Ad agency executives said that the possibility of a return to Meta Platform's Facebook and Instagram is unlikely to change how advertisers spend money with the world's second largest digital advertising company.
This is good news for Meta whose stock has gone halved over the past year, due to a slowdown in advertising spending as brands cut their marketing budgets in response to historic inflation.
Meta posted a blog post on Wednesday announcing Trump's reinstatement, announcing that he will be subject to heightened penalties for repeat offenses. The company that was called Facebook banned Trump two years ago after he praised rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Ad buyers said that the platform's broad reach of 3.7 billion users is too important for many businesses, and Meta's closely watched deliberation on whether to reinstate Trump was polarizing.
There are polarizing characters on all platforms. It's a moot point when brands need to drive sales and sign-ups, said Darren D'Altorio, head of social at ad agency Wpromote, which works with brands such as Whirlpool and TransUnion.
Trump reinstatement reinforces long-standing concerns about how social media platforms can ensure that ads aren't shown next to content that marketers consider unsuitable, according to D'Altorio.
Civil rights groups including the NAACP and GLAAD blasted Meta's decision on Wednesday.
In July 2020, thousands of advertisers boycotted Facebook as part of a campaign to pressure the platform to do more to prevent hate speech, but the boycott had little impact on the company's revenue.
Erica Patrick, senior vice president of paid social media at IPG's Mediahub, said Trump's influence has waned since he left office, and may be one reason why clients have not inquired about the impact of his return on their ads.
In November, Elon Musk, the platform's permanent ban on Trump, was lifted by new Twitter owner Elon Musk.
Many of the top advertisers of Twitter stopped spending after Musk took over Twitter, fired thousands of employees and oversaw a botched verification feature that allowed scammers to impersonate publicly listed companies.
Ad spending on Twitter fell in the last two months of 2022, according to the Standard Media Index, which measures Ad spending based on data from ad agencies.
Yvonne Williams, a vice president of media at Code 3, counts Tiffany Co among its clients, said brands would be watching closely to see how Meta will monitor Trump and keep to the rules they have in place.