The eCommerce industry has grown so large over the years that it’d be a sin not to make a comprehensive analysis of social media eCommerce.

In this article, we’ll be looking at Facebook vs. Instagram in the eCommerce content industry. Which platform is more popular for this type of content, average post interactions, and more.

Before we get into the analysis, I’ll give you the main highlights down below. Here are the essentials of how eCommerce content performs on Facebook vs. Instagram.

Let’s get started!

Section I: Total Distributions of Brand Interactions on Facebook & Instagram

First, we will be looking at the total share of interaction distributions per brand on Facebook and Instagram in Q1 2023. This will show us how popular eCommerce content is compared to other niches.

Here’s the data:

Brand Type	Facebook	Instagram
eCommerce	29.7%	24.2%
Retail	12.4%	8.1%
Services	9.4%	7.6%
Finance	5.6%	Not Ranked
Sporting Goods	Not Ranked	4.6%
Fashion	5.5%	21.1%
Electronics	3.8%	3.3%
Fmcg Food	3.8%	Not Ranked
Beauty	Not Ranked	6.3%
Auto	3.8%	8.4%
Others	26.1%	16.4%

From the get-go, we can see that eCommerce content is at the top of the interactions chart, both on Facebook and Instagram.

With 29.7% total distribution of interactions for Facebook and 24.2% for Instagram, it seems that Facebook is the better option for eCommerce content. People tend to interact more with eCommerce content on Facebook vs. Instagram, in other words.

However, Instagram isn’t too far behind, to be perfectly honest. A 24.2% share of total interactions is very good, considering that Instagram is not a finance or eCommerce-centric platform. It focuses more on fashion, beauty, and things like that.

Let’s see if these initial findings correlate with the next sections!

Section II. Median Post Interactions on Facebook and Instagram

This second section will explore the average eCommerce post interaction on Facebook and Instagram over a 1 year period, from February 2022 to February 2023.

We’ll see whether the interactions have increased or decreased. Let’s see the chart:

Period	Facebook	Instagram
February 2022	~9	~90
April 2022	~9	~80
June 2022	~8	~65
August 2022	~8	~68
October 2022	~8	~68
December 2022	~8	~67
February 2023	~8	~65

Wow, alright. It seems that, based on the number of interactions, Instagram is ahead of Facebook by a lot. eCommerce posts receive much more interactions on Instagram (around 8-10 times as much) than on Facebook.

This tells us a couple of things:

• Either Instagram eCommerce content creators are more engaging than Facebook content creators
• Or Instagram is a better platform for eCommerce content because it attracts more interactions

I don’t think there’s a difference in terms of talent between Instagram and Facebook content creators necessarily. This means that Instagram users tend to engage more with eCommerce content.

Let’s look over the other sections to see if this is true.

Section III: Relative Median Post Interactions on Facebook and Instagram

This section will compare the relative median post interactions between Facebook and Instagram. The data will show Facebook’s median post interactions relative to that of Instagram and how they change over time.

The reference point is February 2022, where the analysis begins. Any decreases or increases from that reference point will be marked with a %.

It’s a different statistic than the one above which should help us narrow down the engagement of eCommerce posts on these platforms.

Cue the chart:

Period	Facebook	Instagram
February 2022	~100%	~100%
April 2022	~85%	~82%
June 2022	~83%	~70%
August 2022	~83%	~72%
October 2022	~83%	~75%
December 2022	~83%	~72%
February 2023	~83%	~68%

From this data, we understand that Facebook’s median post interactions have remained stable over time, whereas Instagram’s median post interactions have not.

Even when you compare them to one another, Instagram’s post interactions are heavily fluctuating over the months, while Facebook, although experiencing a decline, has remained very stable at around 83 post interactions.

Moreover, Instagram’s decline in median post interactions seems to be sharper: from 100 post relative median post interactions in February 2022, all the way to 68 in February 2023.

Moving on to the next section!

Section IV: Median Post Engagement Rate for Facebook & Instagram

The median post engagement rate, expressed in percentages, will show the percentage of total users who see a post that interacts with it in any way.

This interaction/engagement can take any form – like, comment, share, and so on.

Here’s the data:

Period	Facebook	Instagram
February 2022	~0.43%	~2.45%
April 2022	~0.42%	~2.43%
June 2022	~0.43%	~2.40%
August 2022	~0.43%	~2.42%
October 2022	~0.42%	~2.43%
December 2022	~0.44%	~2.43%
February 2023	~0.43%	~2.41%

Let me explain:

• For February 2022, only 0.43% of the people who viewed a Facebook eCommerce post chose to interact with it (like, comment, share, etc.)
  
• In the same period, 2.45% of the people who viewed an Instagram eCommerce post also interacted with it

Make no mistake, these values are to be expected. Usually, an engagement rate between 1%-3% is considered average on Instagram.

Whereas an engagement rate of around 0.5% is considered average on Facebook. This difference in engagement rate expectations between platforms comes from the fact that Instagram tends to have higher engagement rates than Facebook.

So, both Facebook and Instagram have an average engagement rate for eCommerce posts, more or less. Facebook is a bit below average but not by much.

Section V: Distribution of eCommerce Post Types on Facebook

This section will look at the share of eCommerce posts on Facebook. How many of them are videos, how many are photos, and how many are links?

Cue the chart:

Post Type	February 2022	April 2022	June 2022	August 2022	October 2022	December 2022	February 2023
Video	~10%	~10%	~10%	~10%	~10%	~10%	~10%
Status	~2%	~2%	~2%	~2%	~2%	~2%	~2%
Link	~10%	~10%	~10%	~10%	~10%	~10%	~10%
Photo	~73%	~73%	~73%	~73%	~73%	~73%	~73%
Live Video	~1%	~1%	~1%	~1%	~1%	~1%	~1%

Just as expected, the vast majority of Facebook eCommerce posts are photos, followed by videos and links. Live videos and status posts are very limited in the eCommerce niche.

It makes sense that photos are the most popular form of content but not because the eCommerce niche is special in any way.

Photos are simply very user-friendly and communicate information very easily. Status posts and links, on the other hand, aren’t as expressive. They don’t create as much engagement.

Moreover, it seems that all eCommerce content on Facebook has remained stable in terms of usability. No declines, no increases, just perfect stability.

Now, how about we take a look at Instagram’s stats?

Section VI: Distribution of eCommerce Post Types on Instagram

Same thing as before but for Instagram. Let’s see the data:

Post Type	February 2022	April 2022	June 2022	August 2022	October 2022	December 2022	February 2023
Video	10%	10%	~10%	7%	5%	4%	2%
Carousel	25%	27%	27%	24%	24%	24%	25%
Image	58%	55%	50%	45%	43%	42%	40%
Reel	5%	7%	9%	22%	28%	30%	32%

Instagram is nothing if not unstable. Compared to Facebook which was stable all around, Instagram keeps going up and down in terms of eCommerce post types favored by content creators.

Here are the main highlights:

• eCommerce video content has suffered a sharp decline in usability from 10% to 2% in a year
• eCommerce Carousel content has remained mostly stable throughout the year
• eCommerce image content has decreased in usability from 58% to 40% in a year
• eCommerce Reel content has substantially increased in usability from 5% to 32% in a year

To me, it looks like Instagram is quite unstable in the eCommerce industry, in terms of the type of content used. Videos suffered a sharp decrease and were replaced by Reels.

Carousels kept their popularity intact, while Images also suffered somewhat of a decline in usability for eCommerce content.

On the other hand, Facebook stands in stark contrast to Instagram’s instability. However, there’s also the question of which platform tends to attract more attention – Facebook or Instagram.

Based on my finding thus far, it looks like Facebook tends to be stable but less engaging than Instagram in the eCommerce content industry.

We’ll see in the following sections if this is proven to be 100% true.

Section VII: Organic Performance of Post Types on Facebook in January-March 2023

Let’s take a look at the average post interactions for individual post types on Facebook in the eCommerce industry:

Post Type	Median Post Interactions
Photo	~3.5 interactions
Link	~3.5 interactions
Video	~5 interactions
Status	~6 interactions
Live Video	~21 interactions

Photos and links weren’t very engaging for eCommerce content throughout the January-March 2023 period based on this chart.

Videos were so-so, alongside status posts, and then we have live videos, which received a median of 21 interactions per post.

This creates a paradox – even though very few content creators make Facebook live videos for eCommerce content, this type of content attracts the most interactions from viewers.

The vast majority of eCommerce posts are photo posts, which get a median of 3.5 interactions per post, which is not a lot.

But let’s look at Instagram and see if there’s anything different there!

Section VIII: Organic Performance of Post Types on Instagram in January-March 2023

Theoretically, we should see a lot more engagement per post type because Instagram’s engagement was bigger than Facebook’s.

Let’s see the data:

Post Type	Median Post Interactions
Image	~47 interactions
Video	~51 interactions
Carousel	~67 interactions
Reel	~82 interactions

Yeah, this isn’t even a contest. Instagram has around 9-10 times more post interactions per post type compared to Facebook in the eCommerce niche.

This means that users are much more likely to interact with an eCommerce post on Instagram than on Facebook, regardless of the post type.

Reels appear to be the most popular form of content on Instagram in the eCommerce niche – they garner the most post interactions, on average.

This correlates to the increase in the usage of Reels over the past year, which we’ve noticed in a previous section. It’s different from Facebook where the most interacted-with content type (live videos) was the least used by eCommerce content creators.

In Instagram’s case, the Reels grew in usage as well as engagement over time. This time, it makes sense and it’s reasonable that creators started using the content type that grew in engagement.

Well, not in Facebook’s case, it seems!

Section IX: Top Performing Pages on Facebook

Let’s have a look at which eCommerce pages are performing the best on Facebook and see their overall engagement and organic results.

Page	Fans	Posts	Interactions
Shopee	Unknown	514	166,533,236
Lazada	Unknown	589	70,102,901
Mahar Mobile	3,644,592	2,174	30,291,520
Netlifx	Unknown	366	17,016,782
WATCH IT	2,991,202	976	13,801,080
ShopeeFood VN	856,985	300	11,390,283

In Q1 2023, Shopee was the top-performing eCommerce page on Facebook and things aren’t any different now, most likely.

With 514 posts, Shopee had over 166 million interactions, which is more than double the number of interactions of Lazada, the second most performing page on Facebook.

In comparison to the other six pages, Shopee doesn’t have my posts either. Compare it to Mahar Mobile’s 2,174 posts, for instance. They only had 30.2 million interactions.

Clearly, Shopee posts are substantially more engaging to garner that much attention per post.

Let’s look at Instagram and see how it compares!

Section X: Top Performing Profiles on Instagram

Instagram doesn’t have pages like Facebook does. Instead, what it has are profiles, and that’s what we’ll see in the coming chart – top-performing profiles on Instagram:

Profile	Followers	Posts	Interactions
Netflix Brasil	35,443,242	311	77,640,986
Netflix US	32,563,972	360	66,793,695
Netflix India	7,896,389	799	44,347,990
Netflix France	9,137,579	353	42,383,894
Netflix Latinoamerica	24,477,421	301	31,180,827
Tennis TV	2,311,700	856	30,421,638

Who would have thought that 5 of the top-performing profiles on Instagram belong to Netflix in different locations around the world?

Netflix Brasil seems to be the top-performing profile at the moment, with over 77.6 million interactions and 311 posts.

Despite this, Netflix India appears to have the most engagement with its users. Here’s why:

• There are only 7.8 million followers to Netflix India’s profile on Instagram
• The number of interactions is around 44.3 million
• This would mean that, on average, every one of those followers would interact, 5.67 times with Netfix’s content

By comparison, here are the same calculations for Netflix Brazil:

• It has 35.4 million followers
• The number of interactions is 77.6 million
• That means that, on average, every follower interacts 2.19 times with Netflix Brasil’s content

However, there’s a different way to look at it. Netflix India also has more than double the posts compared to Netflix Brasil (799 vs. 311).

With this in mind, this results in Netflix Brazil gets an average of 249,649 interactions per post, while Netflix India gets 55,504 interactions per post, on average.

Alright, we’re nearly finished. Just three more sections and we’re golden!

Section XI: Ad Cost per Click on Facebook & Instagram for eCommerce vs. All-Industry Ads

In this section, I’ll show you a comparison between the worldwide and eCommerce ad cost per click for Facebook and Instagram.

By worldwide, I mean all the other industries and niches, averaged out.

Here’s the data:

Period	Worldwide	eCommerce
February 2022	$0.17	$0.19
April 2022	$0.19	$0.22
June 2022	$0.2	$0.23
August 2022	$0.16	$0.19-$0.20
October 2022	$0.18	$0.20
December 2022	$0.22	$0.22
February 2023	$0.15	$0.17

It seems that, on average, the cost-per-click for eCommerce ads is bigger than the worldwide average for other industries. There’s more money to be made within the eCommerce industry, both on Facebook and Instagram!

Within a single year, it looks like the April-October period is best for eCommerce ads, while the worldwide average does go down a lot within the same timeframe.

The cost-per-click for eCommerce also tends to fluctuate less compared to the worldwide industry average, which is a good sign.

Let’s see the click-through rate now.

Section XII: Ad Click-Through Rate on Facebook & Instagram for eCommerce vs. All-Industry Ads

The click-through rate shows the effective performance of eCommerce ads on Facebook and Instagram and how often viewers click on the ads they see.

Let’s look at the data we have:

Period	Worldwide	eCommerce
February 2022	1.05%	1.3%
April 2022	1%	1.10%
June 2022	1%	1.20%
August 2022	1%	1.10-1.15%
October 2022	0.9%	1.20%
December 2022	1%	1.10%
February 2023	1%	0.9%

Again, we see that eCommerce ads have a higher click-through rate than worldwide all-industry ads both on Facebook and Instagram.

For instance, a click-through rate of 1.3% in February means that out of 100 viewers, 1.3 clicked on an ad. This is more than decent performance for Instagram and Facebook display ads, based on industry standards.

eCommerce ads appear to be more engaging, likely because of how they are built, than the all-industry standard for ads.

But what about ad expenditure? How much do eCommerce Facebook pages and Instagram profiles spend on ads on these platforms?

Let’s have a look!

Section XIII: Ad Expenditure on Facebook & Instagram for eCommerce vs. All-Industry Ads

What’s the average ad expenditure per month for eCommerce ads on Facebook and Instagram? Let’s see:

Period	Worldwide	eCommerce
February 2022	$2,100	$6,200
April 2022	$3,000	$7,900
June 2022	$3,100	$6,400
August 2022	$3,000	$6,200
October 2022	$3,200	$6,000
December 2022	$4,200	$9,000
February 2023	$3,200	$7,600

Yet again, we see that the eCommerce industry spends a lot more on ads than the all-industry average. Especially during the holiday season, the way it seems.

On average, advertisers spend at least double in the eCommerce sector compared to other industries, and the difference grows during the winter months.

This tells us what we already new – people will get on a shopping spree during the holiday season – Christmas, the New Year, and so on.

Naturally, ad marketers know this too and will spend a lot more on ads to show to potential customers who are already primed to buy something.

But that’s all I have for you for the eCommerce content industry on Facebook and Instagram. I hope this information serves you well and don’t forget to stay tuned for more social media research!

Sources

1. Emplifi Ecommerce Worldwide