Beginning this past summer, Facebook has been dramatically retooling the way in which it structures and delivers advertisements to consumers. Yesterday, the social networking company unveiled the latest stage of this process, referred to in a Facebook press release as “objective-based ad buying and reporting.”
In essence, this update alters the entire manner in which ads are purchased. Instead of simply choosing an ad unit and uploading content to fit that unit, businesses are now prompted to select one of the following ad objectives: clicks to website, website conversions, page post engagement, page likes, app installs, app engagement, in-store offer claims, and event responses. Once this objective is selected, Facebook will recommend a specific ad type tailored to help achieve it.
In terms of placement, Facebook will continue to place advertisements in the locations where it performs best. However, this latest update will allow advertisers to choose exactly where their ads appear, if they so desire. This means that, if a user is using a mobile device, they will see the mobile-tailored ad that will link through to the mobile version of the site, rather than the desktop version.
In addition, Facebook has refreshed its Ads Manager tool, used to measure the efficacy and reach of campaigns, to reflect the other updates to the advertisement system. This means that if an advertiser selected app installs as their target objective, this tool will show the advertiser the number of times that this objective was met and the amount of money in terms of dollars per unit that the campaign is costing.
These updates have been designed to optimize results for each advertisement. By focusing on the targeted results of each advertisement, the program is designed to streamline ad development, so advertisers can focus on their overall market goals instead of the minutiae of ad placement and development.
See the original announcement here.
