Facebook Ads Cost Per Purchase Benchmarks for Entertainment

Introduction — the main story in plain language

Across the 13-month window, Entertainment cost-per-purchase (COST_PER_PURCHASE) ran consistently below the global benchmark but showed sharper swings and an extreme end-of-series anomaly. This analysis is based on $3B worth of advertising data from our dataset, which provides strong directional benchmarks. This analysis explores ad performance trends for Entertainment in All countries compared to the global benchmark.

The story in the data

Entertainment’s median cost-per-purchase began at about $28.87 in July 2025 and finished at $1.26 in July 2026 — a dramatic decline of roughly 96% driven largely by the final-month outlier. Over the full period the Entertainment median was about $31.80, with a high of roughly $50.73 (June 2026) and a low of $1.26 (July 2026). By contrast the global baseline averaged about $47.55, peaking near $56.00 in March 2026 and bottoming at about $19.69 in July 2026. On average Entertainment costs were roughly 33% lower than the global benchmark across these months.

Key monthly moves read like a sequence of lifts and pulls: an initial lift into August and November 2025 (to ~$37 and ~$40), a softening into February 2026 (~$23), a rebound into spring, and a pronounced spike in June 2026 to ~$50.7 before the abrupt collapse to $1.26 in July 2026. The June 2026 increase stands out because it pushed Entertainment above the global CPM/CPL-level baseline (+18% versus the baseline in June), an otherwise rare month where Entertainment ran above market.

Volatility was material. Entertainment’s average absolute month-to-month change was about $9.4, compared with roughly $4.8 for the global series — roughly double the month-to-month movement of the baseline and highlighting a choppier pattern in industry ad performance.

Seasonal and monthly dynamics

Rhythm across the year loosely follows familiar pulses: late-summer and late-autumn lifts (August and November), a quieter winter into early Q1, and a spring rebound. November 2025 trimmed the gap to the global baseline (Entertainment was only ~13% below the benchmark that month), while February 2026 showed one of the widest consistent gaps (~54% below global). March 2026’s global peak (~$56) contrasts with the Entertainment troughs around late Q4/early Q1. June 2026 represents a seasonal aberration for Entertainment with a sharp upward move; July 2026’s collapse reads as a singular, outsized anomaly against the prior seasonal pattern.

Country (All countries) vs. Global

Viewed as “All countries,” Entertainment overall ran below market for most of the year — commonly 25–45% under the global cost-per-purchase level — with two notable exceptions: June 2026 (Entertainment +18% above the global median) and the final-month disruption in July 2026 (Entertainment −94% vs baseline, an extreme outlier). The selected Entertainment series was more volatile than the baseline (range ≈ $49.5 vs ≈ $36.3), and its month-to-month swings averaged nearly twice the baseline’s, signaling a more uneven trajectory in industry ad performance when aggregated across all countries.

Understanding Facebook Ads benchmarks, CPC trends and CPM analysis alongside Cost per Purchase and CTR performance helps frame these country-specific ad costs and the broader industry ad performance patterns. In sum: the Cost per Purchase trajectory for Entertainment across All countries shows lower average cost than the global benchmark but with higher volatility and a set of pronounced monthly lifts, dips, and a notable end-period anomaly.