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The
advertising options, most of which will also be available on
Facebook-owned Instagram, are designed to take advantage of the
social network's strengths on mobile devices. It has the world's
most popular smartphone app and generates more than
three-quarters of its $10 billion-plus in annual ad revenue on
phones.
Facebook is trying to convince advertisers, especially those who
use video, that their dollars will be better spent on mobile
platforms rather than on TV as users, especially millennials,
spend more time on their phones than watching television. The
rollout of the new products come ahead of New York City's 12th
Advertising Week, which runs from Monday to Friday and gathers
the world's largest advertisers and companies. Facebook also
announced on Sunday that it has 2.5 million active advertisers
in total, up from 2 million in February.
Digital video advertising spending is growing rapidly, projected
to increase 13 percent to nearly $15 billion by 2019, according
to eMarketer. Television ad spending, by comparison, is expected
to grow 2 percent in the same time period to $78 billion. "Facebook
is listening to the ad community and giving them what they are
looking for," said Debra Aho Williamson, social media marketing
analyst with eMarketer. "Does Facebook want video ad dollars?
Yes."
On television, advertisers can buy ads based on how many people
they will reach, an approach Facebook has adopted to ease the
transition between television spending and digital spending.
In addition, it can target highly specific audiences, such as
women aged 18 to 35 years old who have shopped on a specific
website, which TV cannot do.
Among the new products are "brand awareness" ads, which aim to
reach a large number of people to promote a company's name and
brand, such as Coca Cola. Advertisers will also be able to poll
users on mobile phones about whether they saw an ad -- a feature
that used to be available only on desktop computers -- and they
can use a format that allows them to display multiple videos at
once that users can scroll through.
"We want to be the single-most important platform for all
businesses," said Carolyn Everson, Facebook vice president for
global marketing solutions.
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