Survey suggests bright days ahead for social media advertising

In just a few short years, advertising on social networks has grown to take up an increasingly big chunk of brands marketing budgets. To better understand the impact and power of advertising on social, Paragone recently conducted a survey of our platform users.

An average of 7,000 ads are created daily on the Paragone platform by our 4,000 active customers. All our users were invited to respond to a list of questions focused on analyzing marketers’ behavior, in order to help us anticipate the market’s future needs.

And the results were very interesting! Leading the pack, it’s clear that Facebook has been instrumental in providing advertisers with unbeatable reach through access to a user base of more than two billion people, as well as very granular targeting options. Facebook, and it’s larger footprint including Instagram and the Audience Network, has become a staple for digital marketers.

The survey results did, however, suggest performance marketers have noticed an evolution of options from other social networks like Snapchat and Twitter, who have spent the last few years adapting their advertising offers to better suit businesses.

Facebook dominates

Our survey revealed that over 78% of advertisers use Facebook as their main advertising channel. The social network giant still offers the most powerful targeting options, allowing advertisers to target an ultra-precise audience down to specific age groups, interests and more.

Although Facebook is always offering advertisers the ability to optimize their ads for new goals and objectives, driving traffic to websites is the most popular goal for Facebook advertisers on Paragone, with just over 46% of respondents choosing this option. The goal of driving engagement came in second with 28% of respondents saying it was most important to them.

In order to keep appealing to advertisers, Facebook is always striving to innovate and propose new advertising formats. Over 81% of our respondents said they are satisfied with the new formats proposed by Facebook in the last year. These include new ad options in Facebook Messenger, as well as the Canvas ad format, allowing a combination of videos and panoramic images for a fully immersive mobile experience.

The growth of video ads

Close to 27% of respondents stated that video ads are their format of preference. Indeed, in a world where mobile has become the default consumption method for many consumers, video has become THE viral communication medium par excellence and is a must in brand communication strategies. Video advertising has the power to present information in an attractive format that clearly communicates brand messages and product features.

The importance of video is reflected in the fact that, today, all major social networks have integrated video into their advertising options.

Snapchat is a key platform for advertisers who use the video format, and one which seems to drive unparalleled levels of brand recall. In a survey conducted in 2017 by Paragone and FIFG, 55% of respondents recall advertisements seen on the platform.

The emergence of new channels for advertisers

While Facebook itself dominates the social ads market today, close to 77% of advertisers anticipate Instagram becoming their main acquisition channel within the next two years.

Finally, over 94% of those we surveyed said they plan to increase their social media advertising investments in the coming years. Looks like the future of advertising on social networks is bright!

What else could the future bring for social media ads? Here at Paragone we see Artificial Intelligence (AI) playing a bigger and bigger role in advertising effectiveness and optimization. And we’ve written a guide to give you a picture of AI in social media today, and what the future could look like. Download it free today!