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Facebook Advertising is Fool's Gold

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Re: Facebook Advertising is Fool's Gold

#2
I wonder what would happen if Facebook ran a scheme like AdSense.

Advertising on the Facebook site itself seems not to be working, but I could foresee a situation where website owners allow Facebook to display ads on their site for a fee per click just like AdSense. Facebook already has a javascript presence on many, many websites already.

Re: Facebook Advertising is Fool's Gold

#3
post #2

I wonder what would happen if Facebook ran a scheme like AdSense. Advertising on the Facebook site itself seems not to be working, but I could foresee a situation where website owners allow Facebook to display ads on their site for a fee per click just like AdSense. Facebook already has a javascript presence on many, many websites already.

Wow. Its like you just read my mind! I was about to say the same thing. Indeed, especially since there are a lots of apps out there implementing Facebook login, especially mobile apps, games and apps alike, could this be a solution to their mobile strategy? (this is not a rhetorical question.) Whats stopping them from implementing this?

Re: Facebook Advertising is Fool's Gold

#4
post #2

I wonder what would happen if Facebook ran a scheme like AdSense. Advertising on the Facebook site itself seems not to be working, but I could foresee a situation where website owners allow Facebook to display ads on their site for a fee per click just like AdSense. Facebook already has a javascript presence on many, many websites already.

Adsense makes up a minority of Google's ad profits. The billion dollar business is in Adwords, not Adsense.

Re: Facebook Advertising is Fool's Gold

#5
post #2

I wonder what would happen if Facebook ran a scheme like AdSense. Advertising on the Facebook site itself seems not to be working, but I could foresee a situation where website owners allow Facebook to display ads on their site for a fee per click just like AdSense. Facebook already has a javascript presence on many, many websites already.

I used to think this as well, but there's a problem. What if FB ads are not as good a monetization solution for publishers as Google ads? This seems quite possible.

Facebook advertising is much much cheaper than Google advertising on a per-click and per-impression basis.

With Google ads, advertisers are used to paying as much as $20/click in some areas. I've never heard of a FB advertiser paying more than $2/click.

Likewise, CPMs on FB are in the single digit pennies quite often. On the web, banner ads are around $0.75 CPMs for decent sites.

Facebook might have looked at this and might believe that if they launched a network like this, the payouts just wouldn't be able to compete with what Google's able to give publishers.

Re: Facebook Advertising is Fool's Gold

#7
post #2

I wonder what would happen if Facebook ran a scheme like AdSense. Advertising on the Facebook site itself seems not to be working, but I could foresee a situation where website owners allow Facebook to display ads on their site for a fee per click just like AdSense. Facebook already has a javascript presence on many, many websites already.

I wonder what would happen if Facebook ran a scheme like AdSense.

Maybe that is/was one of the aims behind the Like button? Facebook could use that connection to tailor the adverts displayed to the user (along with the site's content!), provided the user is logged into Facebook at the time.

Admittedly, I think doing so would kick up a bit of a stink ;)

Re: Facebook Advertising is Fool's Gold

#10

But consider Facebook's "friction-less sharing". Facebook now knows you just listened to a song, read and article, took a trip, had a baby, got married.... Now think of the targeting you can get there.

All that sounds very nice, but that is what FB has all been about. This kind of non-quantitiave arguments won't validate a $100bn valuation.
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