Facebook Launches Mobile Ad Network

By Dan Morris May 12th, 2014

On April 30th, Facebook unveiled a mobile ad network called “Facebook Audience Network.”  Currently in beta, access to the ad network is limited to a small number of “top managed mobile app advertisers.” However, the plan is to eventually make it available to all mobile app advertisers.

The initial version of the Facebook Audience Network will be limited to mobile app install ads, although Facebook has indicated that they intend to support a variety of marketing objectives including in-store and online sales. Advertisers will be able to serve app install ads, traditional mobile banners, and interstitial creative formats in Facebook’s new network. They will also be able to target Facebook users via Custom Audiences, Core Audiences, and Look-Alike Audiences. Participating beta advertisers can enable targeting on the Facebook Audience Network at the Ad level, along with existing device placement options. Therefore, advertisers will be able to report and analyze the performance of ads placed on the Audience Network performance separately from ads placed on the Facebook platform.

Contrary to popular speculation, the Facebook login ID will not be the key connector to retarget users between mobile apps on the network. In other words, mobile app users are not required to be logged into apps using Facebook in order to received targeted ads through the network. Rather, Facebook will compare device IDs and data points with other app developers to find common users, which will identify which apps are installed on a user’s device.

With the launch of this new mobile ad network, Facebook stands to compete with Google AdMob and other established networks capitalizing on the rapid growth of mobile app usage. Facebook has been moving in this direction over the past year, with a laser-focus on growing its mobile advertising business – and for good reason.

First, Facebook’s mobile user base has evolved into the most active and engaged of any major digital platform in the world. More time is spent on Facebook than any other mobile platform or website and, according to their latest earnings report, their mobile market share growth is 2.4 times greater than Google’s.

Second, Facebook has realized a notable uptick in users who access the platform only on mobile devices. In fact, 74% of the social network’s daily active users exhibit this behavior. Also, the growth rate of users who only access Facebook via mobile is six times higher than the overall growth rate. These statistics demonstrate why Facebook is so intent on improving the mobile experience for users and advertisers. They have clearly established one of the best mobile audiences of any channel or publisher.

Facebook Audience Network’s creation suggests the company is now seeking an even bigger piece of the overall mobile app advertising market. According to eMarketer, the number of mobile apps has increased 43% year-over-year to over 2 million while the number of mobile app downloads grew by only 30%. This gap indicates that marketers need better ways to help mobile users discover apps.

Recognizing this opportunity, Facebook released mobile app ads more than a year ago, designed to drive users toward installing and engaging with mobile apps. These have been a hit with advertisers, and have by measure of spend have surpassed Google’s app install ad product (mobile app install extensions) as the leading mobile app advertising product. Facebook Audience Network is poised to take a prominent position in the mobile app advertising market, which has grown to an estimated 30% of mobile advertising as reported by eMarketer.

When considering Facebook’s sophisticated, unique audience targeting capabilities, advertisers have a lot be excited about with the launch of the new ad network. Most mobile ad networks (Google AdMob and Millennial Media, for example) target mobile app users based on where they have been and what they have previously downloaded. For instance, a mobile app on the AdMob network may serve a dietary supplement ad to somebody who previously downloaded a fitness app.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, Facebook’s mobile ad network is primed to take mobile targeting to another level. On the Facebook mobile ad network, advertisers will not only be able to target users by what they’ve done (via Custom Audiences and Partner Categories) but also by who they are (Core Audiences). This approach to audience targeting is highly differentiated from other ad networks, and should intrigue advertisers to experiment with ad network buys when the product becomes generally available.

What Facebook’s Campaign Restructure Means For You

By Dan Morris March 3rd, 2014

In late November, news broke that Facebook was planning a major overhaul to its advertising campaign structure in Q1. The revised campaign structure will include a new management “level” called the Ad Set, that will sit in between the Campaign and Ad levels.

Since the initial information leak, little has been publicly shared from Facebook as to what the new campaign structure will look like, how it will benefit advertisers, and how their workflow will be impacted. Sensing the significance of the overhaul, you may remember that we shared our thoughts here on the blog soon after.

After months of waiting, Facebook recently made an official announcement on the Facebook for Business blog. They confirmed that existing Facebook campaigns will be migrated on March 4th (tomorrow!). The new structure is described as a “simpler way to organize and optimize campaigns on Facebook,” and is aimed to improve advertiser workflow, reporting and optimization.

Today’s Facebook marketers may have hundreds or thousands of campaigns within an account targeting different audiences and objectives. For example, an advertiser could have 15% of their campaigns focused on acquiring more fans, 20% focused on driving mobile or desktop app engagement, and 65% focused on website acquisition toward an ROI objective. Managing thousands of campaigns across hundreds of targeted audiences with mixed objectives can be confusing and problematic for advertisers without a sophisticated management platform.

By moving to a new “3-tiered” campaign taxonomy, Facebook hopes to provide marketers with a better way to organize campaigns targeting similar business objectives. Using the example above, marketers will now be able to look at campaigns with “ROI” objectives and quickly determine which target audiences (specified at the Ad Set level) are driving the best performance. If a marketer wants to understand which creative design or message resonates best with a particular audience for a given objective, the marketer can then drill into the Ad Set and analyze Ad-level performance.

Marin has been working diligently on the new campaign structure since October and is excited to roll it out to our customers. We expect the impact to our customer’s workflow to be positive for two reasons. First, Marin’s platform architecture has been built on a three-tiered campaign structure since we went GA in 2007. What this means is that our Facebook advertising customers who also use our product for Search and Display will finally have a consistent campaign taxonomy across all their channels. Second, this restructure will allow for an even more streamlined and favorable cross-channel workflow and analytics experience.

As a Marin Facebook advertiser, here is what you can expect:

Your Existing Campaigns
Marin has partnered with Facebook to transition our mutual clients on Friday March 14^th, in accordance with our i48 release. On this date, existing campaigns will be migrated to the new structure automatically, both in Facebook and in Marin. No additional steps will be required of the advertiser. The campaign will simply inherit the new setting, the “Objective.”

Creation of Ad Sets
Ad Sets will be created between the Campaign and Ad levels and inherit the settings of your existing campaigns.

Your Ads
Nothing will happen to your Ads as a result of the migration – everything will remain the same.

Your Customer Success Team is Here to Help
Marin believes in offering industry-leading support and service to our Facebook customers. We know this transition has big implications, and we want to be there to help. Please reach out to your Customer Success Team soon to discuss any questions or concerns about the transition. Following the transition, they will be eager to help you assimilate into your new workflow in Marin.

Best Practices Webinar!
On Tuesday, March 11, Marin will be holding a webinar for our customers to go through our new improved UI. We will be will also cover best practices for campaign creation, editing, and optimization with the new structure. Marin customers will be receiving an invitation via email in the coming days, so stay tuned!

7 Smart Ways to Retarget Across Devices with Facebook Custom Audiences

By Dan Morris February 26th, 2014

Did you know? Only 2% of website visitors convert on their first visit. While that’s a scary thought for marketers, thankfully retargeting allows us to zero in on the other 98% of visitors who have already expressed interest but need a further nudge to buy.

Many publishers are doing cool things with retargeting, but we want to call out Facebook’s official launch of Custom Audiences from Your Website as a real game-changer. By simply appending Facebook’s tracking pixel, any marketer can now segment website visitors into target audiences and re-engage them with highly targeted messages across the world’s largest social network. Even better, Custom Audiences from Your Website actually extends beyond desktop, making it the first true cross-device retargeting solution. For more details on this feature, check out our full-length explanation here.

So how can you take advantage of this new solution? Consider these 7 ways to reach, engage, nurture, and acquire customers across devices:

1) Retarget website visitors. Re-engage Facebook users who bounced from your site without converting. Give them a reason to reconsider your brand with a call to action that is tailored to the device they are using.

2) Retarget at the product level. It’s now possible to re-engage visitors based on the products or services they last viewed on your website. Create a Custom Audience based on a segment of website visitors who viewed a particular category of products, and then reach out to them with tailored creative and messaging.

3) Retarget mobile app users on desktop. Using Custom Audiences from Your Website, marketers can more easily connect the dots between customers who use their mobile app but purchase on another device.

4) Retarget website visitors on mobile. It’s also possible to retarget visitors who have come to your website through a desktop device with a mobile targeted ad. This is a great way to reach users while they are on-the-go with geo-specific mobile campaigns. Consider using a call to action that encourages users to stop by a nearby retail location.

5) Cross-sell or up-sell to existing customers. Custom Audiences offers a great opportunity to engage with existing, high-value customers. Try creating new segments in Facebook based on converting visitors. Then re-engage on Facebook with an offer, reward, or suggestion of a complementary product.

6) Nurture leads and engage current customers. To use Facebook remarketing as a substitute or complement to your email programs, create new Facebook campaigns with the specific goal of customer or lead outreach, and tailor your KPIs accordingly. For example, run Facebook ads to update your customers on new blog posts, white papers, or events.

7) Retarget users on Facebook based on search history. Use a tool like Marin to combine the power of Custom Audiences with search retargeting. This will allow you to map the buying intentions and potential lifetime value of your website visitors, so you can budget and bid more effectively.

For more info on Custom Audiences, get the full analysis here. You may also want to check out The 2014 Definitive Facebook Advertising Playbook, or the Product Tour: Managing Facebook Ads with Marin. Happy retargeting!

Will WhatsApp be Facebook’s Answer Internationally?

By Greg Kunkel February 20th, 2014

Facebook has a lot of users internationally, a lot. In fact, North America represents just 15% of Facebook users. Asia Pacific, on the other hand, has the lion’s share of users at 28%. Yet according to our recent analysis, North America receives roughly 52% of ad spend while Asia Pacific attracts just 11% of ad dollars. Facebook’s recent financials reported the US and Canada account for 47% of revenue in Q4.

The data not only shows a greenfield opportunity for international advertisers, but also indicates that Facebook has room to grow from an international revenue standpoint.

We all know mobile is hot here, but it’s even hotter internationally. According to Google’s Our Mobile Planet report in 2013, 73.8% of people within the United Arab Emirates own a smartphone. In South Korea, it’s 73%. As much as we love our phones here, the U.S. comes in 13^th at 56.4%.

WhatsApp is huge internationally and understandably so. While sending text, voice, photo and video messages via data as opposed to SMS may have limited appeal in the U.S., internationally it’s a big deal. WhatsApp has 450 million active users (Twitter has 271 million) in large part because the app lets users send messages free of those annoying and expensive international messaging fees. All you need is a phone with a data connection, the app, and $1 for the annual subscription fee. That’s it. You can message your friends and family in a neighboring country all you want.

Most Facebook users access the social site via their phones. In the last year Facebook took major steps to monetize its mobile users to the tune of $1 billion in mobile revenue in Q4. Yet, the majority of that revenue comes from the U.S. and Canada, regions that rank about 13^th and 14^th respectively in smartphone penetration and carry just 15% of Facebook users.

At the heart of Facebook and WhatsApp is the ability to communicate and stay in touch with friends and family. Buying WhatsApp not only gives Facebook a more streamlined approach to that communication, but it just significantly upped Facebook’s mobile presence internationally, particularly in regions with high mobile usage that they’ve otherwise been unable to capitalize on.

While there are no immediate plans, advertisers have to be excited by the potential of the two services fusing, or at the possibility of an ad supported version of WhatsApp in the future.

For more details, download International Facebook Advertising: A Greenfield Opportunity to Engage a Massive Global Audience.

Happy Birthday, Facebook!

By Greg Kunkel February 4th, 2014

Facebook is 10 years old today. Of course in Internet years, that’s like 35…

In the last 10 years the social site has gone from an obscure directory of sorts for Harvard students – originally called Facemash – to a social network juggernaut with over 1.2 billion users. That’s a lot of people. Throw in the fact people spend more time on Facebook than any other site and one could argue Facebook has become the destination online. By the way, if you’re curious how much time you personally have spent on Facebook, Time put together this depressing fun app.

From an advertising perspective, Facebook has certainly also come a long way, particularly in the last couple of years. Advertising on the social network has evolved from standard display ads off to the right – which hardly anyone clicked on – to native advertising, FBX and just released Customer Audiences, which get a lot of clicks. The social site has even tweaked its algorithm so corporate Page posts don’t show up as much in the News Feed (wanna play, gotta pay).

As much as users may be “annoyed” by ads, the ad dollars are key. They not only keep Facebook running, but keep the site competitive. In a world filled with social sites and apps – Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Snapchat, Kik, etc. – attracting ad dollars becomes as critical as cultivating a user group. The Facebook user experience is fairly solidified, so I suspect as we enter the next decade of Facebook the biggest advancements will come on the advertising side.

Time will tell.

Holiday Facebook Advertising Boosts Conversions 200%

By Dan Morris December 4th, 2013

Facebook advertising experienced an explosion in growth during the 2013 Thanksgiving holiday shopping week, driving significant increases for retailers across-the-board in key performance areas.

Between November 26 and December 2 2013, Marin clients increased their spend markedly when compared to this timeframe in 2012. According to Marin Software data, one large retailer (with over $10 Billion in annual revenue) spent 110% more than they did in 2012, driving 120% more clicks. This data suggests retailers were more than willing to increase their holiday advertising budgets on Facebook and take advantage of the user acquisition-focused creative, placement and targeting options introduced in 2013.

This large retailer also received 135% more Facebook ad impressions during the 2013 Thanksgiving holiday season compared to 2012. The significant increase in YoY impressions is likely explained by Facebook’s rapidly growing user base (+21% user base**), which has expanded advertiser reach. Retailers may have also been willing to bid more aggressively on high value target audiences this Thanksgiving.

Of all the dramatic YoY performance gains retailers experienced on Facebook this holiday shopping season, the most interesting is the steep increase in conversions. Retailers drove more online conversions from Facebook advertising in 2013 with a proportionally lower increase in budget. In our analysis, we saw a 200% increase in conversions with only a 110% increase in spend. This impressive ROI highlights Facebook’s continued evolution as a powerful performance marketing channel.

Over the past year, millions of advertisers have rushed to take advantage of the platform’s simplified approach to performance marketing. This data suggests that Facebook’s “simplified” approach may be working for retailers, especially during peak seasonal periods of high demand. The YoY improvements in cost per conversion suggest marketers are becoming more sophisticated with campaign implementation and creative optimization, in most cases with the help of online marketing platforms.

*The data for this analysis reflects a single enterprise retail advertiser with over $10 Billion in annual revenue and more than 700 store locations across the US. As such, our findings skew towards the performance of larger retailers. However, the size and broad geographic coverage of this retailer enables us to provide an analysis of Facebook ads performance across the retail sector from 11/26/13 through 12/02/13. All data is accurate as of 12/2/13, but subject to change; and represents a year over year analysis of the same holiday time period.

** Source: Publicly available Facebook Q3 2013 earnings report data, acquired through businessinsider.com

Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc. 

Enhanced Campaigns the Sequel? – Facebook Overhauls Campaign Structure

By Dan Morris November 26th, 2013

Just when the dust settled from Google’s Enhanced Campaign migrations, the online marketing industry has once again been shaken with a major change, this time from Facebook.

On Thursday, Facebook announced that they will be overhauling the campaign structure for their entire advertising program with a target launch date of February 14, 2014. Facebook will be adding an additional layer to their existing campaign/ad structure with the aim of making it easier to organize campaigns, control budgets, and measure performance.

The new campaign taxonomy will have an additional level – the “ad set” – between campaigns and ads. As part of the initial rollout, the ad set will replace the current campaign level and an additional level will be created between the account and ad set. There will be no changes to ads (the most granular Facebook campaign object) as part of the initial roll out. Effectively, the new structure will look like this:

According to Facebook, the changes are meant to provide advertisers with a better way to organize their campaign efforts toward a single objective. Today, advertisers can have hundreds of campaigns in a single account, all focused on different objectives. For example, an advertiser may have 15% of their campaigns focused on acquiring more fans, 20% focused on driving mobile or desktop app engagement, and 65% focused on website acquisition toward an ROI objective. Managing thousands of campaigns across hundreds of targeted audiences with mixed objectives can be confusing and problematic for advertisers without a sophisticated management platform.

With the new campaign hierarchy, Facebook aims to provide advertisers with a way to group campaigns around a single objective, which will reside in their new “campaign” tier. Facebook is likely betting that their new campaign structure will result in improvements in management and reporting.

Another possible motive for the change is the fact that the Facebook algorithm currently does not allow advertisers to easily test multiple audiences within a single campaign. For example, if you want to know whether your advertising drives better results from male or female target audiences, you would need to set up separate campaigns each targeting a different gender. Ideally, an advertiser should be able to test performance against two audiences within the same campaign (similar to A/B testing creatives in a single ad group in Google or Bing). However, because the Facebook algorithm leverages historical audience data at the campaign level, advertisers cannot execute a fair A/B test. With the creation of ad sets, I believe Facebook is attempting to address the A/B ad testing challenges inherent to its algorithm and will encourage advertisers to use the ad sets as creative test groups.

Marin sees Facebook’s announcement as a positive and is excited for the upcoming changes. With more than three years as an API partner, our platform is in a position to quickly deliver an intuitive solution for managing these changes. When Marin first joined the Facebook API partner program in 2010, our ads tool was built with the same exact “three tier” campaign Facebook structure. Our familiarity and experience with the exact same model Facebook is proposing should create exciting opportunities for our customers and help them reach their business objectives faster than ever before.

Maximize Your ROI from the Web’s Most Popular Destination

By Dan Morris November 13th, 2013

By now, you’ve probably heard about the explosive growth in Facebook’s user base and how this has create new opportunities for advertisers. Facebook has over 1.15 billion monthly active users. A whopping 58% of users return to Facebook daily, and there are 3.2 billion likes and comments made every day around the world. With all this traffic and engagement, Facebook is the web’s most popular destination.

These facts show that Facebook is an online force not to be overlooked. And advertisers are clearly getting the memo! There are now more than 1 million active advertisers on Facebook, many of them generating returns up to five times greater than the online average.

Still, Facebook advertising presents a challenge to even the most seasoned digital marketer. That’s where Marin can help! We are a Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer, and the only solution that allows advertisers to optimize towards any social or financial objective, from any data source, using a predictive Facebook bidding algorithm. We also have social experts on hand and ready to help you meet your Facebook advertising goals.

Here’s a sneak peak at Facebook advertising with Marin:

For more information, visit our website. Also make sure to register for our free webinar to learn 7 Ways to Maximize Your Facebook Advertising ROI. Don’t delay – the webinar is tomorrow, and you’re sure to leave with some great takeaways.

The 6 Scariest Social Advertising Mistakes on Facebook

By Dan Morris October 31st, 2013

Yes, the holiday season is right around the corner, but it would be a shame to skip over Halloween! With that in mind, we reveal the 6 Scariest Social Advertising Mistakes we see online marketers make on Facebook.

These mistakes are easy to fix, so grab a bag of candy corn and read on:

The 6 Scariest Social Advertising Mistakes on Facebook:

1. Not splitting up campaigns that target multiple devices. For example, if you’re targeting mobile and desktop users, you should have two separate campaigns so that you can see which device delivers the best performance.
2. Spamming your fan base with promotional posts. Regularly trying to sell fans on various products or promotions is likely to decrease your page’s fan base. Don’t be entirely self-promotional. Instead, aim to foster a community of users and post information that they will enjoy.
3. Failing to rotate out creatives. Facebook ads tend to go stale over time, plus your target market can become immune to a certain ad after viewing it multiple times. Make sure to regularly rotate creatives to keep things fresh.
4. Failing to include a call to action in ads that are intended to drive offsite clicks. Just including a link does not spur users to click on it. If possible, give the user a good reason to navigate off Facebook and onto your site.
5. Running unpublished page post ads with low quality images. Unpublished page post ads run in the new feed and take up more real estate, so do not include a grainy image. Rather, use a high-quality image with an organic feel or eye-catching content.
6. Not leveraging internal e-mail lists of prospects, cold leads, or customers who have not purchased recently. Make sure to coordinate internally to see if there are existing e-mails lists that you can use for custom audience targeting. Marin Software clients have reported lower CPLs from campaigns targeting custom audiences vs. general targeting.

For more Facebook tips, check out our recent content on Facebook Custom Audiences and Facebook ROI. And have a very happy Halloween, everyone!

Marin Study Reveals Facebook Custom Audiences Delivers 64% Lower CPA

By Dan Morris October 17th, 2013

It’s no secret that global Facebook advertising spend has grown significantly over the past year due to sweeping changes Facebook unleashed to their campaign creation workflow, creative options, mobile advertising capabilities, and targeting options. Of these changes, we believe none is more important than the introduction of Custom Audiences targeting. And our customers have shown the same level of optimism; over the past four months, the number of Facebook advertisers on the Marin platform using Custom Audiences targeting has increased by 82% compared to the previous four months.

Custom Audiences provides marketers with a simple solution for targeting audience segments based on first party, customer, or prospect data owned by the advertiser. This means that, by using Custom Audiences targeting, online marketers have the ability target Facebook users based on their purchase history or stage in the conversion funnel and serve uniquely tailored creatives to each audience segment.

While demographic- and category-based targeting has proven to be an effective method of reaching a broad range of Facebook users at scale, an emerging theory in the industry is that Custom Audiences targeted campaigns (which utilize first party customer data) have the ability to outperform category-based targeting campaigns. To validate this hypothesis, Marin recently completed an analysis of more than 5,000 Facebook campaigns across more than 200 Facebook advertisers we work directly with to determine the relative performance of creatives utilizing Custom Audiences targeting vs. creatives using demographic- or category-based targeting.

Of the creatives used in the analysis, those utilizing Custom Audience targeting had a 14% lower cost per click and a 64% lower cost per conversion than those using demographic or category targeting. Additionally, creatives using Custom Audiences targeting had conversion rates 3.87 times greater than creatives using demographic or category based targeting options.

The results from our analysis reveal the following key implications for Facebook advertisers:

• Advertisers who increase investment in Custom Audiences targeted creatives could decrease their overall Facebook advertising CPCs. Custom Audiences targeting is generally narrower (i.e. reaches a smaller quantity of users) than other types of Facebook targeting, therefore we’ve seen it drive lower effective CPCs.
• Advertisers who increase investment in Custom Audiences targeted creatives can decrease their overall Facebook advertising CPA. Custom Audiences targeting increases the relevancy of creative messages by allowing the advertiser to target audiences based on specific products they have expressed interest in. The relevancy of the creative and audience target is generally correlated with the ROI of the creative.
• Facebook users are more likely to purchase from advertisers they have previously engaged with. Custom Audiences targeting allows advertisers to reach customers and/or leads within the purchase funnel, which generally produces higher conversion rates and lower costs per conversion than targeting purely based on profile information.

Facebook Custom Audiences targeting adoption is growing quickly, and for good reason. First, it has proven to deliver better ROI and lower CPCs than demographic and category-based targeting. It also provides marketers with a highly effective way to retarget users on Facebook, with greater flexibility, transparency and control than FBX retargeting. As Facebook continues to broaden its partnership with leading data management platforms, advertisers should expect more and more first-party customer targeting options to emerge using Custom Audiences as means of implementation. Get started now – you’ll be glad you did.