UK companies’ social media ad spend trumps global average

Spocial media apps on a smartphone

UK companies’ social media ad spend trumps global average Duncan is an award-winning editor with more than 20 years experience in journalism. Having launched his tech journalism career as editor of Arabian Computer News in Dubai, he has since edited an array of tech and digital marketing publications, including Computer Business Review, TechWeekEurope, Figaro Digital, Digit and Marketing Gazette.


UK brands spent 59% more on social media ads in Q2 2022, compared to the global average of £3118.

This is according to a study by Emplifi, a unified customer experience (CX) platform, which analysed thousands of brands worldwide between 1 April, 2022 till 30 June, 2022. UK brands spent the most on social media advertisements globally, despite engagement levels across social channels declining year-on-year.

Key findings from the report include:

UK tops global ad spend leader board, but engagement is down

  • The UK spent the most on social media ads in Q2 2022 – with UK brands spending an average of £4945 during this time period – compared to Northern Europe (£4635) and the US (£4322).
  • However, click-through rates are at their lowest level YoY, down 15% since Q2 2021.
  • Median interactions with UK brands’ Instagram posts declined by 8% YoY, while Facebook saw a 14% decline for the same period.
  • However, median monthly cost-per-click (CPC) is up by 7% compared to Q1 2022.
  • In an analysis of sister TikTok and Instagram accounts across 330 brands globally from January-June 2022, brands post more often on Instagram (68%) than on TikTok (32%) in relative posting frequency. While reach and interactions were higher on Instagram, video content had greater engagement on TikTok.

Brands’ overall response rates to comments are declining, but response times for urgent queries improving slightly

*Response rates refers to the percentage of responses to direct message conversations, while response times refers to median response time in hours.

  • Globally, on Facebook, response rates from brands showed a 16% decrease year-on-year and a 7% decrease since Q1 2022. Meanwhile, the response rate on Instagram decreased 5% YoY.
  • However, in Q2 2022 the time taken to respond to customer comments on Facebook was 10% quicker than last quarter and 15% quicker YoY.
    Response times on Instagram and Twitter remained consistent to last quarter, at an average of 9% and 3% respectively.
  • Across brand pages in the UK, overall response rates to comments from customers were higher on Facebook and Instagram, but lower on Twitter

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