Advertisers Spend On Facebook Retargeting Up 31 Percent YoY [Study]

Advertisers continue to increase investment in Facebook retargeting, with average spend per advertiser increasing by 31 percent year over year, according to a new study from retargeting platform AdRoll.

Much of the spending growth is being driven by B2B advertisers. Among B2B companies, the average spend per advertiser on Facebook rose 61 percent for the year, compared to 31 percent among retail advertisers. Globally, 49 percent of the B2B advertisers using AdRoll are running retargeting campaigns on Facebook, while two-third of the retailers using AdRoll run campaigns on Facebook.

These ratios are fairly similar in the US; however, the trend looks quite different in Europe, where B2B advertisers barely increased Facebook investment over the year (up just 5 percent), compared to a 37-percent bump in Facebook spending by retail companies.

Ad spend among other advertisers outside of retail and B2B (such as game and other app developers running app install campaigns) jumped 68 percent in Europe, 67 percent in Japan and 75 percent in Australia. In the US, however, spending among other advertisers increased by just 1 percent.

Addition Of Mobile Facebook Inventory

Facebook enabled mobile retargeting through custom audiences last year, opening up cross-device retargeting. AdRoll found that when advertisers added mobile to their desktop retargeting campaigns on Facebook, impressions and click-through rates increased and overall CPCs fell in all regions.

The study also shows that spending on mobile app install campaigns on Facebook increased by 12x, driving 13.8 times more app installs year over year.

Incremental Conversion Lifts, Lower CPA

While AdRoll found that the majority of conversions happen on display campaigns outside of Facebook (globally, display retartgeting is responsible for 63 percent of conversions and Facebook 37 percent), it found that adding Facebook to existing Web display campaigns provided an incremental lift in conversions. This isn’t surprising given Facebook’s reach, but the impact of lower mobile CPCs on the overall cost per acquisition is interesting to note.

Adding Facebook inventory lifted overall impression reach by 92 percent. Overall cost per click to dropped by 28 percent, and click cost per acquisition fell by 33 percent.

The study encompassed 20,000 advertisers, 55 campaigns and 37 billion impressions globally. The entire report can be downloaded here.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

As Third Door Media’s paid media reporter, Ginny Marvin writes about paid online marketing topics including paid search, paid social, display and retargeting for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She provides search marketing and demand generation advice for ecommerce companies and can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

(Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)