Data & Benchmarks March 17, 2026 • Updated: 9 November 2026

Facebook Ads
statistics 2026

50+ verified benchmarks, costs and trends for Facebook Ads (Meta). From median CPC and cost per lead by industry to reach, Meta ad revenue and Advantage+ data. Every figure links to the source we opened: WordStream, LocaliQ, Meta, DataReportal, Pew Research Center, StatCounter and DDMA.

$0.60

median CPC, Facebook traffic campaigns (US)

Source: WordStream, 2026

8.54%

median conversion rate, Facebook lead campaigns (US)

Source: WordStream, 2026

1.93%

median CTR, Facebook traffic campaigns (US)

Source: WordStream, 2026

2B+

daily active Facebook users

Source: Meta Q2 2026 earnings call

Statistics overview

Facebook Ads (part of Meta) is the second-largest advertising platform in the world, offering unmatched targeting based on demographics, interests and behavior. But what does it actually cost? What CTR and conversion rate can you expect in your industry? And how do the numbers stack up against Google Ads? For Dutch companies, how these figures shape a social media strategy: more on social media marketing (in Dutch).

This page contains 50+ up-to-date Facebook Ads statistics and benchmarks, each linked to the source we opened (WordStream, LocaliQ, Meta, DataReportal, Pew Research Center, StatCounter and DDMA). Benchmarks are US medians unless stated otherwise. Whether you want to benchmark your social media budgets, plan a new campaign with a specialist Facebook Ads agency, or compare your results against the market, you will find the data you need here. Also check out our Google Ads statistics 2026 for a complete comparison.

Section 1

Facebook users & reach

2B+

daily active Facebook users (Meta: "for a while now")

Meta Q2 2026 earnings call

2.32B

people reached by Facebook ads, October 2026

DataReportal, 2026

3.64B

daily active people across all Meta apps, September 2026

Meta Q3 2026 results

70%

of US adults use Facebook (2026)

Pew Research Center, 2026

Facebook use by age (US adults, 2026)

Facebook ad audience (worldwide, October 2026)

  • Facebook ad reach fell by 26.5 million (-1.1%) year over year and by 75.3 million (-3.1%) since July 2026 (DataReportal, 2026)
  • Ad reach equals 27.9% of the world population, 35.2% of people aged 13+ and 39.3% of adults (DataReportal, 2026)
  • The ad audience is 56.3% male and 43.1% female; the largest group is men aged 25-34 (18.7%), followed by women aged 25-34 (13.0%) (DataReportal, 2026)
  • Ages 18-24: 10.5% men, 7.6% women; 35-44: 12.0% and 8.8%; 45-54: 7.1% and 5.9%; 55-64: 4.3% and 4.2%; 65+: 3.4% and 3.8% (DataReportal, 2026)
  • Largest markets: India 400 million, United States 198 million, Indonesia 126 million, Brazil 106 million; Western Europe 71.3 million (DataReportal, 2026)
  • In the Netherlands, Facebook ads reached 7.50 million people (49.9% of adults) at the end of 2025, 11.8% fewer than a year earlier (DataReportal, 2026)
  • Facebook accounted for 70.84% of social media market share worldwide in StatCounter's October 2026 data (StatCounter, 2026)
Section 2

Facebook Ads costs

$0.60

median CPC, traffic campaigns (2025: $0.70)

WordStream, 2026

$1.80

median CPC, lead campaigns (-6.25%)

WordStream, 2026

$27.39

median cost per lead (-0.98%)

WordStream, 2026

+14%

Meta average price per ad, Q3 2026 year over year

Meta Q3 2026 results

CPC by industry: traffic campaigns (US, median)

  • Lowest: Arts and Entertainment $0.34, Travel $0.42, Restaurants and Food $0.45 (WordStream, 2026)
  • Highest: Finance and Insurance $0.86, Automotive Repair, Service and Parts $0.74, Apparel, Fashion and Jewelry $0.71 (WordStream, 2026)
  • Biggest CPC drops year over year: Real Estate -39.56%, Restaurants and Food -37.50%, Industrial and Commercial -37.21%; only Shopping, Collectibles and Gifts (+73.53%) and Sports and Recreation (+43.90%) got more expensive (WordStream, 2026)

CPC and cost per lead by industry: lead campaigns (US, median)

  • Highest CPC: Dentists and Dental Services $5.70, Beauty and Personal Care $2.97, Furniture and Home and Home Improvement $2.18; lowest: Career and Employment $0.73, Arts and Entertainment $0.88, Sports and Recreation $1.08 (WordStream, 2026)
  • Lowest cost per lead: Career and Employment $12.30, Real Estate $13.74, Arts and Entertainment $14.59 (WordStream, 2026)
  • Highest cost per lead: Dentists and Dental Services $61.56, Beauty and Personal Care $50.91, Home and Home Improvement $42.95 (WordStream, 2026)
  • Cost per lead fell for 12 of 14 industries; Personal Services rose 24.60% and Home and Home Improvement 4.10%, while Health and Fitness dropped 48.83% (WordStream, 2026)

Meta ad prices and revenue

  • Meta's advertising revenue reached $196.2 billion in 2025, up 22% from $160.6 billion in 2024 (Meta FY2025 results)
  • In 2025, ad impressions across Meta's apps grew 12% and the average price per ad 9% (Meta FY2025 results)
  • In Q3 2026 Meta's ad impressions rose 10% and total revenue 26% to $64.60 billion (Meta Q3 2026 results)
  • In the Netherlands, Meta's reach, click and commerce costs in H1 2026 were below the 2025 average, but cost per lead and frequency rose (DDMA benchmark, 674,000 campaigns) (DDMA, 2026)
Section 3

Performance benchmarks

1.93%

median CTR, traffic campaigns (2025: 1.71%)

WordStream, 2026

2.70%

median CTR, lead campaigns (2025: 2.58%)

WordStream, 2026

8.54%

median conversion rate, lead campaigns (+10.62%)

WordStream, 2026

+15.7%

conversions on Facebook from Meta's ranking models, Q2 2026

Meta Q2 2026 earnings call

Conversion rate by industry: lead campaigns (US, median)

  • Highest: Education and Instruction 15.87%, Arts and Entertainment 15.31% (WordStream, 2026)
  • Lowest: Automotive For Sale 4.15%, Industrial and Commercial 4.50%, Home and Home Improvement 5.32% (WordStream, 2026)
  • Conversion rates rose for 10 of 14 industries; Industrial and Commercial fell 51.77% and Automotive For Sale 51.33%, while Arts and Entertainment rose 63.90% (WordStream, 2026)

CTR by industry (US, median)

  • Traffic campaigns, highest: Beauty and Personal Care 2.73%, Arts and Entertainment 2.71%, Restaurants and Food 2.68%; lowest: Finance and Insurance 1.46%, Automotive For Sale 1.47%, Education and Instruction 1.50% (WordStream, 2026)
  • Lead campaigns, highest: Physicians and Surgeons 4.18%, Real Estate 4.17%, Furniture 3.78%; lowest: Beauty and Personal Care 1.35%, Dentists 1.62%, Education 1.74% (WordStream, 2026)
  • Traffic CTR for Physicians and Surgeons rose 128.92% year over year; Shopping, Collectibles and Gifts fell 54.48% (WordStream, 2026)

What Meta's AI changes did for performance

Section 4

Facebook vs Google Ads

$5.42

average CPC for search ads (Google and Microsoft Ads) vs $0.60 on Facebook traffic campaigns

LocaliQ, 2026

$66.69

average cost per lead for search ads vs $27.39 on Facebook

LocaliQ, 2026

65.5%

Meta's share of Dutch social ad spend, H1 2026

DDMA, 2026

Facebook vs search ads in numbers

  • CPC: Facebook traffic campaigns $0.60, Facebook lead campaigns $1.80, search ads $5.42 (WordStream / LocaliQ, 2026)
  • CTR: Facebook traffic campaigns 1.93%, Facebook lead campaigns 2.70%, search ads 6.64% (LocaliQ, 2026)
  • Conversion rate: Facebook lead campaigns 8.54%, Google Ads 8.18% (LocaliQ, 2026)
  • According to WordStream, the average Google Ads CPC is more than double the average Meta CPC; it calls the channels complementary (WordStream, 2026)
  • More than 90% of small businesses in WordStream's survey use Facebook for marketing and advertising (WordStream, 2026)
  • In Dutch B2B social spend, Meta holds 41.2% while LinkedIn's share fell from 52.7% in 2024 to 9.3% in H1 2026; TikTok holds 17.2% of all Dutch social spend (DDMA, 2026)

Also check out our full Google Ads statistics 2026.

Section 5

Ad formats & performance

+8%

total video time on Facebook, Q1 2026 (largest quarterly gain in four years)

Meta Q1 2026 earnings call

$10B

annual revenue run-rate of Meta's video generation tools, Q4 2025

Meta Q4 2025 earnings call

3%+

higher conversion rates for advertisers using Meta's video generation feature (tests)

Meta Q1 2026 earnings call

50%+

growth of click-to-message ad revenue in the US, Q4 2025

Meta Q4 2025 earnings call

Video, Reels and ad products

  • Facebook video time rose 9% globally year over year in Q2 2026 and more than 10% in the US and Canada (Meta Q2 2026 earnings call)
  • Same-day posts make up more than 30% of recommended Reels on Facebook and Instagram, more than double a year earlier (Meta Q1 2026 earnings call)
  • Ranking changes in Q4 2025 lifted views of organic Feed and video posts on Facebook by 7% (Meta Q4 2025 earnings call)
  • In the second half of 2025, redistributing ads across users and sessions had a nearly 4x larger revenue impact on Facebook than adding more ads (Meta Q4 2025 earnings call)
  • Advantage+ lead campaigns were fully rolled out at the start of Q4 2025 (Meta Q4 2025 earnings call)
Section 6

Facebook marketplace & commerce

1B+

people visited Facebook Marketplace each month (Meta, 2021)

Sherwood News, 2024

$2B+

annual run-rate of WhatsApp paid messaging, Q4 2025

Meta Q4 2025 earnings call

10M+

weekly conversations between people and business AIs

Meta Q1 2026 earnings call

+73%

growth of Meta's non-ad app revenue to $1B in Q2 2026

Meta Q2 2026 earnings call

  • Facebook Marketplace launched in 2016; Meta stopped reporting Facebook-specific usage figures afterwards, so the 2021 figure is the latest official one (Sherwood News, 2024)
  • More than 1 million businesses use Meta Business Agents on WhatsApp and Messenger every week to talk to customers or complete sales (Meta Q2 2026 earnings call)
  • Example from Meta: an Indian apparel brand saw a 13% incremental lift in purchases and 16% more add-to-cart conversions after switching to Advantage+ sales campaigns (Meta Q2 2026 earnings call)
Section 7

Meta Advantage+ & AI advertising

$75B+

annual revenue run-rate of Advantage+ end-to-end campaigns, Q2 2026

Meta Q2 2026 earnings call

9M+

small businesses using at least one Meta AI creative tool

Meta Q2 2026 earnings call

+24%

incremental conversions with Meta's incremental attribution vs standard attribution

Meta Q4 2025 earnings call

  • In Q1 2026 more than 8 million advertisers used at least one of Meta's generative AI ad creative tools (Meta Q1 2026 earnings call)
  • Expanding Meta's Adaptive Ranking model to offsite conversions raised conversion rates on Facebook and Instagram by 1.6% (Q1 2026) (Meta Q1 2026 earnings call)
  • Meta's capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, were $72.22 billion in 2025 (Meta FY2025 results)
  • For 2026 Meta expects capital expenditures of $135-145 billion (Meta Q3 2026 results)
Summary

Key takeaways

1

Cheap clicks, different intent

A Facebook traffic click costs a median $0.60 in the US, against $5.42 for search ads. Facebook reaches people who are not searching, so use it for demand creation and retargeting.

2

Leads cost less than on search

Facebook lead campaigns convert at 8.54% for a median $27.39 per lead; search ads average $66.69. But the spread per industry is large: $12.30 to $61.56.

3

Know your industry benchmark

Dentists pay $5.70 per lead-campaign click, career services $0.73. Compare against your own industry, not the overall median.

4

The audience is aging

70% of US adults use Facebook, but only 31% of US teens, down from 71% in 2014-15. Ad reach fell 1.1% in a year.

5

Meta's AI does more of the work

Advantage+ campaigns run at a $75B+ revenue run-rate and 9M+ small businesses use AI creative tools. Feed the system good creative and clean conversion data.

6

Prices are rising

Meta's average price per ad rose 14% in Q3 2026. In the Netherlands, cost per lead on Meta went up in H1 2026 even as clicks got cheaper (DDMA).

Methodology & sources

Every statistic on this page was checked on 9 November 2026 against a source we opened ourselves; figures we could not trace to a source were removed. Benchmarks from WordStream are medians of 1,892 US campaigns (April 2025 to June 2026) in US dollars. DataReportal figures are ad reach from Meta's ad tools, not user counts. Sources:

Disclaimer: Benchmarks are medians or averages from the listed sources and vary significantly by industry, audience, season and creative quality. US dollar figures are not converted. For specific advice about your situation, Request a free growth analysis with our team.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is the average CPC for Facebook Ads?

WordStream's 2026 benchmark puts the median CPC of Facebook traffic campaigns in the US at $0.60 (2025: $0.70) and of lead campaigns at $1.80. Search ads average $5.42 per click (LocaliQ). The cheapest traffic clicks are in arts and entertainment ($0.34), the most expensive in finance and insurance ($0.86). Check out our full comparison in the Google Ads statistics 2026.

What is a good CTR for Facebook Ads?

The median CTR is 1.93% for Facebook traffic campaigns and 2.70% for lead campaigns (WordStream 2026, US). It differs by industry: beauty and personal care reaches 2.73% on traffic campaigns, finance and insurance 1.46%. On lead campaigns physicians and surgeons lead with 4.18%.

How much do Facebook Ads cost per month?

There is no reliable public benchmark for monthly Facebook budgets, so we do not give one. What you can plan with is cost per result: a median $27.39 per lead in the US, ranging from $12.30 (career and employment) to $61.56 (dentists). Request a free growth analysis to determine the right budget for your business.

What is the average conversion rate for Facebook Ads?

The median conversion rate of Facebook lead campaigns is 8.54% in 2026, up 10.62% from last year (WordStream, US). Education and instruction converts best (15.87%), automotive for sale worst (4.15%). For comparison, Google Ads averages 8.18% (LocaliQ).

Are Facebook Ads still worth it in 2026?

Facebook still has more than 2 billion daily active users and its ads reached 2.32 billion people in October 2026. Meta's ad revenue grew 22% to $196.2 billion in 2025, and its Advantage+ campaigns run at a $75 billion+ revenue run-rate. Costs are rising, though: the average price per ad rose 14% in Q3 2026. The key is understanding where Facebook fits into your broader marketing mix.

What is the difference between Facebook Ads and Google Ads?

Facebook Ads are cheaper per click ($0.60 for traffic campaigns vs $5.42 for search ads) and per lead ($27.39 vs $66.69), but people on Facebook are not actively searching. Google reaches people with a question (pull), Facebook reaches people based on interests and behavior (push). WordStream calls the channels complementary: use Facebook for demand creation and retargeting, Google for purchase intent.

Social media advertising expertise by Searchlab

At Searchlab, we combine deep Facebook Ads expertise with smart AI tooling. We optimize social media campaigns based on data, not gut feeling. With more than 50 proprietary AI tools, we analyze creative performance, audience engagement and budget allocation to maximize your return on ad spend.

Want to know how your Facebook Ads campaigns stack up against these benchmarks? Request a free growth analysis and let us show you the opportunities.

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Ruud ten Have

Compiled by

Ruud ten Have

Ruud is a digital marketer with 10+ years of experience in online advertising and AI implementation. At Searchlab, he combines strategic thinking with hands-on AI tooling to deliver measurable results for businesses.

About Searchlab

We don’t just collect this data, we apply it daily as an AI-first marketing agency in Amsterdam. Dutch businesses can explore our Facebook Ads bureau services.

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