Marketers are spending more on social advertising and exploring a wider variety of platforms, according to a new study by Hanapin Marketing.
The State of Paid Social found that 97 percent of surveyed marketers are currently spending on social advertising, an increase of 10 percent compared to 2018. In addition, those who are spending more than half of their budget on social went up three percent.
Hanapin speculates that the rise in social advertising could be a direct response to rising cost-per-click (CPC) in search, which continues to climb year over year. Another possible reason is that additional platforms, including Reddit and Quora, have recently introduced new targeting options and ad formats for brands.
Facebook remains the top social advertising platform, with 91 percent of respondents using it. However, 26 percent indicated plans to reduce spending on Facebook ads over the coming year. Of those, 30 percent cited Facebook’s scandals and privacy issues as the cause.
Those remaining 2019 ad dollars are instead being funneled into Instagram (20 percent more) and YouTube (38 percent more) compared to last year.
In 2020, marketers intend to explore more options, the study found. Quora, in particular, has piqued the interest of marketers in the year ahead. Whereas nine percent planned to increase ad spend on Quora in 2019, that number is now 27 percent. Hanapin adds that nearly double the amount of agencies reported that they would pitch Quora to their clients than last year.
YouTube is another outlet that is expected to attract more ad spend in 2020, with 51 percent of respondents indicating a planned increase. Snapchat, despite recently adding new advertising options, is not attracting more respondents’ budgets in the coming year. While eight percent plan to spend more on the platform, the same number is likely to decrease spending.
The success of social marketing ads differs depending on the devices on which they are viewed, according to respondents. LinkedIn, for example, is the most successful on desktops but Facebook does better on mobile devices. (Note: Measurement of success was not disclosed in the report.)
Last year, carousel ads were all the rage but that dynamic has shifted to video ads, lead ad forms and dynamic product ads.
“We are becoming conditioned to favor video as a means of communication and it is unsurprising that social media consumption would reflect that behavior,“ the report indicates.
The State of Paid Social report was based on data from a survey of 273 marketers working for either for brands or agencies, holding a variety of roles from manager to C-level executive. The segments represented retail, SaaS, technology, business services, real estate, manufacturing, insurance, publishing, consumer services
