% Meta
How much of every ad euro goes to Facebook and Instagram.
What it means
% Meta is the share of your total ad spend that went to Facebook and Instagram over the period. It describes where the budget sits and says nothing about what came back. Move €5,000 from search into Meta and it rises; cut search and leave Meta untouched, and it rises exactly the same way.
Show the math
Formula and a worked example
Meta spend is your Facebook and Instagram bill for the period. Total ad spend is that plus every other paid channel you feed into the app.
Worked example. March: Meta €18,000, Google €12,000, total €30,000. % Meta = 18,000 ÷ 30,000 = 60%.
April: Meta is unchanged at €18,000, but Google is cut to €6,000. Total is €24,000 and % Meta reads 75%. You didn't put another euro into Meta. Your dependence on it went up by fifteen points anyway.
It answers the question
How much of your paid growth rests on one platform? A high share means Meta is the engine; a low one means you're either strong somewhere else or leaving reach unbought.
Why it matters
This is the shelf space you've handed to a single supplier. At 80%, one auction, one algorithm and one account review stand between you and your new customers.
It also moves for two opposite reasons: you backed Meta, or everything else shrank around it. The percentage looks identical both ways, which is why it's only ever read next to the euro figure.
What good looks like
These bands suit a store whose demand has to be created — apparel, home, beauty, anything people discover rather than search for. If your category gets typed into a search bar instead, a lower share is a deliberate choice rather than a gap. Check NCPANCPAWhat it costs to win a first-time buyer. before you move budget on this number alone.
How to improve it
| Lever | What you do | Expect | How long | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fast Move the weakest search budget across | Shift spend off search terms that don't convert into a Meta campaign that already works | % Meta up 5–10 points within a cycle | 1–2 weeks | Search campaigns learn from budget too — starve one and you lose impression share you'll pay more to win back. |
| Fast Give proven campaigns room | Raise budgets 20% at a time on ad sets holding their return | % Meta rises because Meta grew, not because others shrank | 2 weeks | Bigger budgets widen targeting, so cost per new customer usually drifts up for a couple of weeks before it settles. |
| Slow Build a creative pipeline | Enough new hooks and formats each month that Meta can absorb more money without repeating itself | Meta takes a larger share at a similar return | 1 quarter | Production time and money that lands nowhere in Ads Spend, and plenty of what you make won't work. |
| Slow Run the formats you've never tried | Reels placements, catalogue ads, broader automated campaigns alongside your usual set-up | Fresh inventory Meta can spend into as you scale | 4–8 weeks | New formats spend badly while they learn, so the account average dips before the extra capacity shows up. |
Every lever costs something somewhere. The last column is the one to read twice.
Read it with
The share tells you the exposure. The euro figure tells you whether you chose it.
You backed Meta
Share and spend rose together, so this was a decision. The question left is whether the extra budget brought customers at a price you'd pay again.
The rest shrank
You're more dependent on Meta than last month without having chosen to be. Concentration that arrives by accident is the kind worth investigating.
You grew faster elsewhere
Meta still grew, just slower than the rest. That's healthy diversification as long as the new spend is earning its place.
Pulling out of Meta
Both falling means the channel is winding down. Deliberate is fine. Unnoticed is how a rejected payment method becomes a bad quarter.
Add them up and the remainder is the part of your budget neither card describes. Two shares that nearly total 100% mean a two-channel business with two points of failure; a large remainder means the mix is more spread than either number suggests.
Share measures the risk, NCPA measures whether you're being paid to take it. A rising share with a falling NCPA is concentration you're rewarded for; a rising share with a rising NCPA is concentration you're paying for, and that's the one to act on.
Common misreads
Total ad spend sits in the denominator. Pause a search campaign and the share climbs with the Meta budget frozen. Always check the euro figure before claiming credit.
Concentration is a real risk, not an automatic fault. A channel that brings customers at a price you'd repeat deserves the money. What decides it is cost per new customer as the share grows, not the share itself.
Any other paid channel you feed in sits in the same denominator, so the two rarely total 100. Never infer one from the other — read both.
Also called
Meta Spend Share · Meta share of budget · Facebook spend mix · paid social share
See yoursYour % Meta for the last 30 days, next to Meta and % Google.
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