Facebook ad spend up as marketers favour platform over Twitter
- 17 September, 2013 09:40
Marketers are ramping up their investments into Facebook advertising as the social media platform becomes a more important part of their marketing mix than Twitter, a new survey claims.
The survey was undertaken in August by US publication, Ad Age, in partnership with RBC Capital, of 1200 subscribers, and found 74 per cent of budgets now include outlays on Facebook ads. This is up from 54 per cent in the previous June 2012 survey.
The greatest majority (27 per cent) of respondents are spending up to 10 per cent of their social media budget on advertising. Overall, 83 per cent of marketers are using Facebook as a marketing channel, and 56 per cent expected Facebook ad budgets to rise in the next year. Respondents to the survey included both client-side and agency employees.
Facebook also topped both Twitter and LinkedIn in terms of most important advertising platforms from an ROI perspective, although the top spot was held by Google.
Mobile also shined through as a rising concern, and Facebook’s mobile app was rated as either ‘very important’ or ‘somewhat important’ by 74.5 per cent of respondents. This was up from 67 per cent the previous year, and was despite the fact that 38 per cent found the ROI on Facebook’s mobile and desktop ads to be about the same.
What was also apparent is that Facebook still has a way to go before it meets wider expectations around analytics and tracking. Two-thirds were ‘somewhat satisfied’ in the data and analytics tracking they received, but 20 per cent were ‘somewhat dissatisfied’. Respondents were also equally split on whether Facebook’s support for advertisers over the past six months has improved or stayed the same.
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In addition, 48.3 per cent said the ROI on Facebook hasn’t changed in the past six months, while 36.6 per cent cited some improvement. Nearly 8 per cent claimed its ROI had ‘somewhat deteriorated’.
More widely, about half the respondents to Ad Age’s survey spend between 1-10 per cent of overall marketing dollars on social media, while 16 per cent spend between 11-20 per cent.
More than two-thirds also expect total online advertising budgets to increase in the next 12 months.
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