Metricool’s 2026 Social Ads Report Finds Meta Campaign Spend Up 47% as Returns Decline

MADRID, ES, September 21, 2026 –Metricool, a global social media management platform, today launched its 2026 Social Ads Report, analyzing 628,969 paid campaigns from 44,355 advertisers across Meta and TikTok worldwide, representing more than $471 million in ad spend. The report examines how advertisers are allocating budgets across the two platforms and how performance is shifting across awareness, consideration and conversion campaigns.

The findings show advertisers are putting significantly more money behind Meta campaigns, but higher spending is not translating into stronger returns. Average spend per Meta campaign increased 47% year over year, from $489.53 to $718.45, while return on ad spend for Meta Sales campaigns declined from 5.48x in 2025 to 4.57x in 2026.

TikTok, meanwhile, is emerging as a more cost-efficient option across much of the advertising funnel. While 91% of advertisers in the study run paid campaigns exclusively on Meta, TikTok delivered lower costs for reach, traffic and lead generation.

Key findings include:

• TikTok campaigns average $1,309 in spend, nearly twice the average Meta campaign budget of $718.
• 91% of advertisers run paid campaigns exclusively on Meta, compared with just 5% on TikTok alone.
• TikTok traffic costs just $0.03 per click, compared with $0.07 on Meta, while generating nearly 8x more clicks per campaign.
• TikTok’s cost per lead fell 33% YoY to $2.69, while Meta’s increased 14% to $6.00.
• 1 in 4 TikTok campaigns are focused on video views, making it one of the platform’s most common campaign objectives.
• 70% of Meta ad spend goes to the bottom of the funnel, even though 67% of campaigns focus on Traffic or Engagement.
• Meta spend is up, but returns are down: Average spend per campaign rose 47% YoY, while Meta Sales ROAS fell to 4.57x.

“More budget does not automatically mean more efficiency. That is one of the clearest takeaways from this year’s data,” said Juan Pablo Tejela, CEO and Co-Founder of Metricool. “Meta remains the default advertising platform for most brands, but TikTok is becoming increasingly competitive at specific points in the funnel, particularly when advertisers are looking to generate reach, traffic or leads. The opportunity for marketers is to understand where each platform performs best and align every dollar with the outcome they actually want to drive.”

The full 2026 Social Ads Report, including platform benchmarks, funnel performance, budget allocation and return on ad spend analysis, is available here: https://metricool.com/social-ads-study-2026. 

Methodology 

Metricool analyzed paid advertising activity from 44,355 advertisers worldwide across Meta and TikTok, covering 628,969 campaigns and $471,491,072.74 in ad spend. The analysis compares data from January through June 2025 with the same period in 2026. All figures are reported in U.S. dollars, with campaigns using other currencies converted using a single fixed exchange rate across both periods. Most figures are presented as averages, with advertisers grouped by average monthly ad spend to allow comparisons among accounts investing at similar levels.