Monday, September 22, 2014

Why Facebook's New Ad Tool Is Way More Interesting Than The Buy Button

Cool article explaining Facebook's add tools. It can be a cheap and useful tool for startups to reach a broad audience with low budget. Also, it is crucial to be on top of Facebook's developments. 

While consumer browsing is only becoming more mobile-focused, it’s desktops or tablets that see the majority of actual transactions taking place. For a company like Facebook, which now sees 62% of its overall revenue coming from mobile ads, that can be a problem. Brands will be reluctant to spend heavily on mobile ads unless they can see money making results. However, Facebook is now combating that with it a cross-device conversion tracking tool, which will allow marketers to see where a consumer saw an ad, what devices they saw it on, as well as the devices they made the final conversion – i.e. paid – on. The move will enable Facebook to illustrate just how powerful its mobile ads really are and potentially ramp up charges.For e-commerce companies the tool provides a greater level of insight into customer habits than the simple ‘Buy Now’ button trialled by Facebook.
Maintaining Ad Price
Mobile advertising is set to be a heated battlefield over the coming year as Facebook challenges web-advertising behemoth Google for a share of the mobile market. Last year Google held a 49.3% cut of the mobile ad market, while Facebook took just 17.5%, according to eMarketer. But the social network is gaining ground and this year Facebook and its properties are forecast to take a 21.7% share of the revenues, while Google will fall again to 46.8%. Facebook is closing the gap and cross-device conversion tracking will give it a huge advantage over Google in proving to brands that its ads work.
If all goes according to plan it should mean Facebook can charge to host ads on its app and mobile site. Google’s cost-per-click slumped 9% in Q2 as advertisers refuse to shell out as much as they did for desktop ads. Facebook is bucking the trend of falling ad prices. Where Google is compensating for falling ad prices by getting users to click on more ads, Facebook actually reduced the number of ads it shows users in Q2 2014 by 25%, while its price per ad grew 123% year on year. The new tool will only help it to keep that price growing.
Data Over Sales
E-commerce has long seemed like a viable way for social networks to monetise. After all, selling stuff people want is a pretty straightforward way of making money and taking a cut from sales via the platform is a decent business model. However, the reality for Facebook and Twitter is that people just don’t go there to shop. Consumers are also reluctant to share their card details on such open, public, platforms. Both social networks are toying with ‘Buy Now’ buttons, but ultimately it's advertising where they are of real value to brands and in the online world advertising and data are intrinsically linked.
Cross-device tracking will give Facebook a whole new batch of data to sell surrounding how users view ads and shop. It will also let ad partners target users similar to the ones that converted. Following the consumer journey through data is of increasing interest to marketers keen to ensure their spending is hitting the right spots. However, there’s still a big part of the ad-view to purchase journey missing: physical retail. It will take Facebook longer to find a way to let advertisers see how their ads are impacting in-store sales.    
Source: http://digitalmedia.strategyeye.com/article/lWKUsWVVNeA/2014/08/14/insight_why_facebooks_new_ad_tool_is_way_more_interesting_th/   

No comments: