Facebook has officially launched its mobile ad platform called “Audience Network” which lets digital advertisers to serve ads on third party apps. Now this is just an extension of the Facebook advertising program and it even involves the same ad inventory that serves ads on Facebook’s own site and its apps. For long Facebook has been struggling to monetize its database of over a billion users without much impact. Now this launch of its mobile ad platform will give a fresh boost to Facebook’s advertising capabilities. It is a simple way to augment its advertising reach across the burgeoning mobile apps category to improve targeted advertising. This will no doubt be beneficial to advertisers but at the same time it offers value to the users and the app publishers as well.
This Facebook platform immediately serves two purposes. Firstly, it helps Facebook to leverage its treasure trove of user information without putting more pressure on its already existing ad programs. Secondly, it gives advertisers an opportunity to display their ads to more people based on specific demographic needs. With the launch of Audience Network, Facebook will now be able to compete directly with Google AdMob, Yahoo Flurry and Twitter MoPub in the mobile advertising space. A major chunk of Facebook’s revenue today is coming from the mobile space and hence the social media giant wants to bolster its position in this arena lest the search engine giant Google permanently renders it to a distant second place.
The mobile app space is growing at a torrid pace but unfortunately there aren’t many organized advertising networks that cater exclusively to this space. Facebook now is trying to bridge that gap. It will no doubt bring its deep expertise of using targeted advertising to create better campaigns in the mobile app space too. Digital marketers like you can take comfort in the fact that Facebook can now use the same targeting options that it uses to push ads on the social networking site such as age, gender, social contacts, buying habits, et al in the mobile arena too. You can now make your ads resonate with the right customer group and command more qualified leads giving you better return on investment.
Facebook is linking its Audience Network to its existing ad network which means you cannot buy ads on Audience Network without buying ads on Facebook as well. For those of you digital marketers already running News Feed ads on Facebook using this new mobile offering from Facebook is just a click away!
You can better meet your business objectives using Audience Network like increasing app installation and engagement. The platform supports ads in three creative formats namely banner, interstitial and native. Early tests have shown that the ads on Audience Network offer great value for money and this has got the digital marketers quite excited.
So, will you be using Facebook Audience Network to get more digital bang for your buck?
