If you’re not sure why you should put money behind your social media campaigns, these social media advertising statistics should help.
Here’s a rundown of essential social media marketing advertising statistics that every marketer should keep in their back pocket to help inform their 2023 ads strategy.
By now, everyone doing social understands that you can’t get by on organic posts alone. Brands need to tie in paid advertising to work alongside social media holistically. Each strategy positively impacts the other, so make sure you’re putting aside some dollars to invest in paid social alongside organic in 2023.
With so many channels, running ads on social media can feel overwhelming at times. But don’t worry. We’ll guide you through vital ad stats to help you understand where you should be allocating your ad budget and resources for successful campaigns.
Bonus: Download a free guide to social advertising and learn the 5 steps to building effective campaigns. No tricks or boring tips—just simple, easy-to-follow instructions that really work.
As social media platforms become highly monetized and brands move toward including social commerce as part of their conversion strategy, it’s unsurprising that companies are looking to spend big on social media ads. After all, why wouldn’t you advertise where over 3.6 billion people regularly hang out?
From 2020 to 2025, the number of people worldwide who use social media is expected to grow from 3.6 billion to 4.4 billion. That’s over half of the entire planet’s population scrolling through social feeds.
You heard it here first (well, in our Social Trends 2022 report) that short-form video is back en vogue. Thanks in part to the continued rise of Instagram Stories, Reels, and TikTok, snappy video content also translates to how marketers are reaching audiences with ads.
Source: eMarketer
Surprisingly, half of adult internet users say that when brands use their data in advertising, it helps them discover (50%) and find (49%) products and services that interest them.
Given that advertising has been in a bit of flux since Apple introduced additional privacy measures that allow iPhone users to opt-out of sharing trackable data, these statistics signal that all is not lost for marketers reliant on ads to grow their business.
52% of social media users say that when a platform protects their privacy and data, it’s incredibly impactful on their decision to interact with the ads or sponsored content they see on the channel.
Ads on social media had worldwide revenue of $153 billion in 2021, and this number is expected to grow to over $252 billion in 2026. The first biggest advertising market? Search advertising.
But if brands want to make a splash, they’ll have to work harder to create ads that mirror and enrich the distinct experience each social network offers. Social media managers will need to get creative as the ad space becomes more competitive and produce high-quality content that mirrors each network’s distinct experience.
And annual advertising spends on social media topped $134 billion in 2022, an increase of over 17% YOY (that’s an additional $23 billion!)
Does this signal that brands should expect a continual increase in CPM throughout 2023?
This doesn’t mean the end of running social ad campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But, marketers will need to look towards modern-day favorites: TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat, to reallocate some of their ad budgets as these channels grow in popularity (especially TikTok).
And because these channels are less saturated, there’s more chance of ads gaining traction and impressions.
Woah! That means that ad campaigns on Instagram can reach over half of Instagram’s 2 billion users in 2022.
For marketers, this is valuable information signaling the platform is where everybody seems to hang out and, more importantly, can be reached with an ad.
This figure is over a quarter of the platform’s global net ad revenues. Ad spending is also growing faster for Stories than for the Instagram Feed. Markets would be foolish not to distribute their ad budget across Stories, Reels, and Feed to maximize impressions and clicks.
Source: eMarketer
If paid is part of your social media strategy, it’s worth noting that Instagram’s ad reach is skyrocketing past Facebook’s right now. Could this signal a trend that audiences are engaging more frequently on other channels?
Insta’s popularity continues to grow, and so does its ad reach. If you’re looking to spend your ad budget on Instagram, it might be worth also knowing that their ad reach has grown by over 60% over the past two years.
Source: Hootsuite
For marketers, this signals that Instagram is the perfect place to run ads that target both these demographics.
Source: Hootsuite
Will advertising on Reels take off in 2022? Or will marketers rely on Stories and Feed ads to generate impressions and clicks?
Source: eMarketer
Our advice for marketers is to test and try new ad formats and figure out what works best for you. For example, some brands may find more success on Reels for running ads in 2022, whereas others might see higher impressions and clicks through Feed, Stories, and Explore.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Whatsapp (collectively known as Meta’s Family of Apps), saw ad impressions grow by 10% in 2021. This is one to watch as this number could steadily increase if Meta introduces the capability to run ads on Whatsapp, its only unmonetized app in the family.
According to Meta, “on the impressions side, we expect continued headwinds from both increased competition for people’s time and a shift of engagement within our apps towards video surfaces like Reels, which monetize at lower rates than Feed and Stories.”
For social media marketers, this could mean thinking carefully about how to distribute their ad budget for maximum impact.
Given that there are 7.7 billion people globally, the volume of people who regularly use Facebook is a staggering statistic that marketers should pay attention to.
For targeting ads, the predominant group is men aged 18-34, with women in the same age group trailing slightly behind.
Put simply, if you want to get your business eyeballed by a target audience, Facebook is still proving itself to be one of the go-to channels to run an ad campaign.
If this spending pattern continues to trend upwards, Facebook could look to net over $65 billion in ad revenue by 2023.
Source: eMarketer
Yup, we love to see it! Facebook is still dominating the market as the world’s most-used platform, beating out YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram to first place.
For marketers, this means that having a presence on Facebook is essential to help increase brand awareness, run targeted ad campaigns, and build a community.
Running ads within Marketplace might be at the top of your paid ads strategy, but ignoring the channel (especially if you’re in the B2C market) could mean that you’re missing out on building potential customers.
Meta reports that over 562 million people have the potential to be targeted on Marketplace. That’s 26% of Facebook’s total advertising reach.
The company will also be focusing on performance advertising to help push this number skyward in 2022.
With more people turning to run ads on Twitter in 2021, this number is expected to continually increase in 2022. Consider whether it’s worth getting in on the Twitter advertising action now, before the space becomes overly saturated.
Is this a signal that Twitter’s mDAU will continue to trend upwards in 2022?
Which isn’t surprising because American’s seriously love Twitter. The USA is the country where Twitter is the most popular with over 77 million users, closely followed by Japan and India with 58 and 24 million people logging into the microblogging site.
So, if your target audience for ad campaigns is the US market, Twitter is the perfect social network to run campaigns.
For marketers, this signals that Twitter is the space to craft ad campaigns that target a slightly older generation.
While this figure isn’t wildly high, it’s important to remember that Twitter is a relatively niche platform and that 5.8% of people could well be your engaged target audience.
This number has held steady since 2020, so advertisers shouldn’t need to worry about their campaign not getting eyeballed. However, this does mean that with such a short amount of potential impression time, Twitter ads need to stand out and be creative and engaging.
Running ads on Twitter is relatively low cost. The average CPM is $6.46. That’s 78% lower than Pinterest’s, which is $30.00 CPM.
Compared to Q4 2020, Snapchat’s DAU count increased by 20% to 319 million. This trend represents a fifth consecutive quarter that the social media platform has seen increasing daily active users.
It looks like getting your brand featured on the Snapchat Discover segment isn’t a bad call.
Also, note that 72% of Snapchat ad viewers weren’t even reachable by TV ads, according to the same Neilsen study.
TikTok has officially become the video platform of choice as we see more users logging in at least once per month compared to Snapchat. But, all is not lost for advertisers!
By 2025, Snapchat will reach just under 50 million Gen-Z users, making the platform an ideal space to run ads that target that demographic.
Gen-Z recall ads are more than double the rate of Gen-X. The kids of today have an impressive 55% recall rate, compared to boomers, who have a 26% recall rate.
Source: Snapchat
For brands advertising on Snapchat, it’s essential to incorporate audio into your ads for an effective campaign.
Want more Snapchat ad goodness? Check out this complete guide on how to get the most out of your Snapchat ad strategy.
According to the most recent LinkedIn statistics, the platform is growing with 675 million users worldwide.
In America, according to Pew, the more money a person makes and the more education they have, the more likely they are to use the platform.
Whether you’re looking to target groups based on experience, industry, or business size, LinkedIn provides you with over 200 targeting characteristics to help ensure your campaigns get seen by the right people.
Almost 57% of the platform’s users are male, compared to 43% of female users.
India came in a close second with 81 million users on the professional social networking platform.
Because LinkedIn’s advertising can target users by industry and job title, it’s particularly useful in generating leads for both marketing and sales folks.
And cost per lead on LinkedIn is 28% lower than on Google AdWords, making the platform more attractive for a business’s bottom line.
LinkedIn helps marketers connect with a dedicated, professional audience and TKTK.
This is the highest CPC of the major channels.
Ready to skyrocket your LinkedIn ads strategy? Our complete guide to all things LinkedIn ads will help you get ready to increase your lead generation in a heartbeat.
For your ad to be seen by 1,000 people on YouTube, this will set you back $9.68. This is the second-highest CPM, with Pinterest hitting the top spot with a CPM of $30.00.
This is a considerable difference from Twitter’s CPC, which is a lowly $0.38.
They also have a 32% higher lift in ad recall. Combining demographics and intent only slightly increases ad performance above targeting by intent alone. People watching YouTube ads targeted by intent also skip ads less and watch ads for longer than people watching ads targeted by demographics.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, YouTube’s ad revenue totaled $8.6 billion, a huge increase from their Q4 2020 figure of $6.8 billion.
Remember that if you decide to run an ad campaign on TikTok, you’ll need to ensure that your creative matches the channel’s ethos. Put simply, keep things light and on-trend.
This isn’t unsurprising given the platform’s favorability with Gen-Z.
The rising social media video platform is hoping to bring home an impressive $12 billion in advertising revenue, a substantial jump from the $4 billion is made in 2021.
This is around half of Facebook’s MAUs. Not bad for a social networking site that’s been operating since 2016.
Household names including IKEA, Nestle, and Toyota are yet to unlock the power of short-form video on TikTok, making more room and less competition for brands already using the platform.
Is nowhere safe from the power of TikTok?
11% of users spend between five and ten hours a week on the app, and 30% of worldwide users spend less than one hour a week scrolling videos.
Feeling pumped to start creating thumb-stopping ad content on TikTok? Our guide to running ads on TikTok has everything you need to get started.
Use Hootsuite Social Advertising to easily keep track of all of your social media activity — including Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn ad campaigns — and get a complete view of your social ROI. Try it free today.
Easily plan, manage and analyze organic and paid campaigns from one place with Hootsuite Social Advertising. See it in action.
Free Demo
Automate your work, save time, and build better relationships with your audience by using the right social media marketing tools.
Pin down the social media metrics that really matter and learn how to track them to build a winning social media presence.
Social media statistics are a marketer’s best friend. This data should inform your marketing and social media strategy for the year ahead.
If your social posts are visually unappealing, they'll be lost in the feed. Learn the best social media design tips to help you stand out.
We could have SWORN you were someone who wanted to grow on social media and beat your competitors. Our bad. We’ll just leave this 60-day free trial here for someone else then…
