Paid Social Industry Benchmarks for eCommerce

Just about everyone uses social media in some form these days. However, the days of adding a few posts and hope for the best are long over. It is just as important to have a strong paid advertising strategy to reach a wider audience and create brand awareness with your target market. 

And that’s where our CAKE team of experts can help. Not only are we skilled at helping eCommerce businesses like yours increase sales and attract new customers, but we also have proven strategies designed for better brand recognition, improved campaign awareness, and so much more.

That is why we’ve put together this report to offer insight into the three most important key performance indicators (KPIs) and why they are important to your overall success. Furthermore, this paid social benchmark guide is also designed to help you understand what our eCommerce clients are experiencing and how working with us can allow you to achieve similar results.

Average Paid Social CPM by Industry

Unlike Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads, paid social is determined on a cost per mille (CPM) basis: The average cost for 1,000 impressions. This means that rates are determined by the number of ad impressions served instead of the number of people who click on the ad itself.

For eCommerce brands, this is often a better model as it leads to improved brand recognition. Why? Well, a view requires no additional action from the person who sees it, whereas a click requires them to click the ad and take an additional step. When monitoring CPMs, it’s important to note the fluctuations by audience – the lower the CPM, the more cost-efficient it is to get your ad in front of users. 

Of course, CPC is still incredibly important and leads to paying customers. But having your paid social ad go out in front of millions of individuals is a great way to build trust and get them further acquainted with your brand.

Average Paid Social Engagement Rates by Industry

As you can probably figure out, different platforms have varying levels of what is considered a successful campaign. For example, Instagram Story Ad benchmarks are quite different from Facebook Feed Ad benchmarks.

However, all paid social efforts rely on user engagement. For top-of-the-funnel campaigns, this means achieving elements such as likes, shares, comments, clicks, and other forms of user involvement.

It’s easy to see that this really depends on the audience the ad is shown to and the particular niche involved.

Average Paid Social CTR by Industry

Remember when we said CTR was still pretty important? This is where we’re looking at that KPI. After all, clicks equate to people leaving the social media platform where they saw your advertisement and going to your online store.

The important distinction between CPC and CTR really just comes down to how you are charged. Unlike paid search, where the cost is based on CTR, paid social is all CPM. Thus, a high CTR is simply icing on the cake when it comes to whether your advertising campaign is successful in helping your brand achieve new customers. High CTR also indicates whether the alignment of the creative and audience is strong, as well as the success of the creative asset. We often use CTR to determine how to proceed with the next round of creative ideation.

Why Do Facebook and Instagram Ad Benchmarks Matter?

This is a question we hear a lot from potential customers. The truth? The more you know about how well your paid social campaigns are working, the easier it is to make adjustments and further scale your efforts.

Essentially, the information we’ve provided in this report gives you a solid pulse of the status of social media advertising efforts in your industry or niche. By comparing this information to your individual results, you can easily see why it might be a good idea to work with our CAKE team.

FAQ - Instagram and Facebook Ad Benchmarks by Industry

We get it. Statistics alone don’t tell the entire story, and that’s why it is so important to always ask additional questions. To help you save time, we’ve included a few of the most frequent ones we get from potential clients just like you.

Can Paid Social Campaigns Help Grow an eCommerce Brand?

Absolutely! Social media is still a huge deal, but organic attention is harder than ever to come by. You simply cannot just post about a few products on your Facebook and Instagram profiles and hope customers will find out. Paid social helps get your brand and message out in front of the right audience and at the right time.

Where Does This Data Come From?

We’ve pulled the information in this guide directly from marketing reports associated with our current clients. It is our firm belief that showing you this type of benchmark information is a good way to give you a baseline of what this type of digital marketing can do for your brand and why it is important to work with an experienced eCommerce agency.

What is the Most Important Paid Social Benchmark for eCommerce Brands?

Really, all three of the KPIs we’ve mentioned here are crucial to your success with paid social. To know what you’re spending on each ad, it is important to consider CPM. From there, you need to understand what the people who are viewing your ads are doing when they see one and whether they’re interacting with the posts. Finally, you want to narrow down who is actually giving you clicks and what they’re doing when they get to your website. Having a deep understanding of what you’re achieving and what is normal for each of these facets in your industry is important.

Wrap Up: eCommerce Paid Social Benchmarks

These Facebook and Instagram ad benchmarks by industry are designed to give you a good idea of what to expect in terms of results. By comparing what you see here to the results you typically experience on your own campaigns, you can easily see why working with CAKE is such a good idea.

Are you ready to learn how CAKE Commerce can help take your paid social media campaigns to the next level? Please contact us today for further details.