Facebook Ads vs. Instagram Ads - Who Is the Winner?

Choosing between Facebook and Instagram can feel like picking between two powerful superheroes—each has unique strengths, but which one will save the day for your business?

In the epic showdown of Facebook Ads vs. Instagram Ads, we’ll break down the key features of both platforms to help you decide which deserves your marketing budget.

From ad costs to audience demographics and format versatility, we’re diving deep into how these platforms stack up. So, grab your cape (and wallet), and let’s see which ad platform truly reigns supreme!

What are Facebook ads?

Facebook ads are a form of paid advertising that businesses can use to promote products, services, or content on Facebook and its associated platforms: Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Each of these ads is marked with a sponsored tag indicating that it's an ad, not an organic post.

Facebook ads allow businesses to target specific audiences based on a variety of data points like age, location, interests, and even purchasing behaviors. This is all done through a bidding system, similar to an auction. 

Advertisers set a bid/budget, and the ads are shown based on a combination of bid amount, relevance, and ad quality. Winning the auction isn’t solely about having the highest bid; ad relevance and expected engagement also play a critical role in your Facebook bid strategy.

It isn't all about likes, either. You can choose from different campaign objectives, depending on your goals—whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving more product purchases, or generating leads.

Once the campaign is live, you can track its performance in real time using detailed Facebook analytics tools that measure important metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions.

The benefits of Facebook ads can't be understated. They pack a punch with their laser-focused targeting, budget-friendly options, and the ability to effortlessly connect with just the right audience, making social media advertising a marketer’s secret weapon for driving conversions in 2024.

What are Instagram ads?

Since Facebook and Instagram are owned by the same overarching organization (Meta), all of the above can be said for Instagram. The main difference here is that Instagram ads will be shown on Instagram instead of Facebook.

Note: To run Instagram ads, you will need to link Instagram to your Facebook account and then create them using the Facebook Ads Manager.

Facebook ads vs. Instagram ads - what are the differences?

While the two platforms can seem identical on the surface, they have some major differences in terms of audience, platform content, and costs.

Cost

One of the most important factors in choosing Facebook over Instagram (or vice versa) has to be the cost. Luckily for you, we've compiled guides on both Facebook ad costs and Instagram ad costs in 2024!

While you can find both of the individual articles linked above that expand upon each platform in detail, we've created an overview that breaks down the top costs you should be tracking:

For cost per impression, Instagram is slightly pricier at $10.81, just above Facebook's $10.62. However, the gap widens with cost per click, where Instagram's rate of $1.19 is more than double Facebook's $0.59. The cost per engagement is relatively close, with Instagram at $0.06 and Facebook at $0.07.

As you can see, the cost of advertising on Instagram and Facebook for CPC, CPM, and CPE is very similar. This means advertisers can freely create ads on both platforms without worrying too much about pricing considerations.

Ad formats

Both Instagram and Facebook ads offer marketers an incredible array of ad formats. However, Facebook has a few more types of Facebook ads up its sleeve.

Image ads

Image ads are simple, single-image advertisements that include text and a call to action. They are best used for quick, straightforward messages like promoting a product, event, or offer with strong visuals.

Video ads

Video ads are advertisements that use motion content to engage users with a more dynamic message. These work well for storytelling, product demonstrations, or showing a brand in action, making them effective for building emotional connections.

Carousel ads

Carousel ads allow advertisers to showcase multiple images or videos in a single, swipeable format. They are perfect for displaying different products, features, or services and for telling a multi-step story in a single ad.

Collection ads

Collection ads feature a cover image or video with multiple product images underneath, allowing users to browse and purchase directly within the ad. These are best for e-commerce businesses looking to showcase a variety of products and drive conversions seamlessly.

Shopping ads

Shopping ads allow businesses to showcase and sell products directly within Facebook/Instagram by tagging their products in photos and videos, making them ideal for e-commerce brands looking to reach visually-driven, mobile-first consumers.

Stories ads

Stories ads are full-screen, vertical ads that appear between users' Stories on Facebook and Instagram. While organic Stories disappear after 24 hours, Stories ads can run for as long as you desire. They are best used for creating immersive, quick-impact content that captures attention in a more casual, everyday browsing context.

These ad formats are identical on both platforms.

Reels ads

Reels ads are short, vertical video or image ads integrated into Instagram and Facebook Reels, offering a highly engaging and visually dynamic experience similar to the content on TikTok. These ads are great for reaching younger, highly engaged audiences and are ideal for showcasing trending content, product launches, or behind-the-scenes moments. These ad formats are also identical.

Explore ads

Explore ads appear in the Explore tab within Instagram, where the algorithm provides content for users based on their interests—making them ideal for brand awareness and product discovery. 

Facebook does feature a few other ad formats that are not available on Instagram, including:

• In-stream video ads: Mid-roll video ads displayed within longer video content on Facebook.
• Playable ads: Interactive ads that allow users to try out a game or app within the ad itself.

After reading this, it should be clear that no matter what your goal is, Facebook and Instagram ads can help your idea come to life. If you need some help in this area, we have a complete guide that breaks down ad sizes for every format mentioned above.

Audience

While the costs and formats are comparable, neither matter if you can't find your target audience on the platform. Let's take a deep dive into some data and see how the audiences stack up against each other!

Facebook has been around for some time now, and it seems that nearly everyone (and their grandmother) is on the platform. Out of their 3 million+ monthly users, men aged 25 to 34 make up Facebook's biggest user group. Close behind are men aged 18 to 24, who form Facebook’s second-largest audience.

While Facebook has a sizable user base for the 45+ crowd, most of their users are under 44.

Compared to Facebook, the Instagram demographic skews to a much younger audience and does have a bit of a smaller reach, with only 2 million monthly active users. In fact, over half of Instagram's worldwide audience is 34 or younger.

You'll also notice the disparity between Instagram and Facebook users around the older age groups. On average, Instagram has around half the number of users in the 55+ demographic as Facebook does.

While both platforms attract younger audiences, Instagram tends to have a more youth-dominated user base. However, if your goal is to reach the older demographics, Facebook remains the better option.

Ease of use

Facebook has nearly everything a marketer can ask for—Pages, groups, events, shopping cart systems, business analytics, job listings, a community marketplace, a dating app, fundraisers, video games....

You get the point.

And while all these features can be fun and useful in the right context, it's hard not to be overwhelmed. That being said, once you become familiar with the ecosystem, it offers some of the most extensive functionality available in a social media platform, and you won't find anything else like it—which is how it's retained its relevance all these years.

Instagram, on the other hand, is wonderfully simplistic—at its core, it's truly a platform that's dedicated to helping users find and engage with visual content. There are fewer options compared to Facebook, but this simplicity is part of its appeal to its user base.

Content on the Feed

The audience and features of Facebook and Instagram can differ greatly, so it should be no surprise that the content on the two platforms will differ as well.

Content on Facebook is more diverse than on Instagram, largely due to the limited types of posts available. On Facebook, you’ll find everything from text-heavy posts, news articles, and status updates to videos, photos, and links to external sites. Facebook also supports longer-form content, making it suitable for more in-depth storytelling.

Instagram, on the other hand, is primarily a visual platform centered around high-quality images and videos. In fact, you can't even create a post without a video or an image. Posts are more concise due to the post limitations, with a 2,200 character limit compared to Facebook's 63,206 characters. Instagram Stories, Reels, and static photos are key post formats, making it great for quick, visual updates and engaging bite-sized content.

To sum it up, Facebook caters to a more diverse range of content, while Instagram focuses on visually-driven, short-form visual content. Both platforms serve different purposes, so it’s important to tailor your content to match user expectations on each.

ROAS (return on ad spend)

Advertisers don't create ads for fun—they want them to drive more revenue. This is what makes ROAS such a great KPI for tracking success.

ROAS, or return on ad spend, tells you how much revenue you're generating for every dollar spent on advertising. To calculate it, you divide the revenue you made from a campaign by the cost of running it.

For example, if you spent $100 on ads and earned $500 in sales, your ROAS would be 5. This means that for every dollar spent, you're earning $5 in revenue.

While Facebook and Instagram are not in the #1 spot for ad ROAS, you'll see they are not very far behind as they take the second and third slots out of the top 4 platforms:

‍Paid search takes the top slot here, which isn't surprising as the intention behind the keyword search terms and displayed ads is much more aggressive compared to the passive consumption of ads on social media platforms. Facebook's ROAS of 10.88 is higher than Instagram's. However, a ROAS of 8.3 would still be more than acceptable for most advertisers.

Conclusion: Facebook ads vs. Instagram ads - the final decision

As we've seen here today, both Facebook and Instagram ads have unique strengths that make them valuable tools in any digital marketing strategy—and they’re both still worth it in 2024.

Facebook offers a more detailed, versatile ad platform with a broader demographic reach, while Instagram excels in visual engagement, particularly with younger audiences. But by using both, you can leverage the best of both worlds—reaching different segments of your audience where they spend their time and tailoring your content to fit each platform’s strengths.

Instead of choosing one over the other, combining Facebook and Instagram ads allows you to maximize your advertising potential and drive better results for your business.

For marketers looking to take both their Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns to the next level, Madgicx is the AI-infused super app that brings it all together.

Madgicx contains everything you need to inspire, design, launch, analyze, and optimize your Facebook and Instagram ads in one place. With powerful automation tools and AI-driven insights, Madgicx helps you maximize your ad spend, ensuring that your campaigns perform at their best across both platforms:

• AI Ad Generator can level up your entire creative workflow—add an image from the (or pick your own from our collection of ads in the Ad Library), type in a design prompt, et voilà! You’ll have an ad creative in just a few seconds. You can also send your images to our digital artists, who can design your ad creatives for you.
• AI Marketer is your 24/7 AI-powered assistant that helps surface recommendations for ad optimization crafted by seasoned Meta ad experts with over a decade of experience managing billions in ad spend.
• One-Click Report gathers data from Meta, Google Ads, GA4, TikTok, and Shopify into one central location. With 19 customizable drag-and-drop templates, you can monitor your crucial KPIs and deliver these insights to your team (or clients) quickly and easily.

Instead of creating, designing, managing, and reporting on your ads separately, let Madgicx streamline the process and help you get the most out of your Meta ad strategy.

Snag your 7-day free trial and see the Madgicx yourself 😉