How do you get hundreds of millions of people to consider downloading your app? One of the only answers is Facebook’s app install ads. With the app stores overrun and every company going mobile, app install ads are Facebook’s big chance to monetize mobile. Companies like 1-800-Flowers and Poshmark say the ads are already a hit, and I think they could be the star of Facebook’s earnings tomorrow. → Read More
Do you target kids with cheap ads or more expensive adults? Nanigans has just raised a $5.85 million “Series A.1″ from Avalon Ventures to build SaaS technology that predicts which audiences earn advertisers more money. With revenue up 6x in 18 months, Nanigans hopes to keep up with Facebook’s progress by pouring its funding into R&D. It’s already discovered a surprising trick to supercharging… → Read More
“FBX was my baby that I staked everything on. We shipped it fast, scaled it up, and now the baby talks and can walk to school, but I don’t feel I need to babysit it,” says Antonio Garcia-Martinez, product director of Facebook’s ad exchange who announced he’s leaving the company today. After selling his company AdGrok to Twitter, then defecting to Facebook two years ago, Antonio deserves a… → Read More
Just 3 percent of small business ad spend goes online right now, but that’s going to change, and Facebook wants to become these merchants’ channel of choice. There are already 2 billion connections between people and small businesses on Facebook, and their Pages get 645 million views and 13 million comments a week, Facebook announced today. The challenge for Facebook is now educating moms and… → Read More
Last year Facebook tested out and then launched Facebook Exchange ads in its right-hand column, a way for advertisers to market themselves to users based on those users’ online browsing habits, using a cookie-based real-time bidding platform. Those ads have proven to be some of Facebook’s strongest performing ad units, so now it’s taking them a step further, with an alpha test to extend FBX ads… → Read More
The app stores are overrun, and there’s little way to get noticed until you break into the charts. So Google has just announced a new AdWords unit called “Click-To-Download” mobile ads that lead directly to iTunes and Google Play. With a similar design to Facebook’s app ads, Google is reaching out its hand for a cut of the paid discovery market emerging as every company in the world goes mobile. → Read More
Through new partnerships with top online and offline purchase data providers Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai, Facebook is allowing advertisers to target hashed lists of existing and potential customers, and categories like role-playing gamers or soda drinkers. This expansion of Facebook’s Custom Audiences program could rake in revenue and attract businesses by matching ads to real spenders → Read More
TV commercials that automatically play could soon hit Facebook’s news feed. This week Facebook VP of Business David Fischer admitted auto-play video ads might be distracting, but said “I believe there are ways we could do it.” Fischer said during his Stanford Future Of Media Conference keynote that he admired YouTube’s video ads. But auto-play video spots could be annoying in the quiet news feed. → Read More
Facebook risked driving users away by showing more ads in the news feed last year, but to Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise, a big increase in their presence during 2012 only reduced Likes and comments by 2%. Users are staying loyal, which during the 2012 Q4 earnings call Zuckerberg called a sign of the value Facebook provides. → Read More
Where there’s discovery, there’s opportunity for sponsored discovery. Though there are no ads in Facebook’s new Graph Search engine yet, eventually Facebook could let advertisers pay to show their results above organic ones like on Google. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stressed “You build a good business by building something people want”, but said Facebook’s typeahead search ads “extend quite nicely to… → Read More
Facebook today paused the test of its mobile ad network, which lives in other apps that it splits revenue with, and reapplying resources to its mobile feed ads. Freed-up staff could work on bringing its lucrative FBX ad exchange to mobile. In fact, Facebook is already looking into the option, says sources. FBX mobile could boost earnings and get $FB above its IPO price faster than an ad network. → Read More
Facebook and Apple grew closer today as mobile app install ads in Facebook for iOS 6 now allow users to download apps from the App Store via pop-up instead of interrupting users and forcing them to leave Facebook. By implementing Apple’s App Store pop-up API, Facebook could get developers to buy more of its ads since the clicks they pay for are more likely to turn into actual downloads. → Read More
You scrolled right past the old design for Facebook’s “Pages You Might Like” mobile ads. Too much gray, not enough description. But they just got updated to show colorful banners and explain what a business does. Their designer Jeff Kanter thinks you’ll stop to give them a look. Maybe even a tap. With style and targeting, Facebook is turning limited mobile ad space into its secret weapon. → Read More
Which mobile device you use says a lot about your buying habits. That’s why Facebook just began allowing advertisers to select which devices and operating systems their Facebook mobile ads show up on. This lets Android app developers avoid wasting money advertising to iPhone users, and luxury brands can target people with iPads. If Facebook is going to be a mobile ads company. → Read More
Facebook answered the big question of whether it’s transitioning to become a mobile ad company by noting in today’s earnings report that 14% of total ad revenue from Q3 2012 came from mobile — about $150 million. Here’s the full audio of the earnings call and what Facebook has to do next to milk mobile. → Read More
You probably won’t see the revenue bump in Facebook’s earnings report today from all its new monetization schemes. But with this quarter’s rollout of Gifts, a mobile ad network, app install ads, FBX, and Sponsored Results, Facebook tried show the world that it has new engines to power profits. Earnings and share price may drag for a while longer, but here’s how they could kick into high gear… → Read More
Just three weeks after Facebook formally launched Custom Audience ads that can target people by lists of email addresses or phone numbers, TechCrunch has attained the first reports on their performance and they’re promising. Not as amazing as Facebook Exchange retargeted ads, but they boost clicks and conversions, reduce costs, and deliver ROI according to Facebook and three adtech startups. → Read More
Show someone a Facebook ad once and they’ll forget, 100 times and they’ll be annoyed. So Facebook is going to use offline purchase data to help businesses increase ROI up to 40% by showing them the “sweetspot” of ad frequency, it announced today at New York’s Advertising Week.
Privacy fears flared recently when the Financial Times revealed Facebook was working with in-store purchase tracker… → Read More
Facebook mobile news feed ads are a hit with advertisers and they’re the most efficient way to purchase Facebook fans, say five out of five leading Facebook ad-buying software startups. The data comes from a news study by AdParlor that I’ve verified with leaders of four competing Facebook ad platforms / services TBG Digital, Optim.al, BliNQ Media, and Nanigans.
Pay for a Like through ads… → Read More
No one got just how powerful it was that Facebook recently said it would allow ad targeting to lists of email addresses. Today it became clear as Facebook ad chief David Fischer formally launched “Custom Audience” ads and how they tie into CRM at the Dreamforce conference. I’m convinced they’re going to be hugely profitable for advertisers and Facebook. → Read More
Facebook today begins testing its own mobile ad network. Advertisers can pay to target you with ads for app stores or websites based on your Facebook data that appears while you’re on other apps and mobile sites. Facebook tells me that, similar to its first off-site ad placements on Zynga.com, the goal is to show Facebook users more relevant ads wherever they go, even outside the social network’s… → Read More
Until now, every Facebook mobile ad had to be triggered by you or a friend’s activity, but today Facebook begins testing a new non-social ad unit that lets developers buy mobile news feed ads that open Android and iOS App Store purchase pages when clicked. They’re designed to help developers grow their business. The ads are cost per click, not cost per install-based, however Facebook tells me it… → Read More
Investors demand more revenue from Facebook, and Sheryl’s got just the APIs to give it to them. Over the last two days, three major ads tech partners have revamped their products with recently released Facebook APIs that allow brands to track and optimize for on-site conversions including app installs, buy home page ads and logout page takeovers, and target ads specifically to mobile.
The new… → Read More
Heads up, Google. Facebook is testing a new format of search ads called Sponsored Results that lets advertisers show ads in the search typeahead to users looking for a particular Page, app, or Place. It basically will let businesses divert traffic from each other. For example, a competing game company could target Zynga’s CityVille so anyone searching for “CityVille” would see an ad leading to… → Read More
Because investors sure are. Facebook’s share price jumped up 3.8% to $33.05 today on news that it’s now showing its ads on Zynga.com in a revenue sharing partnership. Most amazingly, neither the press nor users seem to be freaking out that their private, personal data is now being used to target them with ads outside of Facebook.
That means Mark Zuckerberg waited just long enough, proving he’s… → Read More
Zynga.com is now running Facebook ads and Sponsored Stories, a revenue split partnership the two companies outlined in Facebook and Zynga’s S-1s over the last year. The ads appear in the Zynga right sidebar, and use the same personalized targeting exhibited by ads on Facebook.com. This agreement allows Zynga to better monetize its standalone site without the need for expanding its sales force, and… → Read More
Facebook’s business model just hit a stumbling block, as the social network is being forced to let users opt out of having their likenesses repurposed as endorsements in Sponsored Stories ads. The requirement of opt out controls comes as part of a settlement of a class action lawsuit where five Californians said they did not consent to having their names, faces, and activity used to promote… → Read More
How will Facebook monetize mobile? Its organic-seeming Sponsored Stories ad format may be the answer. Mobile Sponsored Stories are getting over 13 times the click-through rates and earn 11.2 times the money per impression (eCPM) on mobile compared to all of Facebook’s desktop ads, and 1.93 times the CTR and 2.65 times the eCPM of Sponsored Stories on the web in the two weeks since Facebook began… → Read More
The “Taste Graph” is Payvment‘s secret weapon. Facebook’s top ecommerce platform has spent two years finding out what Facebook users Like and buy, and starting today its 165,000 merchants can use it to auto-target ad campaigns. See many businesses don’t have know how to A/B test, target, or manage Facebook ad bids, but now they just set their total budget, and Payvment pre-populates creative… → Read More
If Facebook is going to get its share price above water, it needs the support the ad agencies. So today it announced the Creative Council — 14 agency execs that will provide advice — and Studio Edge, a suite of new marketing education tutorials.
The Creative Council will be a “sounding board for both Facebook product ideas and key agency needs”. The advisors could persuade Facebook to launch… → Read More
Austin, TX
Seattle, WA
San Diego, CA
Menlo Park, CA
San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
