Facebook Advertisers are Diverting Spend from TV and Other Advertising to Invest in Facebook

Kantar Media has performed an analysis comparing the top 50 advertisers on Facebook to the top 50 advertisers across all measured media. During the first half of 2018, the leading Facebook advertisers spent $1.1 billion on the platform – representing approximately 11% of their total multimedia ad investment, indicating a significant shift in spending to Facebook.  By comparison, the leading advertisers across all measured media spent 4% of their total budgets on Facebook, or $560 million, while spending $8.6 billion on national TV.

These insights are the first from a new partnership, announced today, between Kantar Media, a global leader in media intelligence, and Pathmatics, the technology platform with actionable digital spend insights.

Brands and marketers that use the Kantar Media platform previously had access to a broad range of rich digital and traditional ad intelligence data. Through this partnership with Pathmatics, they can now also see how their competitors are advertising across Facebook, including spend, ad type, size and creative. Combined with the digital and traditional ad spend data currently available from Kantar Media, this new capability is the first to bring a holistic view of digital, traditional and social advertising activity to the market.

Kantar Media’s analysis of the combined data reveals that leading Facebook advertisers are spending less on TV and other advertising and focusing significant investment on Facebook. During the first half of 2018, the share of Facebook spend by the top 50 advertisers on the platform was more than double spend by the top 50 advertisers across all media. While TV retained the majority of budgets for both groups, the leading Facebook advertisers spent 5% less than the top 50 advertisers overall.

These trends are due in part to the relatively high entry cost of TV advertising, which encourages smaller advertisers such as Wish.com and NECTAR Sleep to maximize impact by concentrating their budgets on Facebook. However, some major brands are also spending significantly more on Facebook than TV. For example, Diageo is spending twice as much on Facebook as it does on TV, likely due to the ease of age verification on Facebook as well as remaining limitations on hard alcohol advertising on TV. As Facebook continues to play an increasingly significant role in advertising, understanding how competitors are using this channel is critical.

“Advertisers currently don’t have a means for accessing social media spend data in conjunction with a full multimedia offering,” says Manish Bhatia, CEO, North America, Kantar Media. “Our partnership with Pathmatics will provide the most complete and comprehensive view of digital advertising available anywhere. With our insights, advertisers will be able to optimize campaigns and have better informed multimedia marketing strategies through a single platform that gives brand insights across traditional and digital media. Media companies and digital publishers will also gain a stronger understanding of their own competitive positioning and how they can help brands connect with their audiences.”

“Transparency in digital marketing is a strategic focus for our company, including in this partnership with Kantar Media,” said Gabe Gottlieb, Founder and CEO, Pathmatics. “Our collaboration with Kantar Media is unlocking the potential for marketers to research, plan, and act on unique insights on Facebook and other media channels.”