North America Social Media Benchmarks: Auto Q3 2026

What’s in this report

North America auto social media benchmarks for Q3 2026 show Instagram earning about five times as much per post as Facebook: the median auto brand in North America earned 127 interactions per Instagram post in September, against 25 on Facebook. Carousels earned almost twice as much as Reels on Instagram, and tire brands took three of the six top page and profile spots. 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.

This quarterly benchmarks report draws on Emplifi’s dataset of 466 Facebook pages and 316 Instagram profiles in the North America 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 North America.

Organic performance: Facebook and Instagram

Interaction share by industry

Ecommerce collects the largest share of brand interactions on Facebook in North America of any category broken out in the data, 44.1% from 12.4% of posts. On Instagram, alcohol leads with 23.8% of interactions from 6.8% of posts, ahead of beauty at 13.6%.

Facebook interaction distribution (Q3 2026):

Instagram interaction distribution (Q3 2026):

The categories listed are those with the most brand posts in the region, ranked by their share of interactions. Others combines every remaining category, auto included.

Platform landscape at a glance

North American auto brands have audiences of about 100,000 on each platform and post at the same pace, roughly 35 times a quarter. Instagram turns that into about four times the interactions.

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 has trended up. After a low of 105.5 in December 2025, it climbed to a 15-month high of 133 in August 2026 and held at 127 in September. Facebook moved the other way: it peaked at 41 in February 2026 and fell to 25 in September, 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 95% of its August 2026 high. Facebook finished at 61% of its February 2026 peak, the lowest point of the period for either platform.

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 North America auto profiles with impression data this quarter, so the impressions below are the worldwide auto medians.

Worldwide, auto brands’ Instagram impressions dropped from a peak of 5,769 in August 2025 to about 2,300 by February 2026 and have stayed close to that level since. Facebook impressions fell more steadily, from 5,243 in July 2025 to 2,190 in September 2026. 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 North America 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 finished September 2026 at their highest point of the 15 months. Instagram has gained most since late 2025, rising from 1.16% in September 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: Four formats finished within two interactions of each other. Photos led narrowly at 24, ahead of Live Video (22.5), Reels and status updates (22 each). Links trailed at 11.

Instagram: Carousels led clearly at 194 interactions per post, almost double Reels (107) and more than three times a single image (59).

Full organic post type performance (Q3 2026):

Post type distribution trends:

Reels rose from 19.1% of North American auto brands’ Facebook posts in July 2025 to 34.7% in September 2026, with the biggest jump in October 2025, and photos fell from 67.0% to 57.4%. On Instagram, Reels remain the most-used format (40.3% of posts) even though carousels earn far more. Carousels edged up from 30.3% to 33.2%, and single images fell from 28.7% to 23.9%.

Top performing pages and profiles

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

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

Nitto Tire USA owes 98% of its Facebook total to a single Reel. On Instagram, TOYO TIRES led on volume with 303 posts, while Toyota USA came close with 62.

Top posts this quarter

Every top post this quarter was a Reel except one Toyota carousel, and one Nitto driving clip made both lists.

Facebook:

Instagram:

How does your brand compare?

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

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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 each take 14% to 15%.

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, about a third of the cheapest Instagram click. CPMs sit between $4.47 and $6.07 across the five placements.

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

Click-through rate by placement

Both Facebook placements clear 1%, with the feed at 1.82%. The three Instagram placements sit 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:

North America is an expensive market: its overall CPM of $7.10 in September 2026 was more than double the auto benchmark’s $3.21, and both reached or neared their 15-month highs that month. The auto benchmark peaked at $3.44 in November 2025. North America’s CTR was also higher, at 2.00% against 1.24%, and both CTR series ended the quarter at their highest point. No monthly CPC series is available.

How to use these benchmarks

Treat these medians as a calibration point for auto brands in North America, 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, carousels earn almost twice what Reels do for the median auto brand, so check whether your mix reflects that. On Facebook, photos, Reels and status updates perform about the same, so the content matters more than the format.

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: 466 Facebook brand pages and 316 Instagram brand profiles in the North America 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.