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The global advertisement space is a duopoly owned by Facebook and Google, who control about 80{ad6ec37a2bd3ecfa3332b96b9ac48dbf74f925fa7e3098eb9d9871fb3d85bcba} of all advertisements. Advertisers and B2C brands have long been aware that they are unhealthily reliant on Facebook and Google for meeting their advertisement requirements.
But they weren’t extremely willing to migrate because this duopoly has been helping them meet their goals. In a way, the Covid-19 Pandemic has altered this landscape in a small way.
TikTok
This pandemic saw apps like TikTok rise to popularity with the millennials and the Gen Z people. This pandemic saw a surge in the userbase for Snapchat also. People used TikTok for several reasons, including, but not limited, to life hacks, home décor ideas, and other trends. The sea shanty trend is the latest in the long list of trends that have captured audiences across social media platforms.
However, Digiday states that the trend is changing gradually. Media buyers and marketers are engaging in conversation about shifting from Facebook ads to TikTok, Snapchat, and streaming platforms like Hulu. None of them is, however, saying that Facebook has stopped being of value. On the contrary, Facebook’s audience marketplace and Google continue to provide the largest ROAS for all marketers. What these marketers are saying is that the alternate avenues sound promising too.
Reasons for Moving from Facebook Ads
One of the reasons is the CPM for Facebook. It had hovered around 14 dollars while the CPM for Snapchat or TikTok hovered around 5 dollars. Another problem that these marketers had with Facebook audience marketplace ads was its problems with the backend operations. There were many blackouts and instances of ads breaking.
Several top marketers like Take Some Risk and Digishop Girl have been quoted as saying they were pushing for diversification. While the percentage of people that have migrated remained low at 20{ad6ec37a2bd3ecfa3332b96b9ac48dbf74f925fa7e3098eb9d9871fb3d85bcba}, it definitely marks a shift in the advertisement perceptions. In addition to that, these marketers are encouraging media brands to experiment with the newer platforms because the competition there is lower.
In 2018, TikTok’s advertisement prices came with a premium because TikTok could afford to do so. The competition on the platform was lower than on Facebook, and the userbase was only increasing. Together, all these factors mean that media brands can afford to shift the ad dollars typically allocated for Facebook to Snapchat or TikTok.
The marketing trends reveal that companies are relatively satisfied with the performance on these platforms – enough to include it in the 2021 media advertisement plans. This means that the number of companies willing to experiment with newer media platforms is increasing for broadening their acquisition footprint.
The successes of this testing made marketers less resistant to continuing to spend money outside Facebook. The primary reason is that the ROAS has remained along similar levels. While the CPMs have fallen, so have the customer acquisition levels. This means that the marketers have not seen many differences in the ROAS among Facebook and the other platforms. In addition to that, Shopify’s integrations with Snapchat, Pinterest, and TikTok made these platforms more attractive to the marketers behind DTC and e-commerce brands.
Budgets
Homestead Studio CEO states that marketers are moving between 10 percent of their budgeted Facebook spend to other platforms. This is also, in part, driven by the clients’ request to diversify from Facebook. This does not mean that advertisement on Facebook has lost its allure; far from it. Marketers are still spending the majority of their ad budget on Facebook and Google.
Facebook continues to be the cheapest ad platform and one that gives the most consistent returns. While people continue to find a stable platform, they are always going to rely on Facebook for their ad requirements. All said and done, however, there will be a point of diminishing returns, fuelled by the competition and the increasing CPMs.
Besides, platforms like TikTok and Snapchat have something that Facebook hasn’t capitalised on effectively – influencers. Influencers are typically those social media persons who have a considerable following on these platforms. Instagram has evolved to be a forerunner in the field of influencers too. Since Instagram comes under the Facebook audience marketplace, we can say that Facebook isn’t exactly behind in this race. However, it also means that
Facebook is losing the share of the revenue from its Facebook platform.
Traditionally, if the advertising cost on these platforms was high, brands resorted to partnering with these influencers. Since the cost of partnering with these influencers is lower than advertising with these platforms, brands could rake in significantly higher ROAS compared to advertising on the platforms.
Influencers
Also, partnering with these influencers has another benefit – brands can control their demographic. When advertising with the platforms, it is harder for brands to control who to show it to maximize the views with people who have a purchase intent. With influencers, it is easier because most followers of a particular influencer are interested in that niche. It becomes easier for the company to track the conversions and the return on the ad spends.
This is something that Facebook did not have much success with on its platform. TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have the option of recording short videos with engaging content. Several studies prove that the average attention span of internet users is falling, making this short and engaging content is useful for the brands. Facebook never had that as their unique selling point. However, it is strategic that Facebook owns Instagram as well because the latter makes up for the shortcomings in the former.
With the proposed changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy in May 2020, we can expect to see Facebook’s ad algorithms fine-tuning to better cater to the customer’s needs. This will directly translate to increased returns for the advertisers. In the absence of any major changes in the application interface for TikTok and Snapchat, there’s a definite possibility that the same marketers who have migrated from Facebook could come back to it.
