The statistics for social media advertising performance for leading platforms in March 2023 are in. And we’ve unraveled the details for our readers below.
While some big names made breakthrough achievements, others continued to experience declines.
Thanks to estimates from Similarweb, we outline those who really experienced a rollercoaster ride.
Elon Musk might not be too happy about how Twitter hasn’t been able to generate large subscription volumes over the past month. But what’s really eye-opening for so many people is the year-on-year decline trend. It’s down a massive 2.6% year over year. After the quarter ended, Twitter saw an 18% drop in traffic from ad buyers. Meanwhile, Facebook experienced a similar drop of 4.6%.
But in terms of some serious gains, Snapchat deserves a special mention. The company experienced a triumphal march against all arch-rivals. That came in the form of a 127.5% year-over-year gain last month and a massive 125% surge this quarter.
Business traffic monitoring and ads from leading social networks serve as an indicator of how well a business is performing, and that is exactly what has been done here.
Traffic directed to the Twitter platform’s ads portal fell 18.7% but saw an 8% improvement from February. And while tech billionaire and Twitter boss Elon Musk mentioned how keen he is to take a step back and re-engineer Twitter’s business model away from advertising, it’s not working so well.
The platform’s advertising business is in a tough spot, and Twitter Blue subscriptions are seldom all that successful.
But things aren’t looking too good for meta-platforms either. The company’s business model, which is linked to advertising on its leading Instagram and Facebook apps, saw a 2.6% year-over-year decline in traffic in March. This was accompanied by a decrease in traffic shares by 1.3 points.
On the other hand, Snapchat is seeing nearly 127% year-over-year growth in terms of advertising traffic. TikTok, which is the leader in terms of app popularity, is cited as a champion for gaining momentum in recent years. There was a 23% YoY increase, with Pinterest up 30.5% YoY.
Snapchat, Pinterest, and TikTok’s gains were more dramatic than traffic losses for Twitter and Facebook. So this type of trend is very common when you compare websites on a quarterly basis.
Compared to the first quarter of 2022, Twitter saw a 17% decline, while Pinterest, TikTok, and Snapchat saw big gains.
Then February was a period of rebound for Twitter and others, suggesting some advertising took more interest in social media apps. Overall, TikTok saw the largest monthly gain. And it’s interesting considering how the US continues to step up scrutiny of the platform.
Traffic share was still shifting away from Facebook, and we saw engagement from businesses and advertisers showing signs of a drop in traffic shares. But you can’t really put Facebook in the same league as others.
The app’s business portal is used for purposes such as organic social media marketing. More emphasis is placed on things like change in proportion and change in comparison when used as a measure to show change.
Experts say the app may lose its share of ad traffic for a while before it gets back in the running and takes on Twitter.
Continue reading: Twitter posts its strongest mobile revenue growth since launching its blue subscription plan
