Facebook Launches Small Business Solutions Partner Program With AdRoll, Constant Contact

On Thursday, Facebook launched a new marketing partner track specifically aimed at providing small business solutions. The specialty track launches with retargeting platform AdRoll and email marketing provider Constant Contact receiving the Small Business Solutions badge.

The badge spotlights marketing partners that offer technology solutions geared specifically for small and local businesses that can also be leveraged for Facebook campaigns.

Steve Irvine, global head of the Facebook Marketing Partner program, pointed out in a phone conversation yesterday that most of Facebook’s 2.5 million active advertisers are small businesses. And with just 5.5 percent of the 45 million businesses that use Facebook Pages actively advertising, there’s obvious room for growth. “We have a strong belief that there is a lot of opportunity to extend relationships with SMBs,” said Irvine.

With these new partnerships, Facebook can meet SMB customers in marketing platforms they are already using. Both AdRoll and Constant Contact have stables of small business customers. Those customers will then be able to broaden their reach from existing channels onto the social network. “They will be able to turn their email campaigns into Facebook campaigns,” says Irvine as an example. Making it easy to launch Facebook advertising campaigns from the platform interfaces that thousands of small businesses are already using and familiar with should help Facebook increase its own customer footprint.

To be considered for badge eligibility, partners must be able to support thousands of small businesses with simple and automated workflows at SMB-friendly price points. Facebook, for now, focuses on vendors that have proprietary technology and offer education and support for their products. Client retention numbers are also a strong signal when evaluating partners, according to Irvine. And, of course, potential partners have to have demonstrated the ability to work with Facebook at scale.

Irvine says his team has a pipeline of other vendors and are looking to both deepen offerings within retargeting and email capabilities and expand to other areas, such as website platforms and marketplaces.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin is Third Door Media’s Editor-in-Chief, running the day to day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin writes about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.