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  • Google Launches New Local AdWords Targeting Options In 11 Countries

    Google has made some updates to local targeting for AdWords in 11 countries. Here in the United States, Google notes that it has recently changed its metro targeting areas to Nielsen DMA (Designated Market Areas) regions.

    “Now your online campaigns and reporting will more precisely match TV-based audience data and campaigns. If you’ve been using metros, you’ll notice that the new geographic shapes look different on a map,” says product manager Derek Coatney, on the Inside AdWords blog. “While you might see some increases or decreases in traffic with the new regions, we estimate the impact will be small for most advertisers.”

    Metro Targeting

    In Canada, Google is expanding its launch of ZIP code targeting, which was already available in the U.S. Canadian postal code FSAs can now be targeted. Advertisers can now reach over 1,500 of them.

    “Now you’ll be able to plan, buy and get reporting with AdWords the same way you do with direct mail,” says Coatney. “Plus, with the “Bulk locations” tab in the AdWords location targeting tool, you’ll be able to easily enter up to 1,000 locations per country at a time.”

    ZIP targeting in Canada

    Google is adding city and region targeting options to the following new countries: Belgium (city), Bulgaria (region & city), Denmark (city), India (city), Ireland (city), Romania (region & city), Sweden (region & city), Taiwan (city), and Vietnam (city). In Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, India, Sweden, and Taiwan, Google has added location extensions, which show the closest business address and phone numbers with search ads.

  • LinkedIn Expands Ads Into 17 New Languages

    LinkedIn announced today that it is launching LinkedIn Ads in 17 new languages.

    “LinkedIn Ads now provides a truly local experience and allows you to create ads in the language of your choice,” says LinkedIn’s Gyanda Sachdev. “From Japanese and Czech to French and Turkish, this update makes it that much easier for members to share information and create messages that resonate with other members they want to reach.”

    “For example, the addition of new languages to LinkedIn Ads allows a finance executive in Brazil to use Spanish to connect with clients in Spain, while a tech company in Hong Kong can frame its message in Dutch to pursue customers in Amsterdam,” adds Sachdev.

    LinkedIn ads will now be available in the following languages:

    English
    Czech
    Dutch
    French
    German
    Indonesian
    Italian
    Japanese
    Korean
    Malay
    Norwegian
    Polish
    Portuguese
    Romanian
    Russian
    Spanish
    Swedish
    Turkish

    LinkedIn has 175 million members worldwide. Earlier this month, the company reported an 89% year-over-year increase in revenue. This language expansion should add to the numbers quite nicely.

  • Google Puts A Big Display Ad Right In The Middle Of Its Homepage

    I went to Google.com this morning to check and see if there happened to be a doodle today. I quickly realized there was not, and closed the tab, but just as I was closing it, I noticed some animated graphic start to pop up. Perhaps I had been wrong.

    So, I went back to Google.com, and waited for the animation to return, and to my surprise, it was not a doodle, but an ad. A big animated display ad for a Google product – the Nexus 7 tablet.

    Google Nexus 7 Ad

    Click on the image, and you’re taken to this landing page on Google Play, where you get more information about the device, and the following video:

    It’s nothing new for Google to throw a link to one of its products underneath the search box, and honestly, I’m not entirely sure this is the first time they’ve put a graphic there, but it’s the first time I can remember seeing one, and an animated one no less, so it really catches the eye.

    It’s hard to find better online real estate for an ad than Google.com, so one can hardly blame Google for taking advantage. It will be interesting to see if Google starts cluttering up the classically simple homepage more in the future to sell its products. They’ve certainly had no problems adding more elements to the once simple search results pages.

    More on the Nexus 7 here.

  • Why in the Hell is Jerry Jones Rapping about Papa John’s?

    You didn’t need to do this, Jerry. Nobody needed to do this.

    There’s a new ad for Papa John’s pizza featuring Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and it’s really really bad. Not so bad that it’s good, just really really bad.

    Something something about Jerry Jones shooting off like a Roman Candle. something else about a double threat. It’s Jerry Jones rapping – that’s all you really need to know. The YouTube description says that “there are three things Texans enjoy: pizza, football and Jerry Jones rapping.” Can any Texans attest to this?

    Courtesy of the Loomis Agency, who fashion themselves as “an ad agency that lives to help underdogs find their voice and fight the big dogs.”

    Apparently, this isn’t the first time that this agency has put Jerry Jones in a Papa John’s commercial. Let’s just hope that Jerry is a better hands-on team manager this year than he is at whatever the hell this is.

    [via Mashable]

  • Facebook’s Sponsored Search Results Go Live

    Last month, Facebook began testing a new feature for advertisers. “Sponsored Results” allow marketers to purchase ads that appear within search results in Facebook’s search bar when a user types a certain keyword.

    Now, according to TechCrunch, Facebook is telling marketers to fire away by making Sponsored Results available through the Power Editor tool. Sponsored Results are also officially a part of the Ads API. Officially, Sponsored Results give “advertisers the ability to embed ads to the list of tyeahead results.”

    More from Facebook:

    Advertisers can create standard on-site ads (with a 70 character message) that lead to Facebook pages or apps (including custom tabs on their page). Ads can be targeted against Facebook entities, including Pages, Places, Apps, and subscribe-enabled users. Facebook users see the ad when the targeted entity appears in their search results. Ads only show in desktop search results, not on mobile and not on the “more results” page.

    These ads cannot direct users anywhere off-site – for now.

    To users, yes this means ads in your search bar. Advertisers can target the ads to show up when users type certain keywords. Apparently, Zynga and Match.com are some of the big name developers that are already flooding your search bar with Sponsored Results.

    The Sponsored Results work like any other ad on Facebook, meaning you can click the “x” on the upper right-hand corner to do away with them. And just like with the rest of them, Facebook will ask you exactly what displeased you about said advert.

    In some cases (like the one seen above), the Sponsored Result will appear at the top of the box. In other cases, a “Top Hit” result will appear on top of the Sponsored Results.

  • Facebook Studio Edge Launched To Educate Agencies On Facebook Marketing

    Facebook announced today that it is rolling out Facebook Studio Edge to agencies worldwide.

    Facebook Studio Edge is a set of learning courses designed to teach you how to get more out of your Facebook marketing. The company revealed the program back in June, but now it’s widely available.

    The program consists of 10-15 minute courses focused on specific topics, such as apps, Pages and ads. Courses are interactive, and Facebook says it will continue to update them as needed (presumably as it offers more products).

    “Whether you’re looking to go deep on topics essential to your job or to expand your horizons, Studio Edge courses cover topics relevant to a wide range of agency audiences— from creative teams to media planners and technologists,” Facebook says.

    As you complete courses, you can earn badges, which you can display next to any submitted case studies you’ve been credited on.

    You can access Facebook Studio Edge by going to the “Education” tab from Facebook Studio.

  • Google Gives Advertisers Skippable TrueView Format On Mobile

    Google announced today that it is now offering advertisers its TrueView in-stream video ad format for mobile devices.

    TrueView ads are cost-per-view. Advertisers only pay when viewers actively select their videos or choose to continue watching them, once they’re first loaded while they browse content. The content has to be hosted on YouTube, but they can appear on both YouTube and other publisher sites in the Google Display Network.

    Skippable TrueView ad format

    “With TrueView, we’ve developed a model where user engagement matters — people can skip ads they aren’t interested in after five seconds,” says YouTube group product manager Phil Farhi. “Giving viewers choice over ads they watch has led to a better, more engaged viewing experience, benefiting the entire YouTube community of users, advertisers, and content creators. Advertisers only pay when someone chooses to watch the ad, so their budgets go toward the people most interested in what they have to say. ”

    “Hundreds of our advertisers are experiencing ‘buy one, get one free’ — for every view they pay for, they’re earning another one through sharing,” Farhi says. “This is because after a user watches a video ad, they can stick around to watch more content from that brand, visit their website, or share the video with friends. Many of you are seeing this in action today – TRX, for example, saw the greatest ROI from their TrueView campaign during their busy season promotions.”

    Google says brand recall improves when ads are run across TV, PC, phone and tablet screens. With that in mind, Google says the new offering will enable easier creation and management of multi-screen campaigns.

    Settings can be managed from AdWords for Video.

  • Facebook Ads: Disney, Zynga Testing New Search Format

    Facebook is finding more places to cram ads, in case you haven’t noticed. As the company’s stock suffers, Facebook needs to please investors, and that means, obviously, making more money. What better way to monetize 955 million active users than to show them more ads?

    In July, a new format from the search bar was spotted by TechCrunch. According to AdWeek, Facebook expanded this test on Thursday.

    The publication spoke with Facebook about the test, but the company reportedly declined to name any participating advertisers. AdWeek, however, reports that advertisers include Disney Interactive Media Group, Zynga, Kixeye and King.com, running ads for Facebook games like Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Zynga Poker, Battle Pirates and Candy Crush Saga.

    Here’s a look at the Avengers and Battle Pirates ads, both of which appear for a simple “avengers” search.

    Facebook Search Ads

    I have to question the relevancy. Even if sponsored, it’s hard to justify a result for Battle Pirates appearing above the Avengers Facebook Page for such a query, though Facebook’s search has never really been known for its relevancy.

    That could soon change, however, and Google should be worried about that. Facebook is currently working on some kind of major search revamp, the details of which are still unknown. Former Googler Lars Rasmussen is working on it, and has been quoted as saying, “I am working on something very specific which is super exciting but it hasn’t launched yet so I can’t tell you much about it.”

    Perhaps we’ll get a glimpse at Facebook’s f8 developer conference this year. An improved search experience combined with more of an emphasis on search ads could be highly profitable for Facebook if done right. That would certainly give investors something to smile about.

  • Twitter Turns To Revstream for Billing, Revenue Management

    Twitter and Revstream announced today that Twitter has deployed Revstream’s revenue and billing management platform, integrated with Oracle’s E-Business Suite (r12).

    “Revstream’s platform enables Twitter to accelerate our billing cycle and improve our global revenue recognition process,” said Shanice Ma, Director of Revenue at Twitter. “With Revstream, our process is improving in both efficiency and accuracy.”

    That efficiency is going to be important as the company continues to improve on its monetization strategy.

    “An explosive global business like Twitter presents sophisticated challenges for Finance teams in both revenue and billing management,” said Mark Aubin, Revstream’s Chief Product Architect. “Twitter’s volume, frequency and variation of ad products require very robust billing and revenue management functionality. We designed the Revstream Suite to handle the unique operational challenges faced by a wide variety of companies with ad-based revenue models.”

    According to Revstream’s site, Facebook also uses its platform.

  • James Franco Multitasks With His Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 In This New Ad

    Samsung has put out a new, nearly three-minute commercial for the Galaxy Note 10.1, featuring (and apparently directed by) James Franco, showing us how James Franco uses the device.

    Franco is presented as “the ultimate multitasker”. He engages in numerous activities while using his tablet, including a pillow fight with young girls and making breakfast.

    As Samsung notes in the description, “James Franco, the ultimate multitasker, reveals how he’s able to do so much with his time and how the GALAXY Note 10.1 helps him accomplish it all.”

  • This Was Facebook’s Ad Pitch Eight Years Ago

    Remember the Facebook of old? There were no Timelines, no FarmVille requests, not even a news feed. It was powered by wall posts after hazy nights of college binge drinking and coy inside jokes about random hookups with complete strangers. Six or seven years ago, Facebook really was the college experience online.

    But just a little bit before that – before Facebook became the nationwide dorm room phenomenon, it was a little more selective. In the first half of 2004, Facebook was only available for a couple dozen colleges, a third of which were Ivy League. And in that period between launch and full expansion, former Facebook CFO Eduardo Saverin went to New York City to sell ads.

    DigiDay got their hands on an original media kit used by Saverin back in 2004 to sell ad space on what was then known as thefacebook.com. The package boasts of Facebook’s growing numbers (70,000 users!) and their potential for quick expansion. It also markets Facebook as the “new college addiction,” quoting the March 5th issue of the Stanford Daily:

    Classes are being skipped. Work is being ignored. Students are spending hours in front of the computer in utter fascination.

    “There are 15 million college student in the United States,” says one page of the kit. “With an estimated purchasing power that exceeds $85 billion, college students have money in their pockets for your services and products. This year they will spend $21 billion on restaurants and food, $9 billion on automobiles, $5 billion on clothes, $4 billion on phones and $46 billion on other amenities.”

    facebook ad kit 2004

    Although Facebook is mostly trying to sell banner ads here, you can already see that they are pushing the giant trove of personal information they have at their disposal. They highlight targeted advertising, which they say can nail down a user based on major, fraternity or sorority, age, gender, sexual orientation, relationship status, political views, and more.

    Although the ad offerings have diversified, a lot of what’s in this packet would be applicable to Facebook’s pitch today. Just up the 70,000 user mark to 950,000,000 and it’s basically the same argument: Look at all of these people that you can taget based on a massive amount of personal data. This is just a fascinating look into the early days of one of the biggest online properties in the world.

  • Is Facebook Getting Less User-Friendly?

    Facebook is starting to do a lot more things to cater to businesses, but is it becoming less user-friendly in the process? Now that the company is public, it’s going to have to keep investors happy, and that means making money – hence all of the advertising-related changes we’re seeing. Last week, Facebook stock hit its lowest point so far, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apparently found to be quite painful. I wonder what additional monetization strategies are in store for Facebook’s future.

    When Facebook released its first earnings report last month, it announced that it it has 955 million active users, with 552 of them using Facebook on a daily basis. Facebook’s great challenge will be to keep those numbers growing, rather than slipping, while also finding more ways to make money off of them. Hopefully, for users’ sake, they’ll be able to do it in ways that aren’t annoying.

    Do you think Facebook is getting less user-friendly, or is it as good as ever? Let us know what you think in the comments.

    Facebook is currently testing a feature that could turn off a lot of users – promoted posts in the News Feed from pages that you don’t “like” and that not even your friends “like”. If this moves beyond the testing phase, you’ll start seeing more ads in your News Feed, and for things that you quite possibly have no interest in or even a social connection to.

    “Starting soon, we are beginning a very small test that will allow marketers to promote page posts to people beyond their fans in the news feed,” Facebook is quoted as saying.

    A WebProNews reader commented on the story, “I am finding myself more an more annoyed with facebook lately. I barely ever use it anymore. This is just one more reason for me to never log in again.”

    We recently reported on another promoted posts-related feature that had some users upset. This was a type of post that appears in the News Feed, and shows you when one or more of your friends “likes” a certain page, and shows a recent post from that page. Depending on the post, these friends may not always be pleased with the display.

    At the time, ZDNet shared the perfect example:

    Just because your friends “liked” drugstore.com, does not necessarily mean that they want to be used to help peddle lube.

    Considering the recent Chick-fil-A controversy, it’s not hard to imagine people who may have enjoyed eating the restaurant’s sandwiches in the past and “liked” their Facebook page, only to have Facebook saying that they “like” it, while displaying a “recent post” that he or she politically disagrees with. Chick-fil-A, by the way, became one of the fastest-growing social brands on Facebook following that whole thing.

    These are just a couple of examples of where we’re seeing Facebook seemingly putting business interests above users’.

    Some users simply aren’t happy with the direction Facebook’s interface is going. The company is still in the process of getting the Timeline pushed out to all users, and as this continues, there is still a fair amount of bitter reaction to the major design changes. That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of users who actually prefer the timeline, but some people just flat out don’t like it. It doesn’t really matter as far as Facebook is concerned, however. All users should have the Timeline by sometime this fall, the company recently told us.

    Some users are just plain bored. A couple months ago, Reuters and Ipsos ran a poll finding that 34% of users (more than a third of respondents) find Facebook boring. These users are spending less time on Facebook than six months prior. Given that the poll itself is over two months old, I wonder how the numbers have trended in the meantime. According to Reuters’ these users complained that Facebook is either “boring,” “not relevant,” or “not useful”.

    Luckily, third parties are continuing to find ways to keep a lot of Facebook users interested. It’s a good thing Facebook isn’t treating developers the way Twitter is. The Timeline, despite those who hate it, caters to this quite nicely. On the other hand, Facebook apps have always annoyed some users in one way or another. It wasn’t all that long ago when you could hardly get on the site without seeing a plethora of updates about what people were doing on Farmville.

    Of course, when you have close to a billion active users, you’re never going to please everyone. There’s always someone longing for the days before Facebook even opened up beyond school campuses.

    Do you think Facebook is moving in the right direction? Let us know what you think in the comments.

  • Facebook Tests Promoted Posts in Your News Feed from Pages Way Outside Your Network

    Soon, you may begin to see promoted posts from pages that your don’t even like – or your friends don’t even like. You may see a post from a brand that you’ve never even heard of.

    That’s because Facebook is testing a new ad format that will allow marketers to promote posts to users that have no real affiliation with the brand on the site. Yet.

    Of course, the hope is that these out-of-network promoted posts will reach a much broader audience and thus grab more users to “like” the page. These new promoted posts for non-likers will show up in the news feed, and will feature a “like” button at the top right corner and a “sponsored” denotation on the bottom.

    “Starting soon, we are beginning a very small test that will allow marketers to promote page posts to people beyond their fans in the news feed,” says Facebook.

    Facebook also says that these ads may show up on desktop and mobile.

    Before this test, any sort of promoted post or sponsored story that you saw in your news feed was there because you liked the page or because one of your friends liked the page. This new type of ad option would be huge for marketers, allowing them to reach a completely new audience of users who may have never heard of their brand. For instance, a new restaurant could target users in a certain city, even if they haven’t garnered any real “likes” yet.

    Of course, this is just a test, and Facebook runs hundreds of tests every month. But something tells me this one will stick. It’s a clever way for Facebook to expand ad revenue and an improved way for businesses to expand their reach on the network.

    But of course, it’s also Facebook getting one step closer to selling straight-up advertising on the site.

    [Image courtesy Inside Facebook]

  • Google Takes Out Print Ad Saying How Awesome Advertising on Google Is

    This is just a funny one. Ironic, maybe – but undoubtedly deliberate in its execution. Last week, the search giant took out a couple of ads in some Canadian newspapers touting the benefit of buying ads on Google.

    “You know who needs a haircut? People searching for a haircut,” it read. “Maybe that’s why ads on Google work.”

    Of course, Google’s sly dig at traditional advertising as opposed to targeted advertising based on searches is made even funnier by the fact that they took out a full page ad to do so.

    The print ad ran in last Thursday’s Globe and Mail, the Toronto-based newspaper that’s printed in six other cities and distributed nationally. It’s Canada’s largest-circulation national paper. It also ran in the Globe and Mail competitor, the National Post.

    I guess this is Google saying that traditional advertising is necessary, if only to steer people towards online advertising. I can see this kind of technique catching on. Can you imagine a similar ad purchased by Facebook?

    “You know who needs a haircut? People who ‘like’ Supercuts and Vidal Sassoon.”

    [Steve Ladurantaye via Mashable]

  • Google Looks To Make More Money Off Of Political Campaigns

    Google may be able to make more money off of political campaigns by making its ad targeting options better.

    The company announced today that it is enabling political campaigns to to target ads by Congressional district. The targeting feature will work across Google’s search, display, mobile and video ads, allowing campaigns to target people that are solely within the district’s border.

    “In his autobiography, Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said ‘All politics is local,” says Charles Scrase from Google’s Politics & Elections team. “With all 435 seats up for election in brand new Congressional Districts this November, that adage rings even more true for House candidates running this fall. Through the redistricting process that takes place every 10 years, every district takes on a new shape – with new voters. This makes reaching the right voters with the right message even tougher.”

    “As campaigns know, reaching these households in an effective manner with traditional means takes time and – importantly – valuable resources,” adds Scrase.

    Google Congressional District ad targeting

    Google says it has built a large team that can work around the clock to help all candidates get the most out of their efforts.

  • A Different, Funnier Take On That Martin Scorsese Siri Commercial

    Last week, we showed you an a new iPhone 4S commercial featuring Martin Scorsese using Siri. While much tamer, we couldn’t help but be reminded of a certain uncomfortable scene in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.

    Now, there’s a funnier take on the ad. AppJudgment has uploaded the following parody to YouTube (via 9to5Mac):

    This video is even funnier considering that a real Siri ad was recently called out for delivering bogus information.

  • GM Marketing Head Joel Ewanick Resigns Just a Couple of Months After Yanking Facebook Ads

    Barely two months after we learned that General Motors was yanking nearly $10 million worth of Facebook ads, the man behind that decision is no longer working for the company.

    Joel Ewanick, GM’s marketing chief, has resigned his position effective immediately. The 52-year-old worked with GM for two years, and had only been CMO since December 2010.

    A few days before Facebook went public, GM rather publicly pulled all of their paid ads from Facebook, basically saying that Facebook advertising doesn’t work. “GM is definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content is effective and important,” said Ewanick. Although it seemed like a giant slap in the face to Facebook right before their IPO, we learned that Ewanick wasn’t singling out the social network. In fact, he had also chosen to forgo the Super Bowl in 2013.

    So, Ewanick was making big moves, but it doesn’t appear that they payed off. According to those familiar with the matter, it wasn’t the Facebook deal that led to his departure, however.

    “[H]e was being removed for failing to properly vet the financial details of a European soccer sponsorship deal that he struck recently,” according to Forbes.

    GM has said that Alan Batey, current VP of U.S. and service, will be the interim Marketing Chief.

  • This New Martin Scorsese Siri Commercial Is A Lot Tamer Than Taxi Driver

    Apple has put out a new iPhone/Siri commercial featuring famed director Martin Scorsese. This follows ads featuring Samuel L. Jackson, John Malkovich and Zooey Deschanel.

    Watching the new one, I can’t help but think about a classic scene from Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, where he is also riding in the back of a cab talking like Martin Scorsese. The biggest difference is that in the Taxi Driver clip he is playing a homicidal racist talking about murdering his wife with some pretty disturbing dialogue.

    Here’s the new Apple ad:

    Here’s the Taxi Driver clip (contains NSFW language):

    People have been pretty fond of Apple’s other celebrity Siri ads for the most part. People apparently really liked the Zooey Deschanel one in particular.

    What do you think of the new Marty ad?

  • Here Are The Top 50 Web Properties In The U.S.

    comScore has released its Media Metrix rankings for the top 50 web properties in the U.S. in June.

    And here they are:

    Top 50 Sites

    Google sites saw 189 million visitors, compared to Yahoo’s 167 million, Microsoft’s 166 million, and Facebook’s 160 million.

    Here are the ad ecosystem rankings:

    Ad Ecosystem rankings

    The list of top gainers from month to month is pretty interesting. For one, Zynga managed to double its unique audience in the U.S. in that time. Mozilla put in a pretty impressive showing in that category as well:

    Top gainers in June

    “June got off to a strong start with significant traffic gains seen at Travel and Retail sites as Americans readied their free time for the long-awaited summer months,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore. “With more leisure time for game playing on their hands, nearly 15 million people visited Zynga in June, representing a 103-percent gain to rank as the top-gaining property.”

    Are you surprised by any of the rankings?

  • Although Everyone’s Mining Your Data, Facebook Remains The Most Distrusted

    Online properties collect, analyze, and later use various types of your personal data. This is a fact of life, and most people accept it. If you think that you’re making moves on Facebook, Google, online retail sites, etc. that are free of some sort of watchful eye, you’re sorely mistaken.

    But a new poll suggests that people feel differently about the use of their information on the web – and it all depends on who’s using it.

    A Harris Interactive/Placecast survey asked over 2,200 U.S. adults about their “level of comfort with the use of their data” by a couple different online companies, including Facebook, Google, and Amazon. What they found was that for whatever reason, people are seriously wary of Facebook – more so than other companies that clearly mine user data as well.

    Only one-third of those surveyed said they felt comfortable with Facebook’s handling of their user data. Of course, on of the main reason that Facebook collects and analyzes user data is to target ads.

    On the flip side, twice that many respondents (66%) felt perfectly fine with Amazon using their data on past purchases to recommend new products.

    Surprisingly, 41% said that they trust Google’s use of their data to display ads during search.

    All of these uses of data involves advertisements, but for some reason Facebook continues to engender the most concern among internet users.

    User distrust of Facebook ad practices is likely to grow, as the company steps up its game in an attempt to recruit more advertisers and generate revenue as a newly public entity.

    [via Bloomberg]

  • Ad Nauseam: Are Facebook Ads Really Worth It?

    In theory, advertising on Facebook allows marketers to reach one of the largest populations of potential buyers possible. Short of throwing up a banner ad on the moon, it’s unlikely that you’re going to find an outlet with more upside – the network is approaching 1 billion users.

    In theory.

    But of course, unlike a Super Bowl ad or the like, not everyone in the target population is going to see any given Facebook advertisement. Whether it be a Sponsored Story in a user’s news feed or a more traditional ad on the side of the page, they are all competing with each other for attention at all times.

    Is Facebook the best place to advertise? The worst? Somewhere in between? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages to a paid Facebook campaign? Let us know in the comments.

    Are people seeing the ads? Are they getting lost amidst the busy Facebook homepage? Do users even notice them anymore? Are Sponsored Stories more effective that traditional ads? All of these questions are simply part of a larger question that marketers have been asking themselves recently.

    Is advertising on Facebook worth it?

    General Motors makes a move

    Although it’s an advertiser’s job to ask the “is it worth it?” question regarding any medium that they consider throwing cash into, the spotlight seemed to turn directly on Facebook after a very public breakup between the social network and a giant American automaker.

    Back in May (right before the IPO), General Motors yanked all of their paid advertising from Facebook. According to the reports, GM was unconvinced of the effectiveness of advertising on the site. GM’s Marketing Chief Joel Ewanick said that the company was “definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content is effective and important.”

    Short and sweet version: Facebook ads don’t really work, but we gotta maintain a brand page.

    This decision resonated among the social media/advertising community (and in the halls at Menlo Park, I assume). A few days later, the blow of this giant pullout was lessened a bit when we learned that GM was also planning on ditching its Super Bowl ad campaign in 2013. Maybe the Facebook exodus wasn’t personal after all – maybe it was simply part of a bigger strategy. We have to concede, however, that the timing of it all, days before the IPO, reeks just a bit.

    Earlier this month, we heard that GM may be returning to the Facebook ad game, as executives at both companies have had talks. Even so, GM dropping its Facebook ad strategy just days before the IPO solidified the uneasiness and trepidation surrounding the culture of Facebook advertising.

    Advertiser confidence on shaky ground

    The folks over at GM aren’t the only advertisers that have doubted the efficacy of Facebook ads. Some recent reports from brand marketers and agency executives have painted a less-than-rosy picture concerning confidence that Facebook is a worthwhile platform to spend a good chunk of ad dollars.

    33across’ Advertiser and Agency Study looked at over 2000 of these professionals and came up with a pretty interesting stat: 71% said that they were focusing 80% of their attention on other advertising mediums not named Facebook. Just four months ago, only 58% of ad men were mostly staying away from Facebook.

    Not only that, but only 7% said that they were putting the majority of their ad dollars into Facebook. A whopping 0% said that 80% of their efforts come in the form of Facebook ads. Back in March, that number was small, but present at 4%.

    In all, post-IPO, more than five times the number of respondents said that they were planning on decreasing their Facebook ad spending.

    Another study of marketer/agency exec attitudes came to this conclusion: Facebook is vital, but Facebook ads may not be.

    You see, although 86% said that Facebook is currently a part of their paid advertising strategy, 88% said that they would consider forgoing all of the paid stuff and just sticking with “implementing Facebook content.” If you’ve heard that before, just look a few lines up a what GM said. Basically, they’re both saying that having a presence on Facebook is important, but they can own, operate, and promote content through their brand pages for free.

    The same group of people was asked their opinion of how useful Facebook is a “driving purchase intent.” Only 12.2% said that it is “very useful.” 19% said they didn’t know. 13.4% said it’s not useful at all and 55.5% said that it’s “somewhat” useful. What’s our takeaway here?

    One word. “Meh.”

    Facebook’s post-IPO ad blitz

    Right before the IPO, marketing software provider WordStream released a report card comparing Facebook and Google in the ad game. Long story short, Google won. In their mind, Facebook failed at their ad targeting options and ad formats.

    “So far, Facebook’s advertising platform hasn’t kept pace with the explosive growth of its social network, and it remains to be seen if CEO Mark Zuckerberg even wants to focus on advertising as a source of revenue,” said WordStream’s Larry Kim. “In his 2,500+ word letter to shareholders…he mentioned advertising just once.”

    Of course, Zuck and the team has to focus on advertising. Since going public, monetization is probably the only thing that’s been on his mind.

    That’s because it’s the main concern of anyone looking to the future of the company. And monetization in general isn’t the real concern – it’s actually mobile monetization that has been a hot topic surrounding Facebook both before and after the IPO.

    “We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven… and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our financial performance and ability to grow revenue would be negatively affected”

    Those words came straight from Facebook in their IPO filings. Zuckerberg himself has since echoed those claims. And in an effort to “generate meaningful revenue,” Facebook is in the process of making quite a few changes to their advertising options – which is good news for advertisers.

    In one of the most important tweaks to their ad platform, Facebook now allows advertisers to purchase mobile-only Sponsored Stories. Before, you couldn’t choose exactly where the Sponsored Story you paid for would show up. But now, mobile-only targeting is one of five different ad options that Facebook offers.

    We also know that a new ad platform, Facebook Exchange, is on the way. It’s basically a real-time ad bidding service that allows advertisers to target Facebook users based on previous activities. Here’s how I explained it before:

    The premise of Facebook Exchange is pretty simple: When you visit a site (other than Facebook) and spend some time looking at a product, but don’t make the final purchase – that third-party site will be able to follow you to Facebook and target you there with a highly specialized ad.

    For example, let’s say that I spent a good while checking out a new watch on a third-party retailer’s site (that has enlisted a demand-side platform) – let’s go with Swatch. Although I didn’t actually end up buying the watch, I was on the site long enough for them to determine that I was very interested in it – so they hit me with a cookie.

    If the advertiser (in this case Swatch) wanted to pursue me beyond the walls of its site, the demand-side platform would contact Facebook and use an anonymous User ID to show intent to target me. Now, the next time I log in the Facebook, that cookie alerts everyone to my presence and the advertiser is allowed to make a real-time bid to show a pre-rendered ad to me.

    And if everything goes according to plan, I’ll see a perfectly targeted ad for that blue Swatch watch I was eyeing earlier that day – or even earlier that week.

    We’ve also heard reports that Facebook will soon be targeting mobile ads based on app usage. This means that if you play a lot of Zynga’s game Word with Friends, you may see an ad for another Zynga game like Scramble with Friends. As a user, you wouldn’t even have to have “liked” Zynga to see this ad. That’s because Facebook knows you’re playing Words with Friends because it forces you to log in through Facebook connect.

    And it’s not only mobile ads that have been seeing some changes (or proposed changes). Recently, Facebook has been experimenting with showing more traditional right-side ads on pages as well as switching out the ads when users linger on a page.

    Of course, all the ads, ads, ads could be having a negative effect on user engagement. In the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook did just drop nearly 8% since 2011.

    Some good signs for Facebook ads

    If advertisers are going to retain/regain faith in Facebook ads, they probably need to see results. A recent report from TBG Digital suggests that Facebook ads are engaging – much more so than a competing service like Twitter.

    TBG’s report looked at click-through rates of Facebook ads – both mobile and desktop – and compared them to Twitter ads in the user feed. They found that Facebook ads on desktop has a CTR of .588%, and mobile ads nearly doubled that at a rate of 1.14%. By comparison, Twitter ads had a CTR of .266%. That means, on average Facebook ads (mobile and desktop) are around three times as effective as Twitter ads.

    Facebook’s higher CTR was attributed to the effectiveness of Sponsored Stories in the news feed, which feel more organic and less like a traditional ads. TBG also found that right-side traditional ads are becoming more and more ignored.

    Data from a few Facebook Ads API partners echoes the good news about Facebook ads – when it comes to mobile. One parter found that Facebook mobile ads had a CTR that quadrupled the combined CTR of all other types of ad placements. Another source went even higher, reporting a 25x efficacy for mobile ads over other traditional ads.

    A small legal problem going forward

    Now that we’ve seen just how effective mobile ads in the form of Sponsored Stories can be, it’s time to tell you that Facebook is soon going to have to let you opt out of being featured as a Sponsored Story.

    This comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by five plaintiffs in California. They claimed that Facebook had violated the law by using their likeness in advertisements (Sponsored Stories) without their consent, compensation, or the ability to opt out.

    Facebook settled the suit with a $10 million cy-pres payment, which will go to charity. But they also agreed to amend their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and implement an opt-out mechanism for Sponsored Stories. The opt-out mechanism will allow for user to exempt any past activities from begin featured as Sponsored Stories, although it won’t prevent them from seeing Sponsored Stories in their own news feeds.

    From the settlement:

    Facebook will create an easily accessible mechanism that enables users to view the subset of their interactions and other content that have been displayed in Sponsored Stories. Facebook will further engineer settings to enable users, upon viewing the interactions and other content that have been used in Sponsored Stories, to control which of these interactions and other content are edible to appear in additional Sponsored Stories.

    This may not be a killer, but it definitely impacts Facebook’s ability to get advertisers enthusiastic about ads, as well as advertisers confidence in the ads’ efficacy.

    Facebook is making plenty of moves to boost ad revenues by making it more attractive to brands. Do you think that Facebook advertising is worth it? If you’ve participated in an ad campaign on the site, what were the results? If you’re a Facebook user, what kind of marketing are you most likely to interact with? Let us know in the comments.