The percentage of ad budgets dedicated to social media is growing, even if not as fast as users or engagement. But which social media platforms command the most? L2 studied the ad budgets of approximately 500 brands across the Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube, and found that Google and Facebook have highest priority. Close to a third of brands have no ad budget for Twitter, and 28% do not run ads on YouTube. Meanwhile, just 7% and 8% of brands have no budget for Google and Facebook respectively.
Why is spending on Twitter so low? Just 19% of U.S. marketers allocate more than 10% of their digital ad budget to Twitter, while 53% and 63% allocate more than 10% to Facebook and Google, respectively. It is not due to stagnating or declining community sizes. Index with more than 1,500 followers grew their community sizes by an average of 72%. Despite Twitter’s new focus on monetization (direct-response ad products that enable objective-based campaigns), demand from marketers lags. A graph from L2’s Intelligence Report: Social Platforms show the gap between revenue per user on Facebook and Twitter.
