Google might be the king of search, but Facebook is angling for the advertising crown.
The social media platform announced in late February that its active advertiser roster had hit the 2 million mark, an increase of 33% from July 2014’s 1.5 million.
Steady Upward Climb
As Google sees its advertising base shrink somewhat, Facebook is enjoying a steady upward climb.
Google does remain the worldwide leader in digital market share with an impressive 31.1%, according to eMarketer, a research firm, but that share is down from 2013’s 33.6%, the firm notes.
Facebook, however, has witnessed its advertising base soar from a 5.8% share in 2013 to 7.8% in 2014.
Facebook’s growth in advertising also represents a revenue increase that is rather sizeable. The company’s fourth-quarter revenue grew 49% year over year to reach $3.98 billion.
Mobile accounted for about 69% of its advertising revenue.
Global, But Local
Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has grown to become a global powerhouse platform that connects people, communities and businesses.
The company logged an average of 890 million daily active users in December 2014 and boasted 1.39 billion monthly active users as of Dec. 31, according to its statistics.
Mobile monthly active users account for 1.19 billion of its audience.
While Facebook enables people to connect with each other, their communities and interests, it is a global company.
Facebook reports that 82.4% of its daily active users are from outside of the United States and Canada. It now boasts offices across the globe in locations such as Amsterdam, Mumbai, Paris, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Warsaw.
Appealing to Mom and Pop Businesses
The local advertising market is historically a tough nut for digital platforms to crack, but Facebook seems to have found the key ingredients: affordability, targeting and simplicity.
While the platform does not break out the number of small advertisers versus the big brands, it reports 30 million small business owners have their own Facebook pages.
Small advertisers tend to spend between $5 to $50 a day versus the millions big companies are able to spend annually, but it’s those small amounts Facebook welcomes with its self-service advertising tools that make it simple for anyone to create and post ads.
The formula seems to be working. Facebook reports that in the fourth quarter of 2014 80% of its newly acquired advertisers started out by simply paying to promote a post.
Small business owners themselves point to Facebook’s affordability and easy customer targeting tools as reasons for their patronage.
“Facebook is pushing a lot harder than Google,” Padraig Bracken, marketing manager at Dublin’s Y-Volution toy company, told Reuters. “Google search is the king, but it’s getting more expensive.”
