Facebook vs.

Instagram Advertising
DIFFERENCES & BEST PRACTICES

A SOCIALBAKERS STUDY
Facebook and Instagram are two of the biggest social media platforms, with a combined
audience of over 2.7 billion users. The massive size of the networks’ community
is currently being leveraged by more than 6 million marketers, which makes Facebook
and Instagram some of the most popular spaces for social media advertising.

The large number of users is just one of many assets, though. Facebook and Instagram
are offering businesses many possibilities to customize their marketing strategies,
including multiple ad formats, a variety of precise ad objectives, and advanced targeting
options. That’s why it’s not surprising that so many companies turn to the networks
to advertise.

While both Facebook and Instagram can help marketers achieve their business
objectives, it’s important to understand the differences between the platforms. In order
to tap into the networks’ marketing potential, companies need to develop effective
strategies that will play to Facebook and Instagram’s varying strengths.

In this whitepaper, we discuss the platforms’ distinct features and explain how to best
leverage them for advertising. We also provide valuable insights based on our exclusive
data to help marketers get the most out of their Facebook and Instagram presence.
 Table of Contents
Facebook and Instagram’s Audiences in Numbers 4

How Engaging Are Facebook and Instagram? 7

How to Select the Best Advert Format 9

What Ad Placements Should You Choose? 13

What Are the Most Popular Ad Placements? 15

How Engaging Are Different Ad Placements? 16

What Can You Achieve With Facebook and Instagram Ads? 17

What Are the Most Common Ad Objectives? 19

How Much Are Marketers Paying for Different Ad Objectives? 20

What’s the Correlation Between Engagement and Advertising Costs? 21

The Takeaway 23
 Facebook and Instagram’s
Audiences in Numbers
Whether you already have a strategy in place or you’re beginning
to build one, knowing the key differences between Facebook and
Instagram’s communities is necessary to develop a marketing game
plan that’s properly tailored to each of the platforms. Here are some
facts that will allow you to get a better idea of the audiences you are
advertising to:

Monthly Active Users

1.94 800
billion million

Sources: VentureBeat: “Facebook Passes 1.94 Billion Monthly Users, 1.28 Billion That Use It Daily”; TechCrunch: “Instagram Now Has 800 Million Monthly and 500 Million
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 4
Daily Active Users”
Facebook and Instagram’s Audiences in Numbers

Biggest User Age Group

25-34 25-34
year-olds year-olds
(21% of user base) (25% of user base)

Average Time Spent on Platform

35 15
minutes minutes

Sources: Statista: “Distribution of Facebook users in the United States as of December 2016, by Age Group”; Statista: “Distribution of Instagram Users in the United States
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 5
as of December 2016, by Age Group”; Mediakix: “How Much Time Do We Spend on Social Media?”
Facebook and Instagram’s Audiences in Numbers

Top User Locations

India U.S.
241 million 88 million

U.S. Russia
240 million 28 million

Brazil Brazil
139 million 27 million

Sources: The Next Web: “India Overtakes the Usa to Become Facebook’s #1 Country”; Statista: “Leading Countries Based on Number of Monthly Active Instagram Users” Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 6
 How Engaging
Are Facebook Brands Receive More Engagement on Instagram Compared to Facebook
Total Number of Interactions on Facebook and Instagram (in Millions)
and Instagram? 700 700

Audience differences are not the only thing marketers should 600 600

prioritize while developing their Facebook and Instagram

strategies. The platforms also vary in terms of the engagement 500 500

volume, which can affect companies’ results and, consequently,

Millions
400 400
the way they are distributing their digital marketing resources.
300 300

On Facebook, media companies receive over 4x more 200 200

interactions than on Instagram. However, if you’re a brand, you
might want to focus on Instagram, where brands’ engagement 100 100

is over 3x higher compared to Facebook. Therefore, companies

0 0
unable to generate desired engagement solely on Facebook’s
2016 2017 2016 2017

Entertainment Celebs Media Brands Community

marketing platform should use Instagram as a social media
marketing tool as well. Some brands are more successful
in achieving the results they require when they optimize their
use of both platforms.

Chart Date Range: January 2016 - March 2017; Sample: 20,686 Entertainment, Celebrity, Media, Brand, and Community Facebook Pages and 9,972 Entertainment,
Celebrity, Media, Brand, and Community Instagram Pages
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 7
TIP
Just how much engagement your content will
receive largely depends on the right timing.
Knowing your audience’s behaviors is key to
ensuring your posts will achieve maximum
exposure and response. With PrimeTime
Publishing in Socialbakers Suite, you’ll be
able to publish at the optimal time and easily
increase the number of interactions.

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 8

 How to Select the Best
Advert Format
In order to take full advantage of Facebook and Instagram’s potential to
engage, it’s important to know the ad formats that drive the interactions.
And because the platforms are different, marketers need to develop
a slightly different strategy for each.

Single Image Photo

An ad which allows you to create 6 An ad using 1 photo
different versions of one ad using
one image

What to Use It For

Drawing attention to your business through eye-catching photographs

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 9

How to Select the Best Advert Format

Single Video Video

An ad using 1 video that’s up to An ad using 1 video that’s
120 minutes long up to 60 seconds long

What to Use It For

Complementing your TV advertising campaigns
Telling more complex business stories

Carousel Carousel
An ad using 2 - 10 An ad using 2 - 10
scrollable images scrollable images

What to Use It For

Directing users to specific places on your website
Showcasing multiple products or services
Explaining how your business or product work
Telling a compelling story one image at a time

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 10

How to Select the Best Advert Format

Slideshow
An ad using a looping video with
up to 10 images
What to Use It For
Telling a brand story across
devices
Stories
An ad consisting of one photo
or video that’s up to 15 seconds
long that appears between
people’s stories
What to Use It For
Telling a brand story

Canvas
An interactive ad allowing you to
tell a story using a mix of photos
and videos

What to Use It For

Grabbing users’ attention and
encouraging them to interact
with your ad
Acquiring new customers
Raising brand awareness

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 11

How to Select the Best Advert Format

One of the things marketers should consider while

picking the right ad format is the story they want to tell.
For example, if there’s one product in particular that
a company wants to showcase, a single image ad might
be sufficient. If marketers aim to promote a whole range
of products or provide customers with additional information
about the business, carousel or canvas ads would
be a good choice.

The choice of the platform is even more significant. Facebook

is great for driving sales while Instagram has potential
to raise brand awareness, which means that your presence
on both of these platforms should be closely tied with your
business objectives.

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 12

 What Ad Placements
Selecting a suitable ad format is equally important
to deciding where to place your ad. On Facebook,

Should You Choose? you can select five different ad placements, while on
Instagram your choice is limited to two different slots.

Feeds Stories
Your ads appear within users’ News Feed. Your ads appear between people’s
stories.
Groups
Your ads appear in Facebook groups. Feeds
Your ads appear within users’ Feed.
Right-Hand Column
Your ads appear in a column on the right-hand side to
users accessing Facebook on their computers.

Instant Articles
Your ads appear within Facebook Instant Articles in the
mobile app and Messenger.

In-Stream Video
Your ads appear within videos on Facebook that are
watched both on desktop and on mobile.

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 13

What Ad Placements Should You Choose?

The placements listed on the previous page only concern

ads that appear directly within the platforms. Facebook
offers marketers two additional placements that aren’t
platform-bound: Messenger and Audience Network. In the
case of Messenger, ads are delivered as messages directly
to the users through the Messenger app. Audience Network
is more comprehensive, as it enables marketers to go
beyond Facebook and place their ads in third-party mobile
ads and websites.

When choosing between the ad placements, keep in mind

that the Right Column ads are only available for desktop
while the Instant Articles, Messenger, Audience Network and
Instagram ads will only appear on mobile. This information
is essential to appropriately selecting ad placements for the
stages of your audiences’ customer journey. Since most
purchases are happening on desktop, marketers should
consider desktop ads for the conversion stage and use
mobile ads to reach users at the awareness stage.

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 14

 What Are Facebook Mobile and Desktop News Feed Are the Most Popular Ad Placements
Average Ad Placement Distribution on Facebook and Instagram

the Most Popular News Feed (Mobile) 82.7%

Ad Placements? News Feed (Desktop) 78.8%

We discovered that Facebook is a more popular space Mobile 26.8%

for adverts over Instagram by researching how companies
leverage available ad placements.
Right-Hand Column (Desktop) 23.9%
Facebook News Feed is the most frequently chosen ad
placement, with 83% of ads appearing in its mobile and 79% in
Instant Article 15.9%
its desktop version. Instagram is far behind, as only 27% and
0.1% of ads were put within the platform’s Feed and Stories,
Audience Network (Mobile) 11.1%
respectively. This means that businesses choose Facebook
as their main advertising channel, while Instagram seems In-Stream Video (Mobile) 9.0%
to just be complementing their strategy.
In-Stream Video (Desktop) 8.7%
As the chart shows, there’s still a lot of room for adverts
on Instagram, which is great news for marketers willing to Messenger Home 0.4%
move away from Facebook’s increasingly crowded advertising
space. But which platform’s ad placements have returned best Story 0.121%
results for marketers? We researched some of the longest
existing slots to find out. Messenger 0.001%

Chart Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 587,767 ads published by Brands Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 15
 How Engaging Are
Different Ad Placements? We analyzed over 94,000 ads placed within the News
Feed and Right-Hand Column across Facebook and
Instagram to see how they differ in terms of engagement.
Facebook Mobile News Feed Ads Have the Highest Click-Through Rate
Median Ad Engagement by Placement Facebook mobile and desktop News Feed ads lead
1.60%
the way with the median Click-through Rate (CTR) of
1.6% and 0.8%, respectively. On Instagram, marketers
1.40%
experience significantly lower engagement compared
1.20% to Facebook, as their CTR equals 0.3%. Finally, Right-
Hand Column ads achieve as little as 0.1% CTR.
1.00%

0.80% These numbers demonstrate that marketers’ business

goals can be impacted by ad placement. For example,
0.60%
if a business aims to direct people to their website, they
0.40% should consider investing in Facebook News Feed ads on
0.20%
mobile. Being aware of the marketing goals a company
can achieve through particular ad placements will help
0.00%
News Feed (Mobile) News Feed (Desktop) Instagram (Mobile) Right-Hand Column (Desktop)
you maximize your conversion rates.

Engagement: Median CTR (in %)

Chart Date Range: May - September 2017; Sample: 94,153 Facebook and Instagram ads, sourced from Socialbakers data; Note: Only ads with one ad placement
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 16
were considered
 Awareness
Brand Awareness — Improve brand recall and recognition by showing an ad multiple times to people more
likely to pay attention.

Reach — Let the maximum number of people know about your business by reaching the highest possible
number of members of your audience.

What Can You Achieve

with Facebook and Consideration
Instagram Ads? Traffic — Increase the number of visits to your website and your app installs.

App Installs — Direct users to an app store where they can get your apps.

Driving website traffic is not the only goal you can achieve Engagement — Make the maximum number of users interact with your content or Page.

through advertising on Facebook and Instagram. In fact, Video Views — Get the maximum number of users to watch your videos.
the platforms enable marketers to choose from a variety of Lead Generation — Gather information about your audience, such as email addresses, phone numbers,
ad objectives that can effectively power business results. personal data, etc.

Conversion
Conversions — Encourage users to visit your website or use your Facebook, Instagram or mobile app.

Product Catalog Sales — Show users products from your product catalog. (Facebook exclusive)

Store Visits — Drive users to visit your brick-and-mortar business location. (Facebook exclusive)

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 17

What Can You Achieve with Facebook and Instagram Ads?
Even though ad objectives on Facebook
and Instagram might seem identical at first
sight, we can see that Instagram lacks two
conversion-related goals - product catalog
sales and store visits. For this reason, the
platform has limited capabilities to drive
direct sales, which is something marketers
should keep in mind when developing their
social media strategy.
Instagram can be best utilized for brand
marketing, that is building relationships
with your audience, increasing loyalty,
and raising brand awareness. Facebook,
in turn, is great for performance marketing
and advertising that brings measurable
results, such as purchases and store visits.
To make the most of their ads, companies
need to take an all-encompassing approach
- one that is aligned with the platforms’
varying marketing potentials and supportive
of the customer journey. Since many people
use both Facebook and Instagram, you can
target them on Instagram at the awareness
stage and subsequently retarget them
with consideration and conversion-stage
content on Facebook. This way, you will be
able to successfully nurture your audience
further down the marketing funnel towards
the completion of your advertising goals.
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 18
 Post Engagement is the Most Common Ad Objective on Facebook

What Are the Most

Distribution of Ad Objectives on Facebook
Post Engagement 48%
Link
Link Clicks
Clicks
PostViews
Video Engagement
15%
8%
Common Ad Objectives?
Page Likes
Brand Awareness 8%
Conversions
Video Views 7% To help you gain a better understanding of the way marketers
Brand Awareness
Conversions
6% are advertising on Facebook and Instagram, we researched
Reach 4% the most common ad objectives across the platforms.
Reach
Lead Generation 2%
Other
Other 2% Our analysis of roughly 9,000 brands’ Ad Accounts showed
that companies are leveraging the platforms mainly to drive
engagement and website traffic. These goals make up
Link Clicks Are the Most Common Ad Objective on Instagram over 60% of all the advertising objectives across the
Distribution of Ad Objectives on Instagram
Ad Accounts we examined.

Link Clicks 36%

The third most common advertising objectives reflect the
Post Engagement 31% maturity of marketers who tap into Facebook and Instagram’s
Brand Awareness 11% strengths. With the increasing consumption of video
Video Views 9% content on Facebook, it makes sense that companies aim to
Conversions 6% maximize the number of views of their video ads. In the case
Reach 5% of Instagram, marketers are smartly leveraging the platform’s
Other 2% high engagement to increase the number of link clicks.

Chart 1 Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 8,094 Brands’ Ad Accounts; Note: Ads targeting Facebook placements
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 19
Chart 2 Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 865 Brands’ Ad Accounts; Note: Ads targeting Instagram Mobile placement only
 How Much Are Post Engagement Ads Receive the Biggest Share of Marketers’ Budget on Facebook
Distribution of Ad Spend by Ad Objective on Facebook
Marketers Paying for Post Engagement 39%

Different Ad Objectives? Link Clicks

Video Views
16%
10%
Page Likes 12%
Conversions 7%
There’s a strong correlation between the distribution of ad
Brand Awareness 7%
objectives and the share of budget marketers invest in them.
Reach 4%
We discovered that the more common an ad objective is,
Lead Generation 2%
the larger portion of funds it receives.
Other 3%
Marketers have a thoughtful Instagram strategy in place,
choosing to invest mostly in link clicks, post engagement, Link Clicks Ads Receive the Biggest Share of Marketers’ Budget on Instagram
and brand awareness. This, however, isn’t the case on Distribution of Ad Spend by Ad Objective on Instagram
Facebook where companies aren’t taking full advantage
of the platform’s vast capabilities to drive sales. We can Link Clicks 36%
see that the most heavily funded Facebook ads are Post Engagement 27%
related to brand awareness, whereas objectives bringing Brand Awareness 12%
tangible business results, such as conversions and Video Views 11%
lead generation, receive only 9% share of advertisers’ Conversions 6%
budget. Marketers should rethink their Facebook spending
Reach 6%
and capitalize on the platform’s strengths by putting more
money into conversion-related ads.
Other 2%

Chart 1 Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 8,094 Ad Accounts; Note: Ads targeting Facebook placements
Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 20
Chart 2 Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 865 Ad Accounts; Note: Ads targeting Instagram Mobile placement only
 What’s the Correlation
Between Engagement We already know how much of their budget marketers are allocating in different
and Advertising Costs? ad objectives. Now let’s look into the cost of Facebook and Instagram advertising.

In the case of both platforms, Cost-per-

Ineffective Advertising Costs Marketers More on Instagram than on Facebook
Correlation Between CPC and CTR on Facebook and Instagram Click (CPC) decreases together with the
increase in Click-through Rate (CTR).
$2.00
This correlation is especially visible
$1.80
on Instagram, where ads with a CTR
$1.60
of 0.0% - 0.1% are 16x more expensive
$1.40
than ads with a CTR of 1.9% - 2.0%.
CPC (in USD)

$1.20
On Facebook, the worst-performing ads
$1.00 cost nearly 10x more compared to the
$0.80 top-performing ones.
$0.60

$0.40 These numbers testify to the importance

$0.20 of creating effective ads for decreasing
$0.00
your advertising costs. Marketers who
(0,0.2] (0.2,0.4] (0.4,0.6] (0.6,0.8] (0.8,1] (1,1.2] (1.2,1.4] (1.4,1.6] (1.6,1.8] (1.8,2] want to use their budget efficiently should
CTR intervals (in %)
focus on developing better quality content
Facebook Instagram that’s optimized for high engagement.

Chart Date Range: January - June 2017; Sample: 25,088 Instagram ads and 233,862 Facebook ads Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 21
 Find out how to create appealing

TIP
posts with our exclusive guide to
the essentials to building great
content and start producing more
successful ads today!

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 22

 Facebook and Instagram are some of the most powerful digital advertising spaces, offering companies a wide range
of advanced marketing capabilities. In order to unlock their full potential, businesses first need to understand that
the platforms vary in many ways, including ad formats, placements, objectives, audience behaviors, etc. Because
Facebook and Instagram are so different, they should always be viewed as distinct channels requiring their own
unique marketing strategies.

Whether you’re present on Facebook, Instagram, or both, your strategy should always be founded on data
analysis and measurement. Looking into some of your performance metrics, such as Fan Growth and Engagement,
can provide you with plenty of valuable insights that you can utilize to upgrade your social media strategy.

Let’s say your company gained many new Followers on Instagram over the past six months. Without delving
into data, you won’t be able to pinpoint the growth’s trigger and recreate it in the future. When did you gain most
Followers? What type of ads did you publish within that period? How many interactions did they receive? These are
just some of the questions you can answer with the help of data to keep successfully meeting your social media

The goals.

Takeaway However, measuring your own performance is just one side of the story. Looking at how the competition is doing will
enable you to put your strategy into perspective and identify your strengths and weaknesses. For example, getting
1,000 new Instagram Followers might seem to be a lot - but what if your competitors grew their audiences by 5,000
users over the same time? Analyzing data will allow you to benchmark your performance against other companies,
boost your strategy, and get ahead of the game.

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 23

The Takeaway

Social media success belongs to those who are

actively analyzing their results, draw practical
conclusions, and continuously optimize their
performance. That’s why it’s crucial that companies
are equipped with advanced analytics solutions,
such as Socialbakers Suite.

With Socialbakers, you will be able to quickly measure

the effects of your advertising efforts across multiple
metrics and platforms in one place. In addition, you
can easily visualize your data and export it in clear
reports to keep your team and company up-to-date
with your latest social media results.

Socialbakers Studies: Facebook vs. Instagram Advertising 24

Make your social media marketing smarter by measuring your performance
across the most important platforms in one place.
 Written by Marta Buryan
Designed by Kaylee Littleton
Social Media Insights by Mantas Ciuksys
Data Insights by Michaela Branova

for