In June, Facebook announced the Facebook Exchange. In September, it launched out of beta. According to the company, it is already doing better than Google.
AdWeek ran a “sitdown” with Facebook sales chief Carolyn Everson and GroupM chief digital officer Rob Norman. At one point, the conversation turned to the Facebook Exchange, and Everson claimed that it is doing “better than the Google Exchange.” Here’s the quote:
So we are very excited about Facebook Exchange. We’re excited about the results that we’ve seen. Our performance so far in the Exchange is doing better than the Google Exchange, and Triggit and others have all spoken up on our behalf. So you should take their data, not mine. There are two things happening on our Exchange product right now, and one is that people are engaged more, they’re actually clicking through. And the second is that the [cost per action] is actually much cheaper on Facebook. So we have more engagement and it’s cheaper cost, and it’s much more efficient.
The Facebook Exchange enables advertisers and agencies to use cookie-based targeting through demand-side platforms to reach their audiences on Facebook with what the company says are “more timely and relevant messages”.
“Facebook Exchange allows marketers to use their own real-time consumer insight data to reach an audience on Facebook,” product marketing manager Scott Shapiro recently said. “Facebook represents a large portion of display ad inventory on the web—more than 25% according to a recent ComScore study—so this is a significant opportunity for advertisers using DSPs to extend the same strategies that are working for them on other display exchanges to Facebook. The only ad format available on Facebook Exchange is our Facebook Standard Ad, so you can really think of this as display.”
In the AdWeek sitdown, Norman said he thinks the Facebook Exchange has probably quadrupled the market in terms of availability of total impressions.
Jim Edwards at BusinessInsider raises a couple of pretty good points in that quadrupling the supply isn’t the same as quadrupling demand, and that Facebook Exchange was not even mentioned in Facebook’s recent 10-Q report.