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Facebook Now Lets People Call Businesses From News Feed Ads

The social network adds "Call Now" button, enhancing the local awareness ad program for local businesses.

Martin Beck on May 13, 2015 at 6:02 pm

Facebook has launched a handy feature for local business advertisers.

Today it added a new call-to-action button for News Feed ads: a “Call Now” button that enables people to telephone a business. Mobile customers who tap the button are re-directed to their phone dialer.

The new feature is part of Facebook’s “local awareness” objective, which the company launched in October 2014 and bills as its first advertising objective created explicitly for local businesses.

Previously, businesses were able to include Like buttons for their Page and “Get Directions” button that loads the mobile phone’s mapping application and guides people to a location.

The ads, which can now be created directly from Facebook Pages, offer the ability to target people when they are near your business or who live in the vicinity. Facebook says such ads reach “more people in your area per dollar spent than with any other kind of advertising, including newspaper or direct mail.”

For more information about the local awareness program, see the Facebook for Business page.

Postscript: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that the “Get Directions” button was new today. In fact, that button has been available since October 2014 when the company launched local awareness ads.