TikTok Gains Share in New Advertising Performance Report
A new study reveals shifting budget allocations between Meta and TikTok as advertisers balance cost and engagement metrics.
Updated on Oct. 16, 2026 in Advertising
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Would you shift more of your advertising budget to TikTok over Meta to lower costs?
The Metricool Social Ads Report 2026 finds that while Meta remains the primary platform for 91% of advertisers, TikTok is successfully capturing a larger portion of advertising budgets. TikTok's share of combined spending rose to 25.7% in 2026, up from 23.6% in 2025.
Why it matters
The findings highlight an evolving digital advertising landscape where brands are increasingly diversifying their spend to capitalize on lower costs per action and per click on emerging platforms. This shift forces marketers to weigh Meta's higher interaction rates against TikTok's growing cost efficiency.
Metricool analyzed 628,969 campaigns from 44,355 advertisers, representing a total investment of $471.5 million. The data indicates that Meta's Return on Advertising Spend for sales campaigns declined to 4.57 in 2026.
The players
Metricool
Metricool is a social media management and analytics platform that provides data-driven insights for digital marketing campaigns.
Meta
Meta is a technology company that owns and operates major social networking platforms including Facebook and Instagram.
TikTok
TikTok is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance that has become a major player in digital advertising.
The details
Meta maintains an edge in lead generation with a 2.04% click-through rate compared to 0.75% on TikTok and generates 10.8 interactions per dollar. However, TikTok offers a lower average cost per action at $2.69 versus $6 on Meta, alongside lower costs per 1,000 impressions.
Timeline
The report covers advertising performance from January through June 2025.
The report covers advertising performance from January through June 2026.
Market Landscape
This trend aligns with the ongoing migration of advertising budgets toward short-form video content as a primary driver of consumer engagement. The shift positions TikTok to challenge the long-standing dominance of legacy social media giants in the competitive digital advertising market.
Advertisers and small business owners may see more efficient pricing for awareness campaigns by diversifying their strategy across platforms. As costs shift, businesses should re-evaluate their marketing mix to determine if TikTok's lower acquisition costs outweigh the higher interaction rates on Meta.
The takeaway
Brands are increasingly balancing their digital strategy by leveraging the high engagement rates of legacy platforms alongside the lower acquisition costs of newer video-first apps. Marketers should focus on testing cross-platform campaigns to optimize their budget against shifting cost-per-action benchmarks.
Further reading
For more on industry benchmarks, see our Advertising section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Merca2.0 Magazine.
Live Poll
Would you shift more of your advertising budget to TikTok over Meta to lower costs?
