Tumblr No. 2 in revenue per visit on social media

A Tumblr visit is worth more than a referral from Twitter and Pinterest, according to a new social media report.Tumblr traffic—a subject of recent debate—appears to at least generate top dollars relative to the site’s social rivals, Adobe revealed today. The enterprise software company said the fourth quarter set records across the sector in revenue derived from social media visitors.A year ago, a Tumblr referral provided the lowest return, but now its No. 2, behind Facebook. “Tumblr is the dark horse of high-quality traffic,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst for the Adobe Digital Index.So what’s a visit from Tumblr worth to a retailer? On average, $1.10—a 340% jump from last year. Only a visit from Facebook is more valuable, generating $1.22.Pinterest and Twitter were behind with averages of 93 cents and 83 cents respectively. Tumblr’s growth rate also was the highest.Tumblr is still a small piece of the social media traffic, and Pinterest and Twitter both drive more visits. There have been some questions regarding Tumblr’s overall traffic numbers, and comScore figures show the growth of monthly visitors on mobile and desktop flattening.Adobe’s social referred visits numbers showed that Pinterest, Twitter and Tumblr were attracting traffic that had once been exclusive to Facebook. Beyond the intensified competition, Adobe found “clear warning signs for FB and advertisers.”Facebook’s traffic referrals were down 15 % year over year. Also, Facebook has seen click through rates on ads skyrocket in the past year, but last quarter they were down from the previous quarter.Adobe researchers said that could indicate that the effectiveness of Facebook ads—an their ability to attract user engagement—has peaked. Click though rates were still up 365 % year over year, however.Also, cost per clicks on Facebook were flat, year over year, according to Adobe’s research.“There are question marks about how Facebook is going to do once competitors gain a bigger foothold,” Gaffney said.Adweek!