Increase in Social Advertising

More Retailers Are Investing in Social Advertising

Social ad spending is on the rise and particularly retailers will be funneling growth into this channel. A 2019 November Study by Smartly.io which is a social media advertising platform shows that more than half (52%) of US retail marketing teams polled said that they were planning to spend more on social advertising in 2020 than they did last year. Moreover, they will also be expanding their talent in order to better manage social advertising.  It is no surprise that Facebook is receiving a large share of these ad dollars. According to the article “Nearly every marketing team surveyed (96%) said that they bought social media ads on that platform.”  Below, I have posted graph that shows where US marketers are currently buying their social media ads. Facebook is the leader at 96% followed by LinkedIn at 76%, Twitter at 75%, Instagram at 59%, Snapchat 33% and Pinterest 16%.  I thought that Instagram would be a higher percentage, but it is not. I think this will increase over time though.

Of course, there is a reason for this increase in ad spending. The percentage of users who bought product directly through social media channels grew each quarter from Q4 2018 and Q3 2019 rising 13% to 21%, respectively. These companies want to start tapping into this growth wave.  Instagram will continue to be a popular platform since it allows customers to discover new brands and create awareness. Sales through these channels remains relatively low compared to e-commerce via mobile and the web.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out since more brands continue to advertise heavily on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. I also believe it depends on the type of business that you have as well, which would dictate which platforms to best spend your ad dollars.