Facebook Ad Business Grows, Dip in Revenue for Twitter: Report

RMN Digital | April 22, 2014 | Social, Social Media, Web Tech | No Comments

Key findings of the Adobe Digital Index report show that Facebook’s ad business continued to grow with click through rate (CTR) and ad impressions increasing by double-digits quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), 20 percent and 41 percent respectively.

While revenue per visit (RPV) coming from Facebook grew by two percent QoQ, RPV from Twitter and Tumblr declined by 23 percent and 36 percent respectively, following a strong holiday quarter.

Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) today (April 22) released its Social Media Intelligence Report analyzing paid, earned and owned social media trends for Q1.

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Adobe’s Social Media Intelligence Report is based on 260 billion Facebook ad impressions, 226 billion Facebook post impressions, 17 billion referred visits from social networking sites, and seven billion brand post interactions including comments, likes and shares, says the company.

Paid social data is derived from aggregated Adobe Marketing Cloud data.

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“Social media continued to grow even after a strong holiday quarter and the seasonal slowdown expected in Q1,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst, Adobe Digital Index.

“Marketers are learning how to best reach their audiences across different social media channels and companies like Facebook are making changes to their algorithms and adding functionalities like auto-play of videos, which impact brands and users and how they engage with content.”

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Additional findings include:

Paid Social Trends: Facebook ad clicks and impressions are on the rise with clicks continuing to outpace impressions. Facebook’s ad clicks increased 70 percent year-over-year (YoY) and 48 percent quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), with ad impressions up 40 percent and 41 percent, respectively. Facebook’s ad CTR jumped 160 percent YoY and 20 percent QoQ. However, Facebook’s cost per click (CPC) dipped two percent YoY and 11 percent QoQ following a strong holiday season.

Earned Social Trends: Brand posts with embedded video gained traction in Q1 – with 58 percent more engagement QoQ and 25 percent growth YoY. Facebook video plays increased 785 percent YoY and 134 percent QoQ following auto-plays for videos being implemented in Q4 2013. Meanwhile, text-only Facebook brand posts are losing share and engagement, but posts with links rose 167 percent QoQ and 77 percent YoY.

Owned Social Trends: Twitter and Facebook referred RPV increased YoY (5 percent and 11 percent, respectively), but Twitter driven RPVs dipped 23 percent QoQ. Tumblr referred RPV is up 55 percent YoY, but slumped 36 percent QoQ. LinkedIn stood out with a 15 percent share of social traffic to B2B high-tech sites. Only Facebook drove more traffic (52 percent) to B2B high-tech sites in Q1.

Adobe Digital Index publishes research on digital marketing and other topics of interest to senior marketing and e-commerce executives across industries.