Meta
- $11.3 billion in ad revenue in 2018
- $17.9 billion in 2019
- $22 billion in 2020
- $32.4 billion in 2021
In response to the Search Engine Land piece about Google Ad Strength that I responded to, Google says Ad Strength is not used in the auction.
But!
Ad Strength looks at 4 categories that have been identified to result in better performance through regression analyses.
For example, a low Ad Strength could explain a lack of impressions, but low Ad Strength doesn’t prevent ads from entering into auctions.
It’s a feedback mechanism for creative content and meant to be used as a helpful guide to improve the effectiveness of your ads. Again, it isn’t used directly in the auction.
Meta disclosed Instagram ad revenue as part of the antitrust process.
Instagram earned:
The filing also notes that IG earned $16.5 billion in ad revenue in the first half of 2022, putting it on track to earn more than $33 billion for that year (based on higher holiday spend).
As reported by Bloomberg, the data suggests that Instagram generated around 30% of Meta’s total revenue in 2022. Which, if you were to extrapolate that into last year’s numbers, would suggest that IG brought in around $40 billion in ad revenue in 2023.
Printing money.
Maybe that’s why TikTok wants to clone it.
Facebook will play videos in full-screen vertical by default. Plus some UI updates. Think TikTok meets YouTube.
via Meta
Good reminder: Ads Optimization is Literal
When you select a performance goal in the ad set, the algorithm’s entire focus is getting you as many of that thing as possible.
It’s not trying to get you a certain type of link click or landing page view or ThruPlay. The only goal is to get you that thing and make you happy.
Because Meta is literal, and when you optimize for those things, the assumption is that you are satisfied with that surface-level action.
This is how algorithms work. They don’t make qualitative judgements. It’s a binary “did the action occur?” switch. Yes = success.
🚨 Meta Is Broken
For the second time in just over a month, Meta’s apps, including WhatsApp, and to some extent, Messenger and Instagram, faced outages and intermittent issues.
Meta’s status page detailed disruptions to key business services, including its Ads Manager, Messenger Platform, WhatsApp Business API and others.
via TechCrunch
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There has been a lot of talk on Twitter/X about Meta Ads being “broken”. This has happened before, but it’s never lasted longer than a few weeks. This time, many brands have seen soft performance for all of Q1.
there is no obvious cause/effect relationship between poor performance and a specific code push or platform outage on Meta’s side.
only some brands are seeing poor performance.
via No Best Practices (a must read for Meta advertisers)
Something is fundamentally broken at Meta (more than usual). Which means it’s a time to experiment freely, on and off the platform.