Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Facebook's public offering. It has arguably been the most volatile and momentous period in the company's roughly eight-and-a-half year history. Facebook went public in May of last year at $38 and closed Friday at just over $26. The low, last September, was $17.55. The volatility of the stock and the fact that it hasn't fully returned to its offering price may give many institutional investors reason to complain; but, most other statistics and metrics are up from a year ago. For example, Facebook has impressively been able to grow its mobile reven [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Home | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Statistics | Featured | Features & Analysis | Top News

In a sign of the strength of Facebook's retargeting ad network, Facebook Exchange (FBX) partner Triggit has secured $6 million in additional funding, led by North Atlantic Capital. FBX, which only officially launched last September, allows advertisers to target ads to site visitors when they are on Facebook. Triggit will use the funds to invest in engineering and staff to support Facebook's news feed retargeting capabilities that debuted in March and other new product developments. Triggit now claims to be the leading FBX retargeter with a reach of 1.1 billion monthly Facebook unique use [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Advertising

Word-of-mouth marketing at scale has been one of the Internet's greatest -- and most elusive -- allures for brands. Through a new partnership announced today, social rich media platform Moontoast and user-generated video platform VideoGenie are aiming to make it easier for brands to achieve that scale through Facebook. In a first, marketers will be able to feature and promote user-generated video testimonials and stories from brand advocates within native ad units in users' Facebook newsfeeds. VideoGenie's video platform enables easy user-generated video creation and sharing, while Moont [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising | Top News | Video

The online battle for TV ad dollars continues to heat up. Yahoo, AOL, YouTube among others, and now Facebook are all aiming their sites on the burgeoning online video ad market and a share of TV's outsized ad budgets. As first reported in December, Facebook has been shopping new video ad units to agencies. Now, it appears Facebook will be bringing video ads to users' newsfeeds in July, according to The Financial Times. The video ads will appear in newsfeeds on desktop computers as well tablets and smartphones and will be set to autoplay on mute. If a user clicks on a video ad, it will [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Video

Facebook just announced Q1 2013 earnings. Revenue was nearly $1.46 billion, up 38 percent year over year (YoY). That beat financial analysts' estimates. Net income was $219 million, which was below estimates. Allaying fears of a decline in usage and engagement, Facebook saw 26 percent growth in daily active users (now 665 million). Monthly active users also increased 23 percent to 1.1 billion. Mobile active users were 751 million, a significant jump compared with 680 million in Q4 2012. Ad revenues were $1.25 billion (85 percent of total revenue), which represented a 43 percent increase [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Statistics | Top News

First introduced in the U.S. last December, Facebook has now made Promoted Page ads available globally. The ads are designed with small businesses in mind to help them garner more Likes for their pages without needing large budgets or sophisticated targeting. Page administrators can launch a Promoted Page ad directly from the Admin Panel The ads will show in users' news feeds as well as in the right column on desktops. Facebook will actually create three versions of a Page ad automatically, including a Sponsored Story ad. Admins can pause or edit the ads from within Ads Manager. Here [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Advertising | Top News

Facebook's Creative Council evaluated hundreds of Facebook ad campaigns submitted by brands and agencies from across the globe to select winners for the 2013 Facebook Studio Awards. This year's top winner was Oreo, taking home the Blue Award for the Oreo Daily Twist Campaign, a social program that marked Oreo's 100th Birthday Celebration by posting 100 pieces of social content referencing culturally-relevant events in 100 days. This was the second year Facebook hosted their Studio Awards. Both years, the award levels have included Blue, Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards, all given to campaigns [...]

Related Topics: Branding | Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Pages | Social Media Marketing | Top News

In my last column, I discussed strategies for testing content on your Facebook page. I also talked about how important it is, even when testing, to retain the character of your brand in all your content. Your Facebook page should have an identity to it, and you should strive to hold that identity constant. Part of holding this identity constant is making sure that your advertising is aligned with your Page content. That means keeping the style and character of your ads consistent with the status updates, photos and videos you’re posting on your Page. This principle is not just limited to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook Marketing Column | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Marketing | Facebook: Pages

Facebook is hard at work to deliver and prove value to advertisers. Its recent announcements about third-party data integration in ad targeting and offline conversion tracking are all part of that. And today, Facebook is introducing a new way to bid for ads on the site, on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis. Eventually, though the timing isn't yet certain, all Facebook ad units will be available via CPA. However, the company is introducing the new option in selected ad categories for the present. CPA bidding (on a global basis) is available today through its ads API. CPA will make its way t [...]

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Did you know that Facebook offers the capability to create unpublished posts on your Facebook Page? Such “dark posts” have actually been around for over six months, but it was only recently that Facebook has allowed them to appear in the Newsfeed. With Newsfeed being by far the most engaging placement on site, it’s not a surprise that more and more advertisers are expressing a renewed interest in unpublished posts. The primary (and most exciting) use case for creating unpublished posts is message testing. Before “dark posts,” Pages that wanted to test post content would have to bl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook Marketing Column | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Facebook Exchange | Facebook: Marketing

This morning, Facebook is launching what it calls "partner categories." It brings offline and third-party data from data brokers Acxiom, Datalogix and Epsilon to all categories of Facebook advertising. Facebook previously incorporated this data into its targeting capabilities under Custom Audiences. Now it's available for all Facebook Ads and to all users of the Power Editor. Starting today, partner categories will be available to advertisers in the US. The data are drawn from a vast range of sources including online behavior, offline loyalty cards and myriad other places. Partn [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Mobile | Social Media Marketing | Top News

Just 11 months ago, GM made the awkward decision to step away from Facebook ads in an overly public split. As Facebook was readying itself for the ball (IPO), GM  not only stood up the social network, but they publicly humiliated them saying that the ads didn't work. Guess who's groveling back. Yep, General Motors. While GM attempted to embarrass Facebook last year, the real loser of this debacle is ... <drumroll> ... GM. This was more of a case study on how to not market on Facebook -- not that Facebook Marketing didn't work. Upon the GM announcement, many companies came to Fac [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising

'Tis the season of mobile advertising forecasts. Within the last week three have been released from eMarketer, BIA/Kelsey and now IDC. Emarketer said that US mobile advertising was worth $4.1 billion in 2012, BIA estimated $3.2 billion and IDC now asserts that US mobile ad revenues came in at $4.5 billion for the year. IDC expects mobile advertising to reach $7 billion by year end, compared with eMarketer's $7.29 billion and BIA's $5.39 billion. The IDC forecast also says the following about 2012 mobile ad revenues: Search: 61 percent of mobile ad spending  ($2.8 billion) Display: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile Marketing | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Mobile | Google: Business Issues | Google: Mobile | Mobile Marketing | Statistics | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Spend Projections | Top News | Twitter: Advertising | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: Mobile

According to eMarketer, mobile advertising will reach $7.29 billion by the end of this year with Google projected to take home more than half, earning $3.9 billion in US mobile ad revenue for 2013. According to the report, US mobile advertising grew 178 percent last year and is expected to grow 77.3 percent this year, a five fold increase since 2011. Mobile ad dollars represent display, search and messaging-based formats served on mobile devices. Mobile advertising will continue to climb dramatically, with an expected $27.13 billion in total mobile ad revenue by 2017, just under 45 percent [...]

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Mark Zuckerberg told Marketing Land at the Facebook Home announcement today that ads will not be served on the new Cover Feed at the launch. Zuckerberg confirmed that they are planning ad units, but they won't roll out for some time. More Facebook Home Coverage Facebook Launches 'Home' – A New Android Home Screen Experience Hands On With Facebook Home Cover Feed And Chat Heads While "Facebook Home" Keeps Google, Search Is Harder To Reach Live Blog: The Facebook Android "Home" Phone Event [...]

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Last year, Facebook announced a new feature titled "unpublished" posts that allowed brand managers to create posts that users wouldn't see ... unless they were being marketed to. With these post types, advertisers could then use the post for a sponsored listing within the right-hand sidebar. The new change allows for unpublished or "dark" posts to be much more visible to users. The new changes allow advertisers to do more than just show within the right hand "ad" side of the Facebook layout. The new ad types can now be pushed directly to the News Feed. This means that a Facebook page can no [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Pages

A new Facebook Ads Manager enhancement released today places an emphasis on defining goals and actions for all ads. No longer will Facebook advertisers be confused to how ads are performing as the main defined action will show more prominently in the overall ad summaries and within Ads Manager itself. This will be a boon for marketers as each overall goal may be intrinsically different. As of today, advertisers will be able to pick from the following actions when creating an ad: The campaign summary will place the action selected front and center and will calculate a cost-per-ac [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising

Last year Facebook launched Mobile App Install Ads which give advertisers the ability to specifically promote application installs from those apps in the App Center. Last week two new features were released that gives advertisers the ability to target by specific OS version and also to target Wi-Fi connected devices. With these new changes, advertisers can spend smarter by displaying apps to specific operating systems (such as Android Jelly Bean 4.2, iOS 5) while avoiding platforms that don't run the application well. The Wi-Fi targeting option is a very interesting attribute as customiz [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Mobile

Google took the lead in US digital display ad revenue last year, earning $2.26 billion. After coming in second to Facebook in 2011, Google outsold their top competitor in 2012, selling $80 million more than Facebook's $2.18 billion. In last week's digital display ad earnings report, eMarketer predicts Google will continue to lead Facebook and Yahoo, earning an estimated $3.11 billion in digital display ad revenue by year's end. The overall US display advertising market is expected to grow 18.1 percent in 2013, with Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL forecasted to earn a combined [...]

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According to a recent mobile hashtag survey by RadiumOne, 58 percent of respondents said they use hashtags on a regular basis, and 70 percent of the hashtag users are doing so from their mobile device. RadiumOne's survey evaluated how consumers perceive, value, and use hashtags. Of the 494 survey respondents, 71 percent were female and 44 percent, middle-aged. (RadiumOne noted that while social media use is most predominant with 18 to 24-year olds, comScore credits middle-aged women as the group most responsible for growth in social media site usage.) Another key insight from RadiumO [...]

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