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Stats Show How Facebook Is Weathering Massive Bad PR

From an advertising perspective, how is Facebook weathering the biggest PR storm in its nearly 15-year history?

While its brand partners were certainly rattled by the Cambridge Analytica controversy, a growing body of evidence suggests that Facebook’s ad business is doing just fine.

In the first quarter, for example, Facebook ad spending across Nanigans’ ecommerce and gaming ad clients grew by 87% year-over-year.

During the same period, Nanigans’ ecommerce clients increased their Facebook video ad spending by 206%, year-over-year, while their mobile ad budgets increased 88%.

Meanwhile, fresh findings from AppOptix show that Facebook’s key metrics have remained steady since the Cambridge Analytica scandal first erupted last month.

Among Android smartphone users, Facebook’s daily engagement rates have actually increased since the controversy blew up, according to the Strategy Analytics unit.

More broadly, click-through rates (CTRs) and cost per 1,000 impressions (CPMs)  have remained strong, according to Nanigans. In the first quarter, average CTRs were actually up 61% year- over-year, while CPMs were up 50%.

Among its clients, costs on a per-click basis also held steady, the ad software firm found. In fact, the average was 38% higher than that seen a year ago.

Even more impressive, the average CPCs for game marketers was up 73%, year-over-year.

Facebook’s app event optimization, which prioritizes in-app purchases, is a significant factor behind this trend, Nanigans suggests.

App event optimization can result in increased per-click costs, but it has proven highly effective in driving profitable in-game purchase activity.

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