Today, we are releasing findings from a new study we conducted which highlights the role Meta’s personalized advertising services play in driving growth and competitiveness in the EU economy. This study concludes that our personalized advertising tools were linked to €213 billion in economic activity and 1.44 million jobs across the EU in 2024.
The findings are part of broader research into the economic impact of our personalized advertising tools in the United States and globally. As this study sets out, personalized advertising is crucial for business success in the modern economy. It allows businesses to reach their target customers more effectively, boosting return on investment and driving growth, ultimately helping foster entrepreneurship and creating jobs.
This is particularly vital for small businesses that make up over 99% of companies in the EU, as personalized ads enable companies to reach customers in the most cost effective way. Each €1 spent on Meta ads now yields €3.98 in advertiser revenues in the EU. Consumers also prefer to see personalized ads tailored to their interests: a recent report showed that 80% of EU consumers actively prefer fewer, more relevant ads over generic, mass-distributed ones.
Academic research also shows that when personalized advertising is restricted, it’s small businesses and consumers who ultimately lose out most sharply. For small enterprises operating on tight margins, the inability to precisely reach potential customers means significantly higher marketing expenses – an unsustainable burden for many.
One example is ‘Eliza was here’, a Dutch travel company specializing in boutique holiday experiences. With over 20 years of experience in the European travel industry, ‘Eliza was here’ leveraged Meta’s personalized ads technologies, including AI-driven tools, to build a brand awareness campaign that boosted travel bookings by more than 40%.
Studies like this provide critical insight into the economic value of personalized advertising and their role driving growth at a critical time for the EU. Both the Draghi report and the EC’s Competitiveness Compass have rightly focused on the need to turbocharge European competitiveness. Thirty years ago, Europe represented roughly a quarter of global GDP. Now we’ve fallen behind. GDP per capita in the EU is half of that in the US, at approximately $40,000 per European compared to $80,000 per American. Our companies are growing more slowly, reporting lower returns and lagging behind their peers in research and development, even in industries that were traditionally Europe’s strength.
Both reports and countless other voices have been clear that regulation is a key factor. Despite this, the European Commission continues to constrain the value of personalized ads – an engine of economic growth as this research shows – and that puts jobs and growth at risk. Repeatedly pushing Meta to change our business model and go above and beyond the law to provide less personalized ads is bad for the experience of our European users, bad for millions of European businesses, and ultimately bad for Member States’ economies. At a time of incredible economic turbulence, European businesses need more tools to drive growth, and have fair opportunities to thrive and compete with their peers in the UK, US and the rest of the world – not less.
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This research is based on a robust methodology developed in partnership with UC Berkeley and published with the US National Bureau of Economic Research. Once we measured the effects of ads on businesses, we used Eurostat data to understand how those effects manifest in the broader economy.
