Latin America Social Media Benchmarks: Auto Q3 2026

What’s in this report

Latin America auto social media benchmarks for Q3 2026 show Instagram far ahead of Facebook: the median auto brand in Latin America earned 46 interactions per Instagram post in September, against six on Facebook. Median engagement reached up to 2.05% on Instagram and up to 0.84% on Facebook across the quarter, and both rates hit 15-month highs in September. Carousels and Reels led on Instagram, while photos, still the most common Facebook format, earned the fewest interactions there.

This quarterly benchmarks report draws on Emplifi’s dataset of 1,104 Facebook pages and 554 Instagram profiles in the Latin 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 Latin America.

Organic performance: Facebook and Instagram

Interaction share by industry

Services brands collect the largest share of brand interactions on Facebook in Latin America of any category broken out in the data, 24.5% from 9.5% of posts, with gambling second at 13.5%. On Instagram, ecommerce leads with 29.7%, and alcohol draws 20.2% of interactions from 7.4% of posts.

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

Facebook audiences are about 27% larger for Latin American auto brands, and posting levels are similar. Instagram still collects more than six times the 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 started the period at its high of 51 in July 2025, fell to 39 by December and has recovered through 2026, reaching 48 in August and 46 in September. Facebook held at nine or 10 through January 2026, then slid to six in September, its lowest month.

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 90% of its July 2025 high. Facebook finished at 60% of its 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.

Instagram impressions peaked at 6,507 in September 2025, fell to a low of 2,059 in March 2026 and have recovered slightly since, to between about 2,400 and 2,700 in Q3. Facebook impressions are less than half their July 2025 level of 3,800, after a drop from 2,622 in July 2026 to 1,639 in September, the lowest month of the period. The decline is not specific to auto: median Facebook impressions for all brands in Latin America fell from 2,529 in July 2025 to 1,026 in September 2026.

Engagement rate trends

Median post engagement rates this quarter:

• Instagram: up to 2.05%
• Facebook: up to 0.84%

Across the quarter’s three months, Instagram’s median ranged from 1.68% to 2.05% and Facebook’s from 0.61% to 0.84%. Instagram’s rate has nearly doubled from its low of 1.05% in September 2025, and Facebook’s rose from a low of 0.58% in December 2025. September 2026 was the highest month of the period on both platforms.

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 35 interactions but made up 0.1% of posts in September. Links (nine), Reels (eight) and status updates (seven) followed, and photos came last at five.

Instagram: Carousels narrowly led at 59 interactions, Reels followed at 55, and both earned more than twice as much as a single image (24).

Full organic post type performance (Q3 2026):

Post type distribution trends:

Latin American auto brands have moved quickly toward Reels on Facebook. Reels rose from 20.7% of posts in July 2025 to 38.3% in September 2026, with the biggest jump in October 2025, while photos fell from 71.1% to 59.4%. On Instagram, the mix has barely moved: Reels remain the most-used format at 41.6% of posts, carousels edged up from 27.1% to 29.9%, and single images sit at 28.5%.

Top performing pages and profiles

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

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

Suzuki’s Colombian accounts appear on both lists. IVECO reached second on Facebook with 32 posts, and one photo accounts for more than half of its interactions. Porsche Brasil out-earned Volkswagen do Brasil with about half the followers and less than half the posts.

Top posts this quarter

Spring scenery and fan community content led the quarter’s top auto posts in Latin America.

Facebook:

Instagram:

How does your brand compare?

These benchmarks describe the median auto brand in Latin 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 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 is the cheapest placement on both measures, at $0.30 per click and $4.47 per thousand impressions. Instagram Stories is the most expensive on both.

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

Click-through rate by placement

Facebook placements lead on clicks: 1.82% in the feed and 1.20% in Reels. 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:

Impressions in Latin America cost about a quarter of the auto benchmark’s CPM. The auto benchmark climbed from $1.93 in July 2025 to a peak of $3.44 in November 2025, dropped to $2.08 in January 2026 and reached $3.21 in September. Latin America CPM rose more gently, from $0.60 to $0.80, its 15-month high.

Both CTR series also ended September 2026 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 Latin 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 and Reels both earn more than twice a single image. On Facebook, photos earn the least of any format, so keep shifting volume to Reels and links.

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: 1,104 Facebook brand pages and 554 Instagram brand profiles in the Latin 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.