June 28, 2016: Facebook gives a hint to advertisers, LinkedIn is auctioning banner ads, and the hits just keep on comin’ for Twitter:
Instagram Stages a Coup
In a news break that everyone saw coming for at least a year, Instagram just overtook Twitter as the preferred popular social media platform for advertisers, and in a response about as surprising as the news itself, Twitter rejected these findings.
But this survey may be the least of Twitter’s current issues, between its engagement woes and stagnant user base. Other results of the survey include the least surprising data nugget of all: regardless of the Twitter/Instagram duel, Facebook is still taking the gold overall, with 96% of advertisers choosing the network as the ultimate ad platform.
LinkedIn’s New “Buy it Now” Option
A la Ebay best practices, LinkedIn will officially start auctioning off its desktop-only display ads, making it easier for brands to buy banners and more cost effective for the social network to sell them. It had started selling traditional banner inventory via real-time bidding in 2015, but as of now it will be rolling out programmatic access to any advertiser interested.
What does this mean for advertisers? Cheaper ads, and (hopefully) a better return on investment. But considering that LinkedIn’s banner revenue declined by 30% year-over-year in 2016, this is less about helping advertisers, and more of a way for LinkedIn to focus more heavily on their native and mobile placements.
Facebook Wants to Experiment… With Ads
Every day, Facebook is getting closer and closer to the point where it will allow everyone- celebrities, publishers, and brands alike-to generate revenue on the social network, and the way it may plan to do that is by putting ads in Live videos.
At VidCon last week, a Facebook rep noted, “You can expect us to…experiment with a lot of different models that will be appropriate for certain creators.” He later specified, “Live videos tend to run longer, so you can imagine that an ad break in the middle of a live video could work well in that context.”
“Ad Block Usage is Decreasing,” Said No One Ever
When will we stop reporting on ad block usage, you ask? Maybe when it stops growing so quickly. The latest eMarketer reports estimates 87 million internet users will be blocking ads by the end of next year, which represents growth of 35% year over year.
No one needs to tell marketers why this is increasingly scary news, so let’s cut to the chase: to see the full report by eMarketer, check it out here, and to see how you can create a marketing strategy that allows you to stop worrying about that issue, check out our latest eBook here.
Two Ad Strategies Are Better Than One
Instagram and Facebook may be the two most desirable social networks for advertising, but you can’t necessarily repurpose an ad you made for one of the networks and place it onto the other.
MarketingLand just released a pretty thorough breakdown of best practices for advertising on both channels, including best-performing ad types on both networks, where the channels are similar for ads, and where they differ. Check it out here.
