A hand full of cash money. Flickr Image.
Meta Platforms, Inc., (NASDAQ: META), incurs a significant portion of advertising expense. This article looks into the social media giant’s advertising expense, expense ratios, and expense YoY growth rates.
Let’s find out!
You may find related statistic of Meta Platforms, Inc., on these pages:
Sales
Costs and Expenses
- Meta total costs and expenses analysis,
- Meta operating expenses breakdown: R&D, marketing, and administrative,
Comparison With Peers
Please use the table of contents to navigate this page.
Table Of Contents
Definitions And Overview
Insight & Summary of Observed Trends
Z1. Insight & Summary of Meta’s Advertising Expense Analysis
Advertising Expenses Statistics
A1. Advertising Expense Total
A2. Advertising Expense Ratios
A3. Advertising Expense YoY Growth Rates
Reference, Credits, and Disclosure
S1. References and Credits
S2. Disclosure
Definitions
To help readers understand the content better, the following terms and glossaries have been provided.
Advertising Expense: Advertising expense is the cost of promoting a product, service, or brand to potential customers. It is a type of expenditure that businesses incur to create awareness, generate interest, and ultimately drive sales.
This expense can take various forms, including but not limited to costs for online ads (such as social media and search engines), television and radio commercials, print advertisements (in magazines and newspapers), billboards, and other forms of media.
Advertising expenses are often categorized as operating expenses in financial statements and can significantly impact a company’s profitability depending on the strategy and budget allocated.
According to Meta’s 2025 annual report, Meta’s advertising costs are expensed when incurred and are recognized as part of the company’s marketing and sales expense on its consolidated statements of income.
Insight & Summary of Meta’s Advertising Expense Analysis
The following analysis consolidates the trends observed for Meta’s afvertising expense, ratios, and YoY growth rates for the 2017–2025 period.
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Meta experienced a massive expansion phase in its advertising expenditure during the earlier half of this period, rocketing from just $324 million in 2017 to an absolute peak of $2.99 billion in 2021.
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This cycle was characterized by hyper-growth, underscored by an extraordinary 239.5% YoY spike in 2018, as the company heavily reinvested to drive user acquisition and platform engagement.
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Correspondingly, ad intensity peaked in 2020 and 2021, where advertising consumed over 2.5% of total revenue and accounted for more than 20% of the overall Marketing & Sales budget.
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However, the post-2021 era marks a definitive structural pivot toward cost efficiency and organic marketing leverage. Advertising expenses witnessed consecutive steep contractions in 2022 (-11.4%) and 2023 (-23.8%), bottoming out at $2.02 billion.
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While spending has modestly restabilized with nominal growth (1.5% to 2.0% YoY) in 2024 and 2025, operating efficiency has structurally improved.
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By 2025, Meta’s advertising expense to revenue ratio dropped to a highly efficient 1.0%, indicating that the company is effectively generating outsized revenue growth without relying proportionally on direct advertising spend.
The table below combines all key advertising expense metrics, expense ratios, and growth rates into a single view for the latest three fiscal years.
Consolidated Advertising Expense 3-Year Averages (2023–2025)
| Metric | 3-Year Avg. Value |
|---|---|
| Advertising Expense ($ Millions) | |
| Advertising Expense ($ Millions) | $2,056.67 |
| Advertising Ratios (%) | |
| Advertising to M&S Ratio (%) | 17.33% |
| Advertising to Revenue Ratio (%) | 1.27% |
| YoY Growth Rates (%) | |
| Advertising Expense Growth (%) | -6.77% |
Advertising Expense Total
Meta’s definition of advertising expense is available here: advertising expense.
Advertising Expense 3-Year Averages (2023–2025)
| Metric | 3-Year Avg. Value |
|---|---|
| Advertising Expense ($ Millions) | $2,056.67 |
Advertising Expense Ratios
Meta’s definition of advertising expense is available here: advertising expense.
Advertising Expense Ratios 3-Year Averages (2023–2025)
| Metric | 3-Year Avg. Value |
|---|---|
| Advertising to M&S Ratio (%) | 17.33% |
| Advertising to Revenue Ratio (%) | 1.27% |
Advertising Expense YoY Growth Rates
Meta’s definition of advertising expense is available here: advertising expense.
Advertising Expense YoY Growth Rates 3-Year Averages (2023–2025)
| Metric | 3-Year Avg. Value |
|---|---|
| Advertising Expense Growth (%) | -6.77% |
References and Credits
1. All financial figures presented are obtained from Meta’s annual reports published on the company’s investor relations page: Meta Investor Relations.
2. Pexels Images.
Disclosure
We may utilize the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to produce some of the text in this article. However, the data is directly obtained from original sources and meticulously cross-checked by our editors multiple times to ensure its accuracy and reliability.
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