Who Really Dominated Facebook & Instagram Ads in the Netherlands in 2025?

(And Why Most Brands Never Stood a Chance)

In 2025, Facebook and Instagram feeds in the Netherlands were not shaped by creativity or clever storytelling. They were shaped by a surprisingly small group of brands that effectively decided what millions of Dutch users saw every day, simply by buying inevitability at scale.

To understand who actually owned our feeds (and why), we analyzed hundreds of thousands of ads to map visibility, dominance, and the uncomfortable mechanics behind Meta attention in the Dutch market.

What we found challenges many assumptions marketers still cling to.

How We Measured Visibility at Scale

Scrolling through Facebook or Instagram feels chaotic. Ads appear, disappear, and blend into an endless stream of content. But that chaos is misleading. Behind the feed, attention is not random. It is structured, priced, and highly concentrated.

To see that structure, we analyzed approximately 389,000 ads from the +/-100 largest advertisers in the Netherlands in 2025, using Meta’s Ad Library. Rather than focusing on individual creatives, we used reach as our primary metric: the number of people an ad could have been shown to.

Reach is a blunt measure, but that is precisely its strength. It does not reward originality, storytelling, or aesthetic quality. It answers a more uncomfortable question: who actually buys attention at scale?

A Small Group of Brands Shaped the Feed

When advertisers are ranked by total reach, a clear pattern emerges. The top of the list is dominated almost entirely by retail, e-commerce, and telecom brands. What is striking is not only who is present, but who is absent.

There are no banks. No travel giants. No automotive leaders. No classic FMCG brands. The gap between those who dominate the feed and those who merely appear is extreme. For perspective: in 2025, Kruidvat reached 8.8 times more people than Heineken on Meta platforms. 

Visibility is extremely concentrated

This concentration becomes even clearer when looking at the market as a whole. 

• The top 10 brands accounted for 33% of all reach;
• The top 20 brands accounted for 51%.

In other words, most Meta visibility by the top 100 brands in the Netherlands was controlled by a small minority of brands. Within industries, the same dynamics repeat. Bol.com generated more than 8.4 times the reach of Wehkamp. Ziggo far outpaced other telecom providers. Once brands cross a certain threshold of scale, visibility compounds and competitors are left fighting over what remains.

Retail Didn’t Compete: It Overwhelmed

Nowhere is this imbalance more visible than at industry level. Roughly 50% of all purchased reach on Meta in the Netherlands came from retail and e-commerce alone. Our feeds are largely filled with promotions, deals, and supermarket offers. Other industries follow at a distance:

• Entertainment & media (streaming, films, lotteries): +/-13%
• Telecom: +/-11%
• Automotive & mobility: +/-9%
• Food & beverage (mainly fast food and delivery): +/-8%
• Travel & hospitality: +/-5%
• Financial services: +/-4%

Retail dominance truly was overwhelming. In fact, one single retail brand generated more reach than all banks combined.

Two strategies dominate: Volume or Evergreen reach

Despite the apparent chaos of the feed, dominance was driven by two distinct advertising behaviors.

1. High-volume advertisers (Many variants, small audiences)

The first group consists of high volume advertisers. These brands operate Meta at industrial scale, publishing 1000s of ad variations per year. Examples include:

• Coolblue: 34,500+ ads per year (+/-100 per day);
• Temu Netherlands: +/-21,000 ads;
• KPN: +/-14,000 ads;
• Bol.com: +/-13,000 ads.

Each ad often reaches only dozens or hundreds of people, but collectively they generated massive reach.

Reuse of copy: a few messages dominate the feed

Notably, many high-volume advertisers barely varied their messaging. A small number of core messages is repeated at scale:

• Temu Netherlands: “Temu deals. Beperkte voorraad, geweldige deals” → 8,508 times
• AliExpress:  “🎉 Huge Sale! Up to 80% OFF everything!” → 5,794 times
• Viaplay Sport: “Stream de Premier League met meer Nederlanders dan ooit” → 1,936 times
• KPN: Ontdek hoe de aanleg van glasvezel werkt en wat de voordelen zijn” → 842 times

For these brands, visibility is driven by scale and distribution, not creative variation. Ad fatigue appears to be a secondary concern.

2. Evergreen advertisers (Few variants, massive reach)

The second group followed an almost opposite approach by  achieving massive reach with only a small amount of ads:

• Disney+: 227 ads → 173 million reach
• Albert Heijn: +/- 2,000 ads → top-5 reach overall
• Netflix, Videoland, McDonald’s, and major supermarkets follow a similar approach
  

Their campaigns relied on broad targeting and high reach per creative, allowing individual ads to reach millions of people.

3. Brands barely using Meta

Finally, a small group of advertisers made minimal use of Meta in 2025:

• Hertog Jan: only 53 ads
• Unilever: just 6 corporate ads

A few ads dominated our feeds

One of the most revealing findings emerges when looking at individual ad performance. While some brands dominated through volume, the largest reach spikes came from a small number of broadly targeted campaigns.

The single most visible ad in 2025 reached 6.2 million people. Yet across all 389,000 ads we analyzed, the median reach was just 4,700. Most ads are barely registered. A handful shaped national visibility.

This explains why users often experience two contradictory feelings at once: endless repetition from some brands, and sudden mass exposure to others.

Dominance Is Seasonal, Not Permanent

Importantly, there is no fixed hierarchy throughout the year. Visibility shifts with timing and industry dynamics. Supermarkets dominate in weekly promotional waves. Retail and e-commerce surge in the final quarter. Travel brands peak in spring and early autumn. Telecom providers appear in regional bursts tied to infrastructure rollouts.

What feels like a personalized feed is, in reality, a rotating calendar of commercial dominance.

Conclusion: Meta Visibility Is Bought, Not Earned

In 2025, Facebook and Instagram visibility in the Netherlands was not determined by the most creative ideas, the strongest brands, or the most authentic stories. It was determined by who was willing, and able, to buy inevitability.

Some brands achieved this through relentless repetition. Others through efficient, high reach campaigns. Most brands did neither, and as a result remained largely invisible.

The uncomfortable implication is that much of what marketers discuss as “best practice” matters far less than scale, timing, and budget discipline. Meta does not reward originality, it rewards presence. Visibility is not accidental. It is the outcome of deliberate choices.

Therefore, the real question for brands still competing in the margins is simple:
Are you building a brand, or are you hoping the feed notices you?