Facebook has heavily marketed itself to small businesses, and it had more than 8 million active advertisers around the world as of Q4 2019. In March, it launched a $100 million grant program providing assistance and ad credits to small businesses.

eMarketer analyst Ross Benes, forecasting analyst Eric Haggstrom and principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin discuss what's next for out-of-home advertising now that the US is sheltering in place. They then talk about college football's TV ad inventory being in jeopardy, TikTok's data collection practices and the social platforms that small businesses are most likely to advertise on.

As a result, small businesses, like their larger counterparts, have continued to advertise on Facebook despite its problems. A Q2 2019 poll by CNBC and SurveyMonkey found little difference in the percentage of small businesses that were buying ads on Facebook compared with Q2 2018. However, 60% of the surveyed small businesses weren’t advertising on Facebook at all as of Q2 2019.

Social network ad spending has substantially rebounded since the early days of the pandemic. In 2021, the biggest issues social media marketers will face are in the areas of brand safety, ethics, and privacy.

Chris Record, senior vice president of ad product management at Pandora, said that ad spending from large advertisers has been relatively consistent during the pandemic. The biggest ad spending falloffs have come from local small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).