Today's top earner: Facebook!

According to an article in Adage, Facebook has officially surpassed Google and Yahoo in digital ad revenue. FB is projected to earn $2.19 billion in ad revenue this year, relative to Google's $1.15 billion and Yahoo's 1.62 billion. Most of FB's revenue is coming from the long tail of spenders, whereas bigger companies continue to devote their budgets to traditional forms of media, like TV. As FB's user base approaches 700 million, it is easy to see that pure scale of reach may be tempting to small businesses. What I wonder though, is how companies measure the effectiveness of their ads on Facebook. FB's ads have much lower click through rates than Google's, and most seem to fail in effecting a call to action amongst consumers. Does the pure quantity of FB's user base outweigh the need for quality in targeting and messaging?