Australia and New Zealand Social Media Benchmarks: Auto Q3 2026

What’s in this report

Australia and New Zealand auto social media benchmarks for Q3 2026 show Instagram posts earning more than twice as much as Facebook posts: the median auto brand in Australia and New Zealand earned 43.5 interactions per Instagram post in September, against 18 on Facebook. Reels led on Instagram, while on Facebook photos out-earned Reels. Engagement rates for this category are reported at the worldwide level, where they reached up to 2.16% on Instagram and up to 0.85% on Facebook, both 15-month highs.

This quarterly benchmarks report draws on Emplifi’s dataset of 167 Facebook pages and 102 Instagram profiles in the Australia and New Zealand auto category, covering July 1, 2026, through Sept. 30, 2026.

User-generated content: what’s achievable

Brands using Emplifi’s UGC solution saw these average uplifts in Q3 2026:

• 11.49x conversion rate
• 4.84x repeat website visits
• 1.03x average order value

The figures come from Emplifi’s Worldwide Brands UGC benchmark, averaged across 68 to 83 accounts per metric. That benchmark covers brands in every category and region worldwide, so it is not specific to auto brands in Australia and New Zealand.

Organic performance: Facebook and Instagram

Interaction share by industry

On Instagram, beauty leads with 22.0%, closely followed by home and living, which draws 19.7% of interactions from 6.5% of posts. Emplifi’s data team is reviewing this quarter’s Facebook interaction share for Australia and New Zealand, so this section shows Instagram only.

Instagram interaction distribution (Q3 2026):

The table lists the categories with the most brand posts in the region, ranked by their share of interactions. Others combines every remaining category.

Platform landscape at a glance

Facebook has the bigger audience: the median auto page in Australia and New Zealand has about 80% more fans than the median Instagram profile. Posting levels are almost identical, yet Instagram collects about 37% more interactions over the quarter.

Median post interactions

This metric follows the middle-ranked page or profile each month, so a handful of viral accounts can’t inflate it.

Instagram had a strong Q3. After dipping to 33.5 in May 2026, it rose to a 15-month high of 51 in August and finished September at 43.5. Facebook peaked at 27 from December 2025 to February 2026 and has slipped since, ending September at 18, its lowest month of the period.

Relative median post interactions

Indexing each platform to its own 15-month peak makes the two easier to compare despite their different scales.

Instagram ended September 2026 at 85% of its August 2026 high. Facebook finished at 67% of the peak it held from December 2025 to February 2026, its lowest point of the period.

Median post impressions

Impressions count how often posts were displayed, whether or not anyone interacted. They measure visibility, not engagement.

Emplifi’s dataset has too few Australia and New Zealand auto profiles with impression data this quarter, so the impressions below are the worldwide auto medians.

Worldwide, auto brands’ Instagram impressions are about 40% of their August 2025 peak of 5,769 and have held between roughly 2,250 and 2,600 since February 2026. Facebook impressions fell from 5,243 in July 2025 to 2,190 in September 2026, the lowest month of the period. The decline is not specific to auto: median Facebook impressions for brands worldwide fell from about 1,500 to 779 over the same period.

Engagement rate trends

Emplifi’s dataset has too few Australia and New Zealand auto profiles with impression data this quarter, so the engagement rates below are the worldwide auto medians.

Median post engagement rates this quarter (worldwide auto):

• Instagram: up to 2.16%
• Facebook: up to 0.85%

Across the quarter’s three months, the worldwide Instagram median ranged from 1.84% to 2.16% and Facebook’s from 0.74% to 0.85%. Both rates ended September 2026 at their highest point of the 15 months, Instagram up from a low of 1.16% in September 2025 and Facebook from 0.67% in July 2025.

From this quarter, Emplifi calculates engagement rate from impressions instead of reach, because Facebook no longer provides reach data. These rates are therefore not comparable with the engagement rates in earlier quarterly reports.

Best-performing post types

Facebook: Live Video led with a median of 39 interactions but made up 0.15% of posts in September. Photos came next at 21, ahead of links and Reels at 13 each.

Instagram: Reels led at 62.5 interactions, carousels followed at 52, and both earned about twice as much as a single image (27).

Full organic post type performance (Q3 2026):

Post type distribution trends:

Photos made up 61.5% of Facebook posts in September 2026, down from 67.8% in July 2025, and Reels rose from 20.1% to 31.1%, with the biggest jump in October 2025. On Instagram, carousels reached 41.7% of posts, their highest share of the period, while single images fell to 21.3%, their lowest. Reels held at about a third (33.2%).

Top performing pages and profiles

Facebook: top pages by total interactions (Q3 2026):

Instagram: top profiles by total interactions (Q3 2026):

Yamaha Motor Australia is the only brand in the top three on both platforms, posting about twice a day on each. HSV reached the Facebook top three with 35 posts, about a sixth of Yamaha’s volume.

Top posts this quarter

Heritage and performance vehicles led the quarter’s top auto posts in Australia and New Zealand, alongside one meme.

Facebook:

Instagram:

How does your brand compare?

These benchmarks describe the median auto brand in Australia and New Zealand. A free social media assessment shows where your own profiles sit against them, platform by platform.

Get your free social media assessment

Paid performance: Facebook and Instagram ads

The placement figures below come from Emplifi’s auto ad accounts benchmark, which pools auto ad accounts across all regions.

Where brands are spending

Facebook feed takes a third of the average auto ad budget, 18.8 percentage points more than Facebook Reels in second place. Facebook Reels, Instagram feed and Instagram Reels are almost level at 14% to 15% each.

CPC and CPM by placement

The most cost-efficient placements this quarter:

• Lowest CPC: Facebook feed, Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels
• Lowest CPM: Facebook feed, Instagram Reels and Facebook Reels

Facebook feed clicks cost $0.30, less than a third of any Instagram click. CPMs are close across placements, from $4.47 to $6.07.

Spend, CPC and CPM by placement (Q3 2026):

Click-through rate by placement

Facebook feed leads at 1.82% and Facebook Reels reaches 1.20%. The three Instagram placements sit together between 0.74% and 0.77%.

CTR by placement (Q3 2026):

Cost trends over time

Q3 2026 ad cost benchmarks, shown for September 2026 with the quarter’s monthly range:

The auto benchmark’s CPM climbed from $1.93 in July 2025 to a peak of $3.44 in November 2025, fell back to $2.08 in January 2026 and reached $3.21 in September. Its CTR rose from a low of 0.82% in December 2025 to 1.24% in September 2026, its 15-month high. The Australia and New Zealand ad accounts benchmark had a higher CPM than the auto benchmark in every month, ending September at $4.22. No monthly CPC series is available.

How to use these benchmarks

Treat these medians as a calibration point for auto brands in Australia and New Zealand, not a ceiling. Pull the same measures for your own Facebook and Instagram profiles and set them against the September 2026 figures above:

• Median post interactions
• Median post impressions
• Median engagement rate
• Post type mix

On Instagram, Reels and carousels both earn about twice a single image. On Facebook, strong photos still beat Reels for the median auto brand, so don’t drop them while testing video.

Methodology

This report is produced quarterly from Emplifi’s proprietary social media dataset, drawn from the platform used by more than 22,000 brands worldwide.

Data collection: Data is pulled once per quarter and reflects the state of Emplifi’s database at the start of the quarter following the period analyzed. It is not updated between releases.

Sample: 167 Facebook brand pages and 102 Instagram brand profiles in the Australia and New Zealand auto category, July 1, 2026, through Sept. 30, 2026.

Reporting period: Monthly metrics are reported for September 2026, the final month of the quarter, and trend commentary covers July 2025 through September 2026. The ads trend series also covers July 2025 through September 2026.

Minimum thresholds: Reports require a minimum of 50 Instagram profiles and 50 Facebook pages for a given region and industry combination. Interaction distribution data requires a minimum of 300 profiles. Ad benchmarks require a minimum of 200 active ad accounts from the region or industry.

Key definitions

• Interactions (Facebook): Sum of all reactions (Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sorry, Anger), comments and shares on brand-published posts. Care reactions are counted under Likes.
• Interactions (Instagram): Sum of likes, comments, saves, shares and reposts on brand-published posts. Saves, shares and reposts are counted from Q3 2026.
• Median post interactions: The middle-ranked page or profile when sorted by monthly post interactions. It represents typical performance rather than an average, so outliers don’t skew the figure.
• Relative median interactions: Median interactions indexed to the maximum value in the reporting period for each platform, expressed as a percentage. Useful for comparing direction across platforms at different absolute scales.
• Impressions: The number of times a post was displayed, whether or not anyone interacted with it. Reflects visibility rather than engagement.
• Engagement rate: Interactions divided by impressions, expressed as a percentage. From Q3 2026 the rate is based on impressions instead of reach, because Facebook no longer provides reach data, so it is not comparable with earlier quarters.
• Organic: Posts not paid to be promoted, detected using Emplifi’s internal algorithm with near-100% accuracy.
• CPC / CPM: Median cost per click and cost per thousand impressions across all available ad accounts, shown for the top five placements by relative spend.
• Relative spend: Normalized distribution (%) showing the average share of an account’s budget allocated to each placement.
• CTR: Median click-through rate for the top five placements by relative spend.

All costs are in USD. All figures are medians unless otherwise noted; UGC uplifts are averages. Data is first normalized at the profile or page level before aggregation.