If you’re like most businesses, you increased your digital media budget this year. On average, marketers planned to boost that line item by 49% compared to 2018, according to Nielsen’s 2018 CMO report.
But did you know social advertising is growing even faster than other forms of digital advertising? Businesses increased their social media spending by 24% year-over-year while other digital ads only rose by 12%, according to a 2019 Q1 Merkle report.
Read on to learn what social platforms businesses are spending the most advertising dollars on in 2019.
1. A lot more ad spending on Instagram
Ad revenue on Instagram increased 44 % compared to last year. Stories accounted for 33% of sponsored posts, according to a 2019 Klear analysis. With the significant uptick in demand, the cost of the ads rose as well. That additional investment did lead to more exposure, found the Merkle report cited above.
2019 is the year most businesses have begun advertising on Instagram. That means you’ll no longer be able to get the low costs you used to. The advantage of that is that Instagram is now in a league very close to Facebook.
2. Facebook ad revenue declines slightly
For the first time, ad revenue dropped on Facebook by 2% compared to Q1 last year, according to a 2019 Q1 Merkle report. In another first, ads in the News Feed saw a decline in click-through-rate.
It may be worth taking a sliver of your Facebook budget and testing how those dollars perform on other platforms.
3. Keep an eye on Twitter
While Instagram is up and Facebook is down, Twitter is somewhere in the middle! In Q1 2019, Twitter did grow its ad revenue by 18% compared to the same time last year, according to Q1 2019 Twitter earnings.
If Twitter ads perform well for your business, keep them in the mix. If you haven’t yet advertised on Twitter, there’s no need to rush over as the audience is small. Twitter has 105 million monetizable daily active users (DAU) in Q1 2019. That’s small beans compared to the 500 million DAU who watch Instagram Stories.
4. Influencer posts continue to trend
Influencer posts on Instagram rose 150% in Q1 compared to last year, according to a 2019 Socialbakers report.
51 % of people find content posted by consumers or influencers is more authentic, according to a 2019 Olapic survey. In the same vein, 48% of people believe it’s more relatable than brand content while 37% think it’s unbiased and trust it more than content created by brands.
That increased trust led to action. 29% purchased because of an influencer post.
Soon, you may be able to leverage these already-effective posts in your Instagram ads. Branded content ads would allow you to take influencer posts and promote them as Instagram ads to your audience. Instagram is currently beta testing this feature, which should roll out in 2019.
5. Mobile game ads drive sales
If your target audience is into gaming, you can effectively reach them in that space. 25% of gamers purchased a product after seeing an advertisement in a mobile game, according to a 2019 AdColony survey. They actually prefer to see ads in mobile games as opposed to social platforms like YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram.
