Facebook has been hard at work this past year, attempting to improve their advertising platform to create a more valuable product for brands and better experience for consumers. Throughout 2012, and especially since their IPO, Facebook has barely paused for quick breath between releases of new ad types and targeting options. Following is a list of the major releases for Facebook advertising over the past year:
Actions Metric
Facebook released a new performance metric in May in an effort to better measure the full impact of ads and sponsored stories. “Actions” replaced the “Connections” metric. “Actions” includes all of the information previously counted under “Connections” plus all actions taken by users within 24 hours after viewing an ad/sponsored story or 28 days after clicking on an ad/sponsored story. Actions are only counted if you are promoting a page, page post, event or app on Facebook.
Promoted Posts
Also in May, Facebook released Promoted Posts, which allow pages to “sponsor” a single post to a larger group of their fans. Promoted Posts show in the newsfeeds of fans and friends of fans, unlike regular Facebook ads that display on the right-hand column of Facebook and can show to non-fans. The posts are labeled as “sponsored” in the lower right corner of the post.
Setting up a Facebook Promoted Post.
Results for a Promoted Post on Facebook.
You can set your budget, and Facebook shows the estimated reach at that amount. Promoted Posts has fueled a continuing conversation on the ethics of making brands pay to reach the fans they have already earned (and maybe even paid for), especially after changes to EdgeRank on September 20, which further reduced the organic and viral reach of page posts.
Mobile Placement
In June, Facebook opened up mobile placement for sponsored stories to all advertisers. Mobile sponsored stories flow through newsfeeds much the same as regular newsfeed stories, however, they contain a small “Sponsored” notification. Mobile ads are outperforming desktops overall, a result we can confirm with client Facebook advertising campaigns. Mobile ads are quite discreet, too. I’ve spoken with many friends and colleagues that did not even notice that they were seeing ads, even though they noticed the new placement.
Sponsored Results
In August, Facebook released Sponsored Results, which allows brands to expand reach by paying to have their page or app appear near the top of search results (desktop search only and directing within Facebook only). Brands can write custom ad copy (70 character limit), yet the image and title will be pulled from the page or app. Sponsored Results can be purchased through Power Editor or the Facebook API, and pricing works the same as Marketplace ads. I haven’t seen many Sponsored Results lately, and couldn’t pull one up for the purposes of this blog, which leads me to believe few brands are using it, but it is still available in Power Editor.
Facebook Exchange
In September, Facebook officially launched Facebook Exchange (FBX), an ad-bidding network that retargets users on Facebook after they have visited a particular website or web page(s). FBX is only available through publishers such as AdRoll, Turn and a handful of others. You cannot layer other Facebook targeting on top, such as interest or demographics; it is simply retargeting—a cookie is placed on the user’s browser when they reach a specific page but do not convert, ads are then delivered to that user within Facebook in the right-hand sidebar.
Paid Facebook Offers
In September, a price tag was attached to Facebook Offers, a free product since its launch in February. The Offers product itself is still no cost, but brands are required to purchase at least $5 in advertising to be able to run an Offer (they are still free for users).
Now when setting up a Facebook Offer, you must set a budget as the last step.
Mobile In-app Targeting
For a short time period, Facebook was testing mobile in-app targeting, allowing brands to reach users within relevant apps. Banners or interstitials were served to users that logged into apps through Facebook Connect, and Facebook’s standard Marketplace parameters were layered on top of the app targeting. In late December, however, Facebook pulled the plug on this test to focus on “scaling ads in mobile news feed before ads off of Facebook.”
Custom Audience
Customer Audience targeting, released in October, allows you to reach current customers through the use of email addresses or phone numbers. You simply upload your list through Power Editor, Facebook hashes the data against its users to create matches, and you can then layer Facebook’s demo and interest targeting on top of it, creating a highly relevant audience for advertising campaigns. In addition to using this data for Facebook ad targeting, it can provide insights on your customers—demographics, interests, relationship status, mobile usage—which can be used to guide content development, blogger outreach, display targeting, etc.
We have uncovered some interesting insights for a few of our clients by uploading their customer email lists:
HIGHER EDUCATION CLIENT:
- 49% use an Android phone
- 36% are parents
- 30% are married
WOMEN’S APPAREL COMPANY:
- 59.3% of customers were on FB
- 88.36% were not fans yet
- 5.7% were men (used this information to create a gift giving campaign for the holidays)
Mobile App Install Ads
Mobile App Install Ads came out of beta in October, allowing developers to promote their apps in newsfeeds if their app integrates Facebook. When a user clicks on the ad, they are taken to a download page in the Apple App Store or Google Play. Standard interest and demographic targeting is used to reach relevant users.
Conversion Tracker
In November, Facebook began quietly offering a conversion tracking tool, which measures conversion activity generated from Facebook ads on your website. Much like our paid search tracking technology, the Facebook Conversion Tracker is a small line of code placed on your website thank you page that records purchases or other desired actions. The advantage to using Facebook’s Conversion Tracker is that it will show within the Facebook Ad Manager interface along with other metrics for your Facebook advertising campaigns.
Video Ads
In late December, Facebook announced that video ads will be coming to newsfeeds in Spring 2013. The video ads will display in users’ newsfeeds on desktops and mobile devices. While details are still not confirmed, it is likely that ads will be 15 seconds, will begin playing automatically and will expand into left and/or right columns of the page. Targeting options have still not been revealed, but it is likely that advertisers will have the option to show videos ads to users outside their fan base, thus helping to increase reach and exposure. Stay tuned for this new ad option in the new year.
Those are the major Facebook advertising releases and updates in 2012. We’ll see numerous more opportunities in 2013 as Facebook continues to prove it’s value to investors and create a profitable marketing environment for brands. If I missed any other updates, please include in the comments below.
