August 2026
Ads buy a quarter point of follower growth
Brands that started Meta ads in the last 90 days grew their Instagram following by a median of 1.94 percent in those 90 days. Brands without ads: 1.71 percent. The difference is 0.23 percentage points.
Where paid does show: 15.4 percent of advertising brands had zero or negative growth. Among non-advertisers, 26.8 percent did.
What it means
Paid protects against shrinking more than it buys growth. If the budget is meant to move the follower count, the median says it barely does.
How it was measured
104 brands with an ad start in the last 90 days and 496 without, joined with the Instagram profile snapshot of 11 August 2026 (90-day follower growth). Correlation, not causation; advertising brands are larger on average.
What exactly is your paid budget supposed to move: followers, traffic, or calm?
