Adobe Report: Facebook’s Ad Business Is Showing Continued Growth

The foundations of Facebook’s advertising business appear very solid according to Adobe’s first quarter Social Intelligence Report.

Clicks on Facebook ads, ad impressions and click through rates are all soaring, both year over year and quarter over quarter. Clicks are up 70% (YoY) and 48% (QoQ), ad impressions 40% and 41% and click through rates 160% and 20%.

That’s good news for the social network, which will announce its first quarter earnings later today. The news is also positive for brands trying to reach Facebook’s 1.25 billion users with marketing messages. Adobe reports that the cost-per-click rate on ads dropped this quarter — down 2% YoY and 11% since the holiday-spending fueled final quarter of 2013.

The Facebook ad data was the top headline from Adobe Digital Index’s quarterly snapshot of the social media industry released Tuesday. Download it in full here (PDF). Adobe, which bills the report as the industry’s most comprehensive analysis, bases it on aggregated and anonymous consumer data pulled from customers that use the Adobe Social, Adobe Media Optimizer and Adobe Analytics products.

“Social media continued to grow even after a strong holiday quarter and the seasonal slowdown expected in Q1,” Adobe Digital Index principal analyst Tamara Gaffney said in a news release. “Marketers are learning how to best reach their audiences across different social media channels and companies like Facebook are making changes to their algorithms and adding functionalities like auto-play of videos, which impact brands and users and how they engage with content.”

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Stable Revenue Per Visit

Facebook also did well as a contributor to retail sites’ bottom lines, Adobe found. Facebook was the only social media network that didn’t suffer slippage from last quarter in revenue per visit (RPV), a sign that Facebook is a better year-round performer. Facebook remained essentially flat with $1.24 RPV in Q1 (after $1.22 in Q4), while Twitter’s RPV dropped 23% ($0.62), Pinterest’s 30% ($0.65) and Tumblr’s 36% ($0.70).

Facebook (10.7%), Twitter (5.1%) and Pinterest (6.5%) showed modest year-over-year gains, while Tumblr surged with 55%.