This week Facebook reported a considerable increase in ad impressions from this time last year. To recap, an ad impression is the number of times an ad is viewed on the platform. Through optimization efforts on behalf of the team behind the curtain at Facebook, businesses seem to be getting more bang for their advertising buck. 

Within the same report, Facebook declared that ad spend was down, albeit by a small margin, but down all the same. This decrease was caused primarily by the focus shift to ads in Stories on the platform as well as feed ads. Despite the decrease in ad spend, overall revenue for Facebook is up 28% which works out to approximately $17.4 billion over the last year, with mobile ad revenue claiming 94% of that total figure¹. 

Though these numbers show that advertisers are more than willing to continue spending money on the platform, the daily active user growth remains flat. Showing very little or no growth in the daily user amount doesn’t necessarily spell danger for the social titan. By expanding into Stories, Facebook shows that their success stems from the innate ability to show advertisers where their key consumers are already existing. 

¹Marketing Land. Facebook ad impressions rise, driven by News Feed, Instagram Stories and Feed ads. Source.