Facebook Mobile Ads Earn 2.5 Times More Than Desktop Ads, Studies Find

Facebook‘s mobile ads are performing significantly better than its desktop ads, according to multiple studies released Tuesday. That’s great news for the social network and its investors, who have worried about the company’s revenue prospects as its 900 million-strong user base shifts more of its time to mobile devices.

At the beginning of the month, Facebook began allowing advertisers to purchase Sponsored Stories solely on mobile devices for the first time. Sponsored Stories are posts companies and individuals have paid to highlight in the News Feeds of its fans and their friends (see right screenshot).

Early data from SocialCode, a Facebook Ads API partner, shows that ads that appear in mobile News Feeds get more clicks and more Likes than ads that appear in desktop News Feeds, proportionally. (It’s worth noting, however, that other kinds of ads, including display and search, also have higher click-through rates on mobile compared desktop. Because of the smaller screen sizes on mobile devices, accidental clicks are also more common.)

The findings were culled from 7 million impressions served between June 8 and June 18, of which 242,000 were shown on mobile devices.

Mobile click-through rate averaged 0.79% in the study, compared to 0.327% for desktop feed ads. A separate study by TBG Digital recorded an even higher click-through rate for mobile at 1.14%.

Because of the relatively high click-through rates, Facebook was able to generate 2.5 times as much revenue from mobile ads than desktop feed ads for the same number of impressions. Mobile feed ads generated roughly $7.51 per thousand impressions, while desktop feed ads came in at $2.98. Marketers, who purchased the ads on a cost-per-click basis in the study, paid only slightly more for mobile ads, as shown in the chart below.

There is one other promising finding: The number of Likes each 1,000 mobile impressions generated was also higher on mobile, averaging 0.62% compared to 0.219% on desktop feeds.