The undisputed King of Social Media Networks, the third most visited website and the most downloaded app. Facebook is all of these and, as it grows, more accolades follow.
Some people love Facebook, others hate it. Over the years they’ve courted controversy, fallen foul of a number of local laws and even had some data breach shockers. But, there is no question that Facebook is the best marketing platform for paid social.
For marketers looking to improve their social reach, there is only one place to go. To top it off, they also own the world’s two biggest instant messenger services, and another big social media platform, Instagram.
And as Mr Zuckerberg looks to the future and the metaverse, there is no question that Facebook is will remain an huge player online. In fact, if you’re looking to get in on cutting edge marketing angles, chances are Facebook will be there.
So let’s take a closer look at Facebook traffic and their global market reach.
Facebook traffic statistics
Facebook’s traffic is huge, with around 22 billion visits each month in 2021, according to SimilarWeb.
There are 2.8 billion monthly active users, of which 1.84 billion visit daily.
The biggest markets for Facebook traffic are:,
- USA 23%
- Vietnam 4.4%
- UK 4%
- Brazil 3.9%
- Poland 3.85%
Of these visitors, the vast majority is direct, which is people visiting the site directly. In fact 83.3% of all Facebook traffic is direct.
But Facebook traffic also comes from search results (11.19%) and a very small percentage comes from other social media platforms (1.97%) and referrals (2.4%).
Facebook users are overwhelmingly mobile based, with 98% of all visitors using mobile. Only 1.7% use laptops or desktop based devices.
The Facebook Family
As well as its own huge platform, the Facebook family includes WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram.
In fact, Facebook Messenger is the second most downloaded app in the world (after, yup, Facebook itself!) and has over 1.3 billion monthly users.
Messenger is also the most downloaded app ever on the Apple app store.
The most downloaded apps of all time are:
- Facebook Messenger
- SnapChat
Yes, that’s right, Facebook owns four out of the five most downloaded apps ever.
Although WhatsApp is the bigger platform, with over 2 billion regular users, you can’t run ads on it yet. Facebook did announce plans to run ads on WhatsApp which was met with a huge backlash, so, for now at least, WhatsApp ads are a no-go.
Instagram traffic statistics
Instagram also has over 1 billion users, with 500 million of those active daily. Put into simple figures, Instagram reaches a quarter of the internet using public.
One of the most popular post formats is Instagram Stories, which also reaches 500 million users each day.
Instagram’s audience reach covers the globe, with most countries bar China and North Korea, having a presence on the app.
The audience share for Instagram is:
- USA 120 million
- India 80 million
- Brazill 77 million
- Indonesia 63 million
- Russia 44 million
Although these user numbers are bigger than some countries’ populations, the user figures for some other countries are incredible.
- UK 28.89 million (42% of the population)
- Australia 9.7 million (38% of the population)
- Germany 30 million (35% of the population)
- Spain 24 million (51% of the population)
- South Korea 17 million (33% of the population)
- Canada 15 million (39% of the population)
Put simply, the potential audience for Instagram extends to a large percentage of the national population in many countries.
Fake accounts & bots
With the huge demand for followers, engagement and traffic, an underground industry has grown.
It’s thought that 95 million Instagram accounts are fake, or operated by bots. Often run from click farms, which are locations designed to produce fake website traffic, these bots can be hired to post spam comments; like, share or follow; and amplify the spread of disinformation.
Facebook itself also suffers from a similar problem, with a huge volume of fake and duplicate accounts.
Some estimates put these fake Facebook accounts at around 270 million, or 13%-16% of the active accounts. (source)
The problem of this fake Facebook traffic for digital marketers is the issue of paying out for invalid impressions. If you’re paying for ads to target potential customers, you don’t want to be spending money on these bots or spam accounts.
But despite these bots and fake accounts, the volume of traffic and the global reach of Facebook and Instagram make these channels worth investing in for digital advertising.
Read more about Facebook Ad fraud in our blog.
Marketing on the Facebook Family of apps
Apart from WhatsApp, marketing to the huge volume of Facebook traffic is made very accessible.
Advertisers can choose to run ads on each of the platforms individually, or run campaigns across the whole suite.
The options include:
- Sponsored posts (on Facebook and Instagram)
- Stories ads (in Facebook, Instagram and Messenger)
- Messenger ads
- Audience Network (banner display ads within apps)
- Shopping ads for Instagram and Facebook
- Video ads (Facebook and Instagram)
Paid social on Facebook gives you some very powerful targeting options. And, as is the nature of social media, engagement and conversions can be higher than paid search.
The conversion rate on Facebook has been found to be as high as 9%.
Compared to the 3-5% for Google Ads, this is obviously a very appealing prospect for marketers.
Facebook Ads are also often cheaper than Google Ads for similar campaigns.
However, despite the huge reach, Google Ads does offer a bigger potential audience size. Your Facebook Ads targeting is, of course, limited to users of these platforms. Paid search however can incorporate search results and the huge selection of websites on the Google Display Network.
Facebook Ads and Google Ads also have their own pros and cons, which is often why marketers use both.
Maximising your Facebook ad traffic quality
Making sure your ads target only genuine Facebook traffic, instead of bots or fake accounts, can be a headache for marketers.
How can you be sure that your ads are only being seen by genuine potential customers?
There is a way…
Using ClickCease is the best way to filter your Facebook traffic. With more control over your targeting, ClickCease allows you to exclude bad audiences such as bots, spam accounts and other non-genuine traffic.
ClickCease is one of the only click fraud prevention solutions to offer Facebook Ads protection. Sign up for a free trial and run a diagnostic on your Facebook Ads today.
