Facebook’s ad business continues to grow at an impressive clip with both effectiveness – click through rate (CTR) – and volume – ad impressions – increasing by double-digits quarter-over-quarter. CTR itself has increased increased by 20% (which is up 160% year on year) and ad impressions by 41%.

Revenue per visit (RPV) coming from Facebook grew by 2% QoQ whereas RPV from Twitter declined by 23% and Tumblr 36%.

These figures come from Adobe’s Social Media Intelligence Report (PDF Download), which is based on 260bn Facebook ad impressions, 226bn Facebook post impressions, 17bn referred visits from social networking sites, and 7bn brand post interactions including comments, likes and shares.

Paid Social

Facebook ad clicks and impressions are on the rise. Facebook’s ad clicks increased 70% year-over-year (YoY) and 48% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ). Ad impressions were up 40% YoY and 41% QoQ.

Facebook’s ad CTR increased by a massive 160% YoY and 20% QoQ. However Facebook’s cost per click (CPC) dipped 2% YoY and 11% QoQ following a strong holiday season.

Organic Social

Brand posts with embedded video gained traction in Q1, with 58% more engagement QoQ and 25% growth YoY.

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The number of times that videos were played on Facebook increased a whopping 785% YoY and 134% QoQ. This is almost exclusively in thanks to Facebook’s implementation of auto-play in users’ news feeds (which I have to say I don’t find that annoying…).

Posts with images provide the highest engagement rate. Posts that include links also rose 167% QoQ and 77% YoY.

In contrast, text-only Facebook brand posts are losing share and engagement. Facebook is prioritising visual content in news feeds and its up to brands to make sure their posts fall in line with this trend.

If you’re interested in timing your output by day, one quarter of videos uploaded to Facebook are played on a Friday and nearly 16% of post impressions also happen on a Friday.

Owned Social

Revenue referred from most social channels to retail sites dropped quarter-over-quarter on every social channel except for Facebook.

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Facebook referred revenue per visit is up 11% YoY and 2% QoQ. Facebook had a very successful Q4 2013 according to Kenshoo’s recent report which found that Facebook ads drove 60% increase in sales revenue. This clearly had a lead-in effect in Q1 2014.

Twitter referred revenue per visit is up 5% YoY and down 23% QoQ. Tumblr referred revenue per visit is up 55% YoY, but slumped 36% QoQ.

Despite Pinterest overtaking Facebook for UK referral revenue in Q4 2013, according to Adobe’s previous social intelligence report, it seems the balance has tipped back in Facebook’s favour. Facebook Is able to provide value all year around, outside of the holiday season.