Digiday: Instagram Marketing Budget and Confidence Survey 2022

Digiday's survey found that, like Facebook, Instagram is the most important marketing channel for advertising agencies, with 93% of advertising agency professionals saying that their clients spend at least a small portion of their marketing budget on the platform, and 33% of respondents said that their clients spend a large or very large portion of their marketing budget on Instagram.

On the other hand, 85% of brand professionals said they spend their marketing budget on Instagram, second only to Google and online display ads, with one-third of brands investing a large or very large portion of their marketing budget on Instagram.

Digiday's survey found that most advertising agency clients do not spend much on Instagram advertising. Nearly one-third of professional agencies (31%) said their clients have only a modest marketing budget on the platform, a proportion that has remained unchanged over the past year.

Notably, the percentage of advertising agencies that say their clients spend a significant portion of their marketing budgets on Instagram remained at 8%, compared to 14% six months ago.

Speaking of brands, Digiday's survey found that the largest group of brand professionals spend a moderate or large portion of their marketing budgets on Instagram — 27% each, to be exact. That's both a significant increase from six months ago.

The percentage of brand professionals who spend a small portion of their marketing budget on Instagram has also changed significantly over the past six months. In the third quarter of 2022, more than a third (35%) spent a small portion of their budget on Instagram. In the first quarter of this year, this percentage dropped to 12%.

Like Facebook, Instagram has seen steady ad agency spending. However, agencies’ confidence in the platform’s ability to deliver marketing success for clients is shaky.

For example, the percentage of agency professionals who are confident that Instagram can drive marketing success for their clients has fluctuated widely over the past year and a half. In the first quarter of this year, more than a third of agencies (35%) were confident in Instagram.

For brands, on the other hand, confidence in Instagram’s ability to drive marketing success has grown steadily over the last year. In the first quarter of 2022, 30% of brand professionals were confident in the platform.