facebook
Marketers Paying for Post Engagement 39% Different Ad Objectives? Link Clicks 16% Video Views 10% Page Likes 12% Conversions 7% There’s a strong correlation between the distribution of ad Brand Awareness 7% objectives and the share of budget marketers invest in them. Reach 4% We discovered that the more common an ad objective is, Lead Generation 2% the larger portion of funds it receives. Other 3%
Marketers have a thoughtful Instagram strategy in place, choosing to invest mostly in link clicks, post engagement, Link Clicks Ads Receive the Biggest Share of Marketers’ Budget on Instagram and brand awareness. This, however, isn’t the case on Distribution of Ad Spend by Ad Objective on Instagram Facebook where companies aren’t taking full advantage of the platform’s vast capabilities to drive sales. We can Link Clicks 36% see that the most heavily funded Facebook ads are Post Engagement 27% related to brand awareness, whereas objectives bringing Brand Awareness 12% tangible business results, such as conversions and Video Views 11% lead generation, receive only 9% share of advertisers’ Conversions 6% budget. Marketers should rethink their Facebook spending Reach 6% and capitalize on the platform’s strengths by putting more Other money into conversion-related ads. 2%
Chart 1 Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 8,094 Ad Accounts; Note: Ads targeting Facebook placements Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 20 Chart 2 Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 865 Ad Accounts; Note: Ads targeting Instagram Mobile placement only What’s the Correlation Between Engagement We already know how much of their budget marketers are allocating in different and Advertising Costs? ad objectives. Now let’s look into the cost of Facebook and Instagram advertising.
Ineffective Advertising Costs Marketers More on Instagram than on Facebook In the case of both platforms, Cost-per- Correlation Between CPC and CTR on Facebook and Instagram Click (CPC) decreases together with the increase in Click-through Rate (CTR). . This correlation is especially visible .8 on Instagram, where ads with a CTR . of 0.0% - 0.1% are 16x more expensive . than ads with a CTR of 1.9% - 2.0%. . On Facebook, the worst-performing ads . cost nearly 10x more compared to the
in .8 top-performing ones.
.
. These numbers testify to the importance
. of creating effective ads for decreasing
. your advertising costs. Marketers who , . . , . . , . . , .8 .8, , . . , . . , . . , .8 .8, want to use their budget efficiently should R interva s in focus on developing better quality content Faceboo nsta ram that’s optimized for high engagement.
Chart Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 25,088 Instagram ads and 233,862 Facebook ads Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 21 Find out how to create appealing posts with our exclusive guide to the essentials to building great TIP content and start producing more successful ads today!
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 22 Facebook and Instagram are some of the most powerful digital advertising spaces, offering companies a wide range of advanced marketing capabilities. In order to unlock their full potential, businesses first need to understand that the platforms vary in many ways, including ad formats, placements, objectives, audience behaviors, etc. Because Facebook and Instagram are so different, they should always be viewed as distinct channels requiring their own unique marketing strategies.
Whether you’re present on Facebook, Instagram, or both, your strategy should always be founded on data analysis and measurement. Looking into some of your performance metrics, such as Fan Growth and Engagement, can provide you with plenty of valuable insights that you can utilize to upgrade your social media strategy.
Let’s say your company gained many new Followers on Instagram over the past six months. Without delving into data, you won’t be able to pinpoint the growth’s trigger and recreate it in the future. When did you gain most Followers? What type of ads did you publish within that period? How many interactions did they receive? These are just some of the questions you can answer with the help of data to keep successfully meeting your social media The goals. Takeaway However, measuring your own performance is just one side of the story. Looking at how the competition is doing will enable you to put your strategy into perspective and identify your strengths and weaknesses. For example, getting 1,000 new Instagram Followers might seem to be a lot - but what if your competitors grew their audiences by 5,000 users over the same time? Analyzing data will allow you to benchmark your performance against other companies, boost your strategy, and get ahead of the game.
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 23 The Takeaway
Social media success belongs to those who are actively analyzing their results, draw practical conclusions, and continuously optimize their performance. That’s why it’s crucial that companies are equipped with advanced analytics solutions, such as Socialbakers Suite.
With Socialbakers, you will be able to quickly measure the effects of your advertising efforts across multiple metrics and platforms in one place. In addition, you can easily visualize your data and export it in clear reports to keep your team and company up-to-date with your latest social media results.
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 24 Make your social media marketing smarter by measuring your performance across the most important platforms in one place. Written by Marta Buryan Designed by Kaylee Littleton Social Media Insights by Mantas Ciuksys Data Insights by Michaela Branova
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