Facebook recently released its Q4 2018 figures and there’s plenty to parse for those of us in the e-commerce field. The company’s advertising revenue increased 30% year-on-year to a massive $16.6 billion in the last three months of 2018. The earnings call gave e-commerce traders the clearest indication of where marketing success will lie in 2019.

Recall that Facebook owns Instagram, and that over half of Instagram’s approximate 1 billion users are interacting with Stories. Stories has woven itself into the daily habit of around 500 million people and is a very successful advertising stream. This goes a way to explaining why advertising impressions are up 34%. The overall price of advertising has dropped just slightly by 2% but that should be good news for anyone with a tighter advertising budget. It looks like Stories will continue to be an effective place to invest in e-commerce advertising.

Mark Zuckerberg announced on the call that Facebook is seeking to monetise Facebook Stories at a similar saturation level to the Newsfeed. This presents another opportunity for online sellers to place their products in front of specifically tailored demographics. Getting on board with this approach as an early adopter should lead to more sales coming down the funnel. And if you weren’t already convinced of the power of mobile sales, take heed. Around 93% of the advertising revenue came from mobile advertising.

In 2019, there are a few hot spots to watch. Alongside Facebook and Instagram, there are two other platforms in the stable: Messenger and Whatapp. It’s reported that 2 billion people interact with at least one of these platforms on a daily basis. There is plenty of talk about advertising within these additional platforms, and we’re already seeing it in Messenger. Video advertising is set to be a growth area as Facebook invests in its content publishing arm.

There’s a lot there. While public mistrust of the company is high due to recent privacy scandals, there seems to be little that can slow Facebook down. Now is the perfect time for advertisers to make the most of the lower ad prices, higher impression rates and overall room in the space. There’s a mere 2 million advertisers pushing product to those 500 million Instagram users – there is bound to be room for you in 2019.