Facebook drives social media ad revenue growth

Facebook is predicted to capture $16.29bn in ad revenues worldwide, a jump of 41.8% over 2014.

Instagram, which Facebook bought in 2012 for $1bn, is behind some of this growth. The mobile picture-sharing app will earn $600m worldwide this year, accounting for 5% of Facebook’s worldwide mobile ad revenue. In 2016, eMarketer expects Instagram to make $1.48bn in worldwide ad revenues, up 149% over 2015.

Meanwhile the forecast has dropped Twitter’s worldwide growth rate; it is now expected to grow ad revenues 62% this year (eMarketer originally predicted it would reach 66.9%), taking it to $2.03bn, or 8.1% of total social network ad spending worldwide.

Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer, said: “Twitter’s slowing user growth is impacting its ad business. It has improved its ad targeting capabilities, and it still has a lock on real-time conversation. However, advertisers want to reach a mass audience and that’s harder to do on Twitter than on Facebook.”