What can bring more traffic: Instagram or Facebook Ads?

You intend to launch a successful campaign using just one of the most popular social media networks. Now, would you choose Instagram or Facebook to run your social media marketing campaign on? The problem is you don’t know which would be better. Facebook and Instagram are among the most popular social media networks. So you’d want to take a closer look at the benefits and statistics of each platform.

Benefits of Instagram Ads

Let’s begin with a thorough analysis of Instagram and its role in promoting businesses.

Active Users

Instagram has more than 800 million users active on the platform per month around 500 million daily users. 80% of all these users are outside the U.S so the platform obviously has massive International audience. The sheer number of users makes it ideal for businesses to gain their visibility. They also have more than 1 million advertisers.

User Engagement

Instagram has some of the most highly engaged users. On an average day, users share more than 95 million photos and videos. And these posts yield a total of about 4.2 billion likes in a day.

 Forrester has been conducting studies that tells us that while Facebook signaled based on its latest earnings call that the News Feed Ads are approaching an upper limit. Meanwhile, other social networks still have more room to grow their ad load. According to a Forrester Data Consumer Technographics® survey performed in January 2017 to 4,502 US youth between the ages of 12 and 17. The study found only 11% responded that Instagram and Snapchat have too many ads, compared to 26% for Facebook. This indicates that there is room for social ads to grow outside of Facebook.

Audience Engagement

Aside from the high engagement rates on Instagram, it also brings in highly-engaged website visitors. Yotpo conducted a study to find out which channels bring in the most engaged traffic. 300 million Instagram users engage with Stories everyday, making it the ideal opportunity for sharing content. So consider highlighting your reviews.

Target Audience

Your choice of social networking platform depends on your target demographic. You will need to be on platforms they like. A 2017 study conducted by Pew Research found that there are more female users on Instagram than male users. Also, the majority of users are of the Age 18-29. In fact, 64% of users in this age group use Instagram. This user base makes Instagram ideal for reaching a younger audience. Instagram is also a great platform for influence marketing.

Benefits of Facebook Ads

We can now move on to Facebook statistics. Some numbers can help us understand the importance of Facebook marketing.

User Reach

Facebook continues to be the number one social network when it comes to members. Studies done by Dreamgrow indicates the Facebook has 2.2 billion active users per month. So if you want to increase visibility, Facebook is superior.

User Engagement

When it comes to engagement however, Facebook doesn’t perform as well as Instagram. It still has the second highest audience engagement rate nevertheless. The Forrester study also supports this claim. It shows that the platform generates the second highest number of user interactions with companies.

Target Audience

Facebook is popular among online adults with 68% of them using the platform. Similar to Instagram, this channel is more popular with women than with men as well. 74% of female and 62% of male internet users are on Facebook. It seems to attract adult internet users of all age groups. And it is most popular among the 18-29 age group same as Instagram. In fact, 82% of internet users in this age group are on the platform. 79% of internet users between 30 and 49 years of age are using Facebook as well. And the same is true for 64% of internet users aged between 50 and 64. These stats suggest that Facebook is more effective for advertising to internet users of all age groups.

Instagram vs Facebook

Based on the data laid out above, here are a few facts we can make out:

• Instagram provides better engagement vs Facebook provides higher visibility
• Instagram reaches a younger audience vs Facebook for distributing information

So which one is right for me?

Choosing the right platform depends on what your requirements are. You need to think about your goals and what you wish to achieve from the campaign. Benefits of Facebook and Instagram are highly subjective. Different features and audiences mean that what works better for you may not work so well for another business. You will need to keep in mind who your target audience if before you decide on which platform to use.