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As a marketer, I constantly ask, "Are our results good enough?"
When we achieve a 5x ROAS, I wonder, "Can it get even better?"
C-Level questions often arise: "What if we gave you 10x the current budget? Would you earn 10x more?"
Things turn around fast in the advertising world. There’s always that moment of panic about what to do next. Should you modify your best-performing campaigns and mess up all the previous learning? What if this is just a trend that’ll pass in a couple of weeks? The list just goes on and on.
Hunch manages hundreds of millions in ad spend on our platform. I decided to analyze depersonalized data to gain insights and share benchmarks with fellow Master Marketers. This will help you compare your performance with competitors in your region and industry.
To provide useful benchmarks, I've split our reports by market and vertical.
After analyzing 713 European Meta ad accounts across all B2C and D2C verticals, we’re launching our Hunch Bench series, starting with the eCommerce Benelux Report, being a platform that strongly operates in this market. Note that all the data and signals are directly from Meta native platform and that the attribution window is the same for all ad accounts to have combined data comparable.
Why this report focuses on Paid Social
Firstly, this is Hunch's field of expertise. Secondly, Paid Social commands the largest share of ad spend. You might not have guessed that Paid Social would surpass every other paid advertising channel and continue to grow each year, but that's exactly what happened. As the most important channel for B2C/D2C advertising, it’s clear that if you’re not on Paid Social, you’re missing out significantly.
Report’s Methodology: 100% Real-campaign data
I’ll provide a transparent breakdown of the data used for this Benelux eCommerce report, noting that these numbers represent all combined campaigns, not just those powered by Hunch.
Later in the article, I'll delve into various creative formats, ad placements, dynamic vs. static ads, and other key comparisons.
Here’s the data I used for this report:
- Time Period: January 2023 through April 2024
- Region: Benelux (91% Netherlands and 9% Belgium)
- Ad Accounts Analyzed: 223
- Total Meta Ad Spend Analyzed: 10.7 million €
- Scope: Ad accounts used by agencies and brands in the eCommerce vertical
- Focus: Sales objectives resulting in catalog sales and conversions (Awareness, Reach, and Engagement were not considered)
- Sales Objective Spend: 59.66% of total ad spend
The essential benchmarks in a nutshell
CPC:
- Average: 0.18€
- Higher in the first half (H1) of the year compared to the second half (H2).
Average CPM in Benelux: 4.4€
Purchase Rate:
- Can be misleading if looked at in isolation.
- Q1 and Q2 appear to outperform Q4, but there’s an interesting twist revealed later in the report.
Cost Per Purchase*(For benchmarking purposes we included median data only. Extreme values weren’t considered):
- Average: 9.21€
- Best Quarter: Q3 at 7.76€
- Worst Quarter: Q2 at 11.42€
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend):
- Varies throughout the year.
- Starts at 4.73x in Q1.
- Ends at 5.02x in Q4.
- Best Month: November at 5.86x.
- Worst Month: September at 2.79x.
Image or Video Ads? 2023: Image ads win, 2024: A different story
Not a day goes by in the advertising world without someone claiming video ads are a must. But what do the numbers really say? The findings I got here reveal some surprising insights:
- 83.1% of the Ad spend was allocated to Image format
- Image wins Purchase rate 1.86% vs 1.55% on video
- Image cost-per-purchase is 8.47€ vs 11.64€ on video
- Image is cheaper to serve - both CPM and CPC are 10-15% lower
- Image has better CTR 2.98% vs 2.84% on video format
Looking at these numbers, you may conclude that video is ineffective and consider reallocating all of the budget to image formats. However, don't jump to conclusions.
Numbers from Q1 2024 give us a twist. It turns out that videos outperformed images by:
- 1.64% Purchase rate over 1.21%
- 11.52€ cost-per purchase over 12.58€
What to do?
Include both image and video ads in your campaigns.
Looking at the 2024 trend, consider increasing your budget for video ads, as only 17% is currently allocated there.
Without video, you'll miss out on placements like Reels with huge potential. Also, for video dynamic retargeting, opt-in for PLV.
Static ads vs Dynamic ads?
Upon reviewing the data, the initial results were surprising, but the final insights were truly remarkable.
Dynamic image and video ads received double the budget compared to static ads, and there’s a clear reason for this.
While static ads have a purchase rate three times higher (4.5% vs. 1.5%) and a 34% lower cost per purchase, the overall performance tells a different story.
Dynamic image and video formats achieve a 12.5x return on every euro invested, compared to 6.3x for static ads.
The reason is straightforward: dynamic ads are more effective at selling higher-priced products.
Should you turn off static and reallocate everything to dynamic?
No, static ads are just fine for lower-priced product ad sets.
Use Dynamic ads for more pricier product sets especially in Q4 when the purchase value peaks and shoppers tend to spend more in volume.
Q4 Success Starts in Q3
Q4 is the best quarter for advertisers, so preparations start early in Q3.
Why?
Advertisers in the Netherlands have figured it out. Knowing purchase volume will be high, they invest heavily in dynamic ads to promote pricier products. This strategy led to the highest ROAS (5.02x) of the year, despite having the worst purchase rate (1.13%).
How is this possible?
Q4 has the highest purchase volume (46% more than the rest of the year), and dynamic ads are most effective for promoting pricier products during the holiday season. AOV peaks in Q4 and it’s 49% higher compared to the rest of the year.
Conclusion: In dynamic ads we trust
Q4 planning needs to start in early Q3 to ensure everything is ready on time. Higher-priced product sets won't sell magically, you need to build the pipeline beforehand. Dynamic ads, especially those enriched to trigger higher purchase values, must be prepared well in advance. You won't achieve a 12.5x return on investment with simple white background ads. You should be more creative and that’s something I know for a fact.
