Facebook is still the most popular social media platform, with billions of active users. 

And if you know how to leverage it correctly, those users can translate into massive growth opportunities. 

We compiled some of the most impactful and relevant Facebook ad statistics and facts to help you make informed decisions about using your ad budget. 

Facebook Users Statistics

If you want to make it in the ad business, you’ve got to know your audience. 

So…

Our first point of order is figuring out who are the people using Facebook, what they want, and what’s the best way to give it to them?

1. Facebook had an estimated 2.89 billion monthly active users in the second quarter of 2021. 

The social media giant is still the leader of the pack, even without counting Instagram users. 

Facebook statistics show that its closest rival is YouTube, with 2.29 billion users around the world. It’s also worth noting that Facebook owns four of the top five social networks.

2. Males in the 25–34 age range make up 18.8% of Facebook users.

12.5% of Facebook users are females in the same age group. While Facebook attracts users from all age ranges and walks of life, Millennial males are its most significant base. 

But that doesn’t mean you should only focus this group on your custom Facebook audiences. 

In fact, older users tend to have a higher average engagement rate despite their lower numbers.

3. India has 340 million active Facebook users, by far the largest population of any single country. 

The United States is the closest to India, with 200 million Facebook users, followed by Indonesia with 140 million. 

India overtook the US as the social network’s leading market in 2017.

4. In a 2020 quarterly report, Facebook estimated that 16% of all Facebook accounts are fake or duplicates.  

It’s also fair to point out that Facebook estimated only about five percent of its accounts were fake, and the rest were duplicates. 

In any case, these accounts are classified as undesirable and could marginally skew Facebook usage statistics and engagement rates. 

5. Facebook stats show the company took action on 1.7 billion fake accounts in Q2 2021.

Facebook understands how critical it is to remove fake accounts as proactively as possible. 

To that end, it has developed increasingly efficient detection technology, and the number of fake accounts that manage to see the light of day is dropping consistently.

6. Facebook demographics show that 86% of internet users who use Facebook earn more than $100,000 per year. 

That proportion stays more or less the same across all income levels. 

Unfortunately, Facebook no longer allows targeting by income level or net worth. But it does allow you to target people in specific ZIP codes, which can be a working proxy for income. 

7. Only 5.1% of Facebook’s total users worldwide are 65 years old or older. 

Seniors 65+ are the least represented among Facebook users.

However, it’s still the most popular social media platform for seniors. So don’t let the low relative numbers fool you into thinking it’s a bad way to reach older audiences.

Thus many companies actively utilize WhatsApp marketing as a means to reach their customers.

Facebook Ad Revenue Statistics

Wanna know how much the social platform makes from advertising to Facebook users?

A whole heck of a lot. 

Advertising forms the lion’s share of Facebook’s business and probably will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. 

8. Facebook’s ad revenue in Q2 2021 showed a 56% year-over-year growth rate. 

In Facebook’s latest quarterly report, total advertising revenue was $28.5 billion, which represents over 98% of its total revenue for the period. 

Other sources of revenue accounted for only $497 million.

9. Every Facebook user in the US generates $48.03 for the company.

That’s according to figures from early 2021. Of that revenue, $46.06 came from advertising. 

Facebook’s revenue per user peaked in the fourth quarter of 2020 at a whopping $53.56. 

10. Facebook statistics show the platform generated $11.8 billion in revenue from users in the US & Canada in Q1 2021. 

The US & Canada remain the most substantial source of Facebook ad revenue. 

Europe is second in line, with around $6.37 billion in revenue, followed by Asia-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific region has slowly started producing a larger share of revenue since 2019 but is still nowhere near the US. 

11. The latest Facebook user statistics show over 10 million advertisers on the platform. 

More marketers use Facebook than any other social media platform. Despite the iOS 14.5 update scare, Facebook’s advertising business has continued to grow at a steady pace. 

Facebook Video Ads Statistics

12. 80% of people react negatively to feed-based mobile video ads that play loud sounds unexpectedly.

If you’re trying to appeal to a mobile-first audience (and you should be), get rid of the loud sounds on your videos. 

Audiences overwhelmingly prefer captioned Facebook video ads.

So ads that don’t require sound to convey their message will often fare better. 

13. Using less text with a font size that fills the screen aided in brand recall of in-stream ads by 32%.

Facebook video statistics show that large fonts combined with a short and sweet message are the best way to engage your viewers. 

The superimposed text approach also increases message clarity by 23%. 

Plus, it makes it 43% more likely that users will rate the content as engaging. 

14. Facebook ads that use the 9:16 ratio in stories creatives boost brand outcomes by 35%

When you’re creating content for video ads, it pays to play nice with Facebook’s recommendations.

A few other design guidelines to follow for Facebook:

• File Type: MP4, MOV, or GIF 
• Resolution: At least 1080 x 1080
• Video Captions: Optional, but recommended
• Video Sound: Optional, but recommended

15. Adding basic motion to still images increases conversion rates by 5.5X.

If you’re not equipped to create high-quality, long-form videos, you’re going to like this marketing strategy. 

A study found that using basic motion in still images increased positive outcomes for 69% of surveyed brands. 

16. 75% of marketers post video content to Facebook.

Whether it’s via paid advertising or not, Facebook remains the most popular social media network to share marketing content. 

YouTube is a close second, with 70% of surveyed marketers reportedly using the platform to share videos. 

17. In a survey of average Facebook users, almost half said it’s easier for them to pay attention to a video on a mobile device versus a computer. 

If you’re not mobile-first, you’re last when it comes to video ads. 

Moving formats are almost irresistible to humans, and we gaze at video content over five times longer than static content. 

18. 49% of responders in a Facebook-commissioned survey said they would purchase products directly from live videos if known influencers were launching new products.

Although the survey didn’t ask Facebook users exclusively, it’s still a good signal that influencer marketing has enormous potential in the live video arena. 

19. Facebook Live viewership increased 50% throughout 2020.

Facebook Live isn’t a unique service among social media platforms, but it’s one of the most effective in achieving engagement and reach. 

But it’s still underutilized, with only one of every five videos on Facebook coming from a live broadcast. If you’re looking for an opportunity for your brand to score easy wins, look no further. 

Facebook Marketing Cost Stats

Over three million businesses advertise on Facebook. 

So it’s not hard to see why the company has such astronomical ad revenue. 

The following section looks at how much Facebook advertising costs to help you decide on a budget for your campaign. 

20. The average Facebook CPM is $13.93, according to the latest Facebook statistics from Revealbot.

The auction model makes it difficult to predict and report accurate information about Facebook’s advertising costs. 

That said, the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) in the US throughout 2021 has hovered around the $15 mark. 

21. Brand awareness campaigns had the highest average cost per click for Facebook ads between 2020 and 2021. 

Brand awareness campaigns tend to be among the most expensive to get clicks, peaking at a $3.34 CPC in December 2020. 

In the same period, lead generation and video view campaigns were the only ones to occasionally have a higher CPC than brand awareness. 

22. Over the past year, the average Facebook cost per lead (CPL) peaked at $13.54 in May 2021.

Facebook statistics show a much lower CPL since that peak. Currently, the average CPL is at $5.07 in the US.

23. The average cost per app install for Facebook ads was $3.50 in 2020.

According to Facebook advertising statistics from AdEspresso, app install prices peaked in May last year at just over six dollars.

App install campaigns are among the most difficult to run efficiently, so don’t get discouraged if you’re paying a little more for app installs.

Facebook Ad Engagement Statistics

As powerful as social media is for creating engagement, not all ads will perform well. 

Here are a few stats you can check to see if your ads are at least beating the average. 

24. Legal industry ads have the highest average click-through rate on Facebook ( 1.61%). 

According to Facebook stats from Wordstream, Facebook users are more likely to click on legal industry ads than any others. 

Employment and job training ads are on the opposite end of the spectrum. They only have a 0.47% CTR on average. 

25. 59.6% of Facebook marketers agree that video is the best ad format for engagement.

If engagement is your primary goal, expert Facebook users say you should go for video ads. 

Interestingly, that same group of marketers was almost evenly split (52% videos vs. 48% images) when asked which ad type they use more. 

26. Facebook users in the media industry make 53.5 posts per week on average.

To no one’s surprise, media industry users have the most active Facebook accounts. 

The second-highest posting rate comes from sports team accounts, at 18.9 posts per week. 

And, the lowest post frequency is from alcohol industry accounts, which produce a paltry 2.8 posts per week, on average.

Miscellaneous Advertising Facebook Stats

27. Facebook Messenger blasts convert have 10–80 times better engagement rates than email or Facebook News Feed posts.

Facebook Messenger ads have been around since 2017, but they’re still not as mainstream as some marketers think they should be. 

They currently enjoy much better engagement rates than other common forms of Facebook outreach. 

28. 62% of people in the US using Facebook stories say they plan to use them even more in the future.

Facebook stories ads were released several years ago, so they’re not exactly on the cutting edge of digital marketing. 

But few marketers have successfully used stories ads to their full advertising potential, and it’s an excellent area to explore. 

29. The number of ads on Facebook increased by 6% in Q2 2021 compared to the same period in 2020.

Despite being the undisputed leader of social networks, Facebook is nowhere near achieving market saturation. 

There’s still a lot of room to grow, as evidenced by consistently rising statistics year after year. 

30. Over 40 million people view a Business Catalog on WhatsApp every month.

Whatsapp is often left out of the conversation when discussing social media advertising. But, don’t let that fool you; it’s one of Facebook’s most active services worldwide and a gold mine for customer engagement.

31. Around 160 million businesses use Facebook products every month to reach customers.

At this point, there are so many active Facebook users in so many parts of the world that you’re almost compelled to use it to scale your business efficiently. And the number of businesses using Facebook is a testament to that.

Facebook marketing is not the only game in town, but it should be a foundational part of your marketing strategy. 

32. Organic Facebook posts have an average engagement rate of 3.91% on average.

A lot separates organic posts from ads, but they can be a good bellwether for your campaigns. 

After all, the more your ad looks like something that would organically show up on someone’s feed, the better engagement rate it will have.

33. Political ads statistics show that the Biden Victory Fund was the single largest political ad spender in 2020, with a total investment of $53 million. 

Political ads made up around 3% of Facebook’s Q3 2020 revenue. 

For a while, Facebook was the king of social media platforms for political advertising due to Google’s stand on political ads. Despite being the largest internet advertiser, Google clamped down on political ads, leaving Facebook in an enviable position

FAQs

34. What is the success rate of Facebook ads?

According to most reputable sources, the typical conversion rate of Facebook advertising is between 9 and 10 percent. 

Does that mean your campaign is successful if you’re in that range?

Not necessarily. It all depends on your product, target audience, and many other factors. 

That said, 10% is a decent conversation rate for most industries. 

35. How many people engage with Facebook ads?

It varies considerably by industry, target audience, organic user base, and several other factors. 

The median engagement rate of ads is 0.27%, according to usage statistics. But, anything above 1% is generally considered a good engagement rate. 

36. What percentage of businesses run Facebook ads?

The latest figures available show that there are over 10 million active advertisers on Facebook. 

Unfortunately, there’s no concrete information on what percentage of those are businesses since some Facebook users advertise their business on personal pages and rather than on dedicated Facebook store pages.

37. What is the average CPM for Facebook ads?

The CPM for Facebook advertisements in September 2021 is $13.86.

It has been hovering around the $14 mark for all industries since at least September 2020, according to Facebook usage stats from Revealbot.

38. How do you calculate ROI for Facebook ads?

The most practical way to calculate your ROI is to use a custom-built tool. Conectio has a comprehensive yet simple calculator that produces excellent results.

To calculate straight ROI manually, use this formula:

(Total sales – total spend) / total spend 

So, if your campaign generated $1000 in sales, and you spent $700 on advertising, it would look something like this:

1000-700 = 300

Then, 300/700 = 0.47, or 47% ROI.

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is a more accurate measure of performance, in this case, but ROI is still critical to get a holistic idea of your marketing efforts.

Conclusion

With new users joining Facebook every second, you’re going to need all the statistics you can get your hands on to stay competitive. 

Whether you like it or not, Facebook will be the best social network to get your message across to customers for years to come. 

So, arm yourself with all the knowledge you can to craft the best campaigns possible.