After the rush of Q4’s holiday season, Q1 is often a time of getting back “normal.” To determine what that means for marketers, we compiled 13 billion impressions and over 209 million clicks to calculate median CPC, CPM, and CTR for Facebook ads (News Feed, the Audience Network, and FB Messenger), Google Ads (Search and Display), Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, YouTube, and Bing for AdStage’s Q1 Paid Media Benchmark Report.

Some costs shot up, others plummeted, but the most important data points are how your own numbers compare to these benchmarks. With Facebook Messenger CTR charting up, is it time to put a little more budget that way? How does your CPC on LinkedIn measure up to the $3.99 median we calculated? Has your Instagram strategy yielded a CPM well below the median? Find out when you download our free Q1 Paid Media Benchmark Report.

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Here’s a quick peek into what we found:

Facebook Audience Network CPC shot up by 71%

Key Takeaways

• Median CPC increased 30 cents since last quarter
• Median CPC increased by 278.7% year over year since Q1 2018

CTR on Google Display Network jumps 0.42% Q/Q

Key Takeaways

• Median CTR increased by 102.4% since Q4 2018
• Median CTR increased 137.1% Y/Y since Q1 2018

Key product updates

In our free report, you’ll also find the key product updates for each major advertising network from Q1. Highlighted trends include:

Facebook: Your Ads Manager interface may soon look a lot different. If you haven’t gotten a peek yet, expect drop downs where navigation tabs used to be. Though that may seem strange on Facebook, digital media analysts guess Facebook is moving toward an interface that feels more like other platforms, so marketers can move more seamlessly between their accounts.

Instagram: According to advertising platform Nanigans , marketers are seeing pleasing results from Instagram Stories and reallocating budgets to boost success. In Q4, budgets allocated to Stories increased by 124% year-over-year and 94% quarter-over-quarter. CTR, CPM, and CPC rates for Stories also shot up. CTRs jumped by 52% compared to Q4 2017. CPMs rose 112%, and CPCs grew by 39%.

Bing: The company continues to go hard on AI as a way to set itself apart from other search platforms. Its latest innovation is AI-powered performance insights. Bing explains the new feature as “when a significant or unexpected change in your account performance is detected, Bing Ads’ machine learning automatically attempts to identify why it happened and proactively inform you.” For example, if you see a dip in impressions, Bing will highlight the anomaly for you and offer follow up actions.

Benchmark numbers, product updates & tips from top performers — All in our free report

Our Q1 2019 Benchmark Report not only reveals costs and click-through rate benchmarks and key product updates for each major advertising network — Facebook ads (News Feed, the Audience Network, and FB Messenger), Google Ads (Search and Display), Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, YouTube, and Bing — but you’ll also get tips and advice from the experts. Hear what industry leaders have to say about the paid media tactics they found to be most successful in Q1 2019 and the new ad products and features they’re most excited about.

Get your free copy now!