Ad spend on Facebook still increasing, advertisers unfazed by data scandal

The recent Cambridge Analytica scandal has caused a stir among companies and consumers, with Mozilla pulling Facebook ads and the social media platform losing about US$60 billion market share. Closer to home, approximately 65,000 Facebook users in Singapore were affected by the scandal and Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said that Facebook had fallen short in its claimed standards of transparency in handling the incident and user data.Despite these occurrences, data science and marketing technology company 4C Insights' latest study "The State of Media - Q1 2018" said that advertisers are still continuing spend on the digital media platform. The report, which sampled over 1,000 brands worldwide said Facebook had a 62% increase in ad spend year-over-year (yoy) in Q1.The greatest quarter-over-quarter media spend increase came from the travel (129%) and legal/financial (32%) sectors.Additionally, the study said Facebook continues to deliver ROI for advertisers, with an 18% quarterly decrease in cost per thousand impressions (CPM), a 21% drop in cost per click (CPC) and a 4% increase in click through rate (CTR). According to 4C, brands will continue to allocate budgets to areas where they see performance.Meanwhile, advertising on Instagram also continues to see growth, with a 136% yoy increase. The report noted that travel brands have "significantly increased" investment in ads on the platform. This is due to the visual nature of Instagram, which complements the strengths of travel brands. Hence, resulting in the platform being a "natural fit" for Instagram ads.The consumer products vertical also contributed to ad spend growth on Instagram, increase 267% yoy and 112% quarter-over-quarter . According to the report, brands are attracted to the platform's visual strengths, and it continues to innovate and create new, engage ad formats such as Carousel Ads.Twitter ad spends increased 6% compared to Q1 2017, as ad buys on the platform are becoming more efficient. The report noted that CPC has decreased by 16% compared to Q4 2017. The growth in ad spend on Twitter was led by the education and consumer product verticals, which witnessed a 95% and 68% increase in qoq spend respectively. Meanwhile, the platform continues to innovate and offer a better user experience, with updates such as a new way to thread tweets and video website cards.Meanwhile, Snapchat witnessed a 234% yoy increase in ad spend during the first quarter of 2018, while LinkedIn saw a 66% yoy increase. Overall ad spend increased 65%, with different verticals driving advertising growth in each quarter, depending on seasonal trends and priorities.Founded in 2011, 4C has offices in 16 locations globally, including Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, US and the UK.Read also:Zuckerberg apology tour: Do founders always make the best CEOs?Zuckerberg apologises (again) for data scandal, swaps iconic T-shirt for suitFacebook loses US$60bn in market value following user data scandalFacebook cleans up privacy measures in new updateMark Zuckerberg addresses Facebook user data scandal, vows to fix issues