New data shows which social channels display most ads

Research from search engine WhistleOut shows Instagram and Facebook display the most advertising in user feeds across social media platforms.

Facebook feeds were found to have an average of 21.2 percent ads while Instagram had 20.6 percent. LinkedIn was next with 19.6 percent followed by Twitter (14.2 percent) and TikTok (2.4 percent).

This means Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn each show its users more advertising than Twitter and TikTok combined. Some feeds in WhistleOut’s analysis consisted of as much as 42 percent paid posts, or more than four ads for every 10 posts.

In the case of Instagram, the platform favoured by fashion and luxury brands, ads are shown at a higher rate to users who spend more time on their platform. WhistleOut suggests Instagram could be banking on the fact these users love their platform enough to tolerate a few more ads in their feeds.

On average, users spend the most time on Instagram (52 minutes) and see the second-highest number of ads. TikTok users spend about 44 minutes on the app, and see the smallest number of ads in their feeds.

WhistleOut gathered data from a survey distributed analyzing over 8,750 social media posts on 175 different personal and professional (business, art, influencer, etc.) feeds. In the survey, they asked social media users about their habits, including how they interact with paid posts, and how much time they spend on each social media platform.

According to eMarketer, 66 percent of US creative and digital decision-makers plan to advertise in Instagram Stories this year, slightly up from the 62 percent who expect to invest into News Feed advertising, thereby heightening the effectiveness of Stories for consideration.

Image via WhistleOut