The rise of Facebook as a content distribution platform – both organic and paid – is nothing new. To quantify its scope, we turned to data.

We analyzed Facebook data from over 400+ publishers and over one million content articles promoted on Facebook through Keywee from January 2016 to May 2017. The publishers represent all content verticals, including news, business, fashion, sports, entertainment, and food; and all sizes from smaller independent publishers to the largest mainstream ones. Read on to discover our findings, and what they mean for content creators.

 

Publishers aren’t promoting content to “compensate” for possible loss of organic reach.

 

Publishers’ paid traffic acquisition on Facebook more than doubled across all content verticals

  • Publishers’ paid traffic acquisition on Facebook has more than doubled in the past year and a half, across all content verticals.
  • The rise in paid traffic from Facebook isn’t correlated to any drop in organic Facebook reach. Publishers aren’t promoting content to “compensate” for possible loss of organic reach; instead they are finding ways to distribute content profitably on Facebook to achieve their business goals.

 

 

 

Top tech, finance, and news publishers can get 2.8 cents CPCs ($0.028) for their promoted Facebook posts.

 

The best publishers are able to garner ultra-affordable CPC on Facebook

  • Benchmarks for Facebook CPC across different content verticals show that Facebook traffic can be acquired at a reasonable price. Compare that to other advertising channels, and you can see why many publishers are turning to Facebook as an effective way to reach quality audiences at scale.
  • Top performing publishers in the entertainment and fashion vertical experience CPCs as low as 1.5 cents ($0.015).
  • Top tech, finance, and news publishers can get 2.8 cents CPCs ($0.028) for their promoted Facebook posts. One of the largest news and finance publishers has been able to distribute its articles on Facebook and acquire traffic at scale for as little as $0.033 CPC in 2017.

 

PS (shameless plug) – Keywee helps over 400+ content creators distribute their content efficiently on Facebook – and reach the CPCs described above. If you’d like to see whether Keywee can help your team, feel free to request a demo.

Note: This data analysis was originally covered by a Digiday article by Max Willens, Facebook always wins: Data shows publishers are buying far more Facebook traffic.

 

About Keywee
At Keywee, we make stories relevant and powerful for the world’s best storytellers — like The New York Times, The BBC, National Geographic, Forbes, and Red Bull.

Today, people aren’t coming to websites to search for content — stories find their audiences in feeds and apps. The upshot? Distribution is now the key for effective storytelling.

Keywee’s platform unlocks audience insights using AI and data science, and infuses them into every step of the storytelling process: from topic selection, to story creation, to distribution and optimization.

Keywee is backed by leading investors such as Google’s Eric Schmidt and The New York Times, and has been a fast-growing, profitable startup since its inception.