Advertising on social media during the crisis
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2025 11:01 am
That is what we focus on in the comparison. In order to compare apples with apples, we compared all campaigns with website traffic as an optimization goal on both Facebook and Instagram .
As you can see below, the difference from last year is huge. Cost per 1,000 views is down 66.5% on Facebook and 65.9% on Instagram .
Advertising on social media during the crisis.
Average CPM with target website traffic without placements in Audience Network during the period March 1 - April 30.
Although this difference is based on multiple campaigns spread across various industries and on at least six million impressions, it may be too quick to conclude that this significant decline applies to everyone.
The final confirmation we eventually got from other agencies. Both Gupta Media and Tinuiti see the same trend and base their figures on even more data. For example, Gupta Media bases their data on over 6 billion views, so a reasonably reliable source.
According to Gupta Media data, CPM (Facebook and Instagram) reached a low of $0.77 on March 25, 2020. In 2019, this was $2.98. The decrease in costs seems to be confirmed by the decreasing number of competitors in the Facebook auction. Does that offer opportunities? Definitely!
However, Gupta's graph already shows an upward trend in CPM. On May 10, 2020, the average CPM is already $1.68. Facebook also confirmed in their Q1 report of 2020 that they already saw an improvement in advertising revenue in the first three weeks of April.
After the initial steep decrease in advertising revenue in March, we have seen signs of stability reflected phone number library in the first three weeks of April, where advertising revenue has been approximately flat compared to the same period a year ago, down from the 17% year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2020.
Are you too late to take advantage now?
No. Even now, advertising costs in Facebook and Instagram are almost 50% lower than last year. That offers enough opportunities. Also keep in mind that when organizations open up again and start offering their services, marketing budgets will open up again and competition will increase again. This will drive up the price, which will result in higher advertising costs.
Even if you are not yet allowed to sell, you would do well to take advantage of the low advertising costs now. This way you can sow cheaply now and stay top-of-mind with the consumer. At a later stage you can then harvest by means of, for example, a remarketing campaign.
Unfortunately, I don't have a crystal ball, but the chance that you will be wiped out by the competition when everything is running at full speed again is great. And if you don't get wiped out, you can bet that you will at least pay more than you would now with your campaigns. So why wait if you can achieve almost double the results with your budget now? It may be risky if you currently have almost no income, but it may be even riskier if you do nothing now and wait for the competition to strike.
As you can see below, the difference from last year is huge. Cost per 1,000 views is down 66.5% on Facebook and 65.9% on Instagram .
Advertising on social media during the crisis.
Average CPM with target website traffic without placements in Audience Network during the period March 1 - April 30.
Although this difference is based on multiple campaigns spread across various industries and on at least six million impressions, it may be too quick to conclude that this significant decline applies to everyone.
The final confirmation we eventually got from other agencies. Both Gupta Media and Tinuiti see the same trend and base their figures on even more data. For example, Gupta Media bases their data on over 6 billion views, so a reasonably reliable source.
According to Gupta Media data, CPM (Facebook and Instagram) reached a low of $0.77 on March 25, 2020. In 2019, this was $2.98. The decrease in costs seems to be confirmed by the decreasing number of competitors in the Facebook auction. Does that offer opportunities? Definitely!
However, Gupta's graph already shows an upward trend in CPM. On May 10, 2020, the average CPM is already $1.68. Facebook also confirmed in their Q1 report of 2020 that they already saw an improvement in advertising revenue in the first three weeks of April.
After the initial steep decrease in advertising revenue in March, we have seen signs of stability reflected phone number library in the first three weeks of April, where advertising revenue has been approximately flat compared to the same period a year ago, down from the 17% year-over-year growth in the first quarter of 2020.
Are you too late to take advantage now?
No. Even now, advertising costs in Facebook and Instagram are almost 50% lower than last year. That offers enough opportunities. Also keep in mind that when organizations open up again and start offering their services, marketing budgets will open up again and competition will increase again. This will drive up the price, which will result in higher advertising costs.
Even if you are not yet allowed to sell, you would do well to take advantage of the low advertising costs now. This way you can sow cheaply now and stay top-of-mind with the consumer. At a later stage you can then harvest by means of, for example, a remarketing campaign.
Unfortunately, I don't have a crystal ball, but the chance that you will be wiped out by the competition when everything is running at full speed again is great. And if you don't get wiped out, you can bet that you will at least pay more than you would now with your campaigns. So why wait if you can achieve almost double the results with your budget now? It may be risky if you currently have almost no income, but it may be even riskier if you do nothing now and wait for the competition to strike.