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Facebook Flyers 2.0: The Promise and Pitfalls of Social Networking Ads
October 22, 2007 - 7:13 am PDT - by Adam Ostrow 4 Comments
Facebook has made some big changes to their “Flyers” advertising format that turns it into a much more advanced advertising system. Advertisers can now target users based on specific data from their profiles, such as interests, age, education, and relationship status. Much like AdWords, the advertiser sets a maximum price per click and a daily budget. Previously, Flyer ads were limited to specific universities or networks, and were charged on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis.
Currently, Flyers are the Facebook equivalent of AdWords. Assuming the program is eventually extended to the applications built on the platform, they might also soon become the company’s version of AdSense, allowing developers to share revenue on the advertising clicks that their apps generate. Meanwhile, Google is reportedly working on AdSense for Facebook, and there are already more than a dozen ad networks specializing in Facebook apps. At last week’s Web 2.0 Summit, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted that these types of apps might be at risk of being eliminated by the company.
In any event, the early signals from Facebook indicate an advertising platform that is a step up from the current industry norms. Whereas Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft use algorithms to match ads to content, Facebook has the ability to do exact matching on ads to keywords a user has entered in their profile. Things like targetting ads to single males, age 18-30, that play golf, in the Washington DC area, are now possible.
The biggest decision for Facebook will be balancing advertising results with user-friendliness. With more than 40 million profiles on the site, there is no shortage of inventory for serving ads. However, right now flyer ads are largely unnoticeable, sitting in the lower left sidebar. Moving them to a more prominent location could irritate users, while also bringing concerns over the privacy of the data we enter on social networks even more to the surface.
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11 Responses to “Facebook Flyers 2.0: The Promise and Pitfalls of Social Networking Ads”
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October 22nd, 2007 at 7:45 am
[...] free desktop blog editors for Windows; some plugins, while others are full-featured […]Source:Mashable! Facebook has made some big changes to their “Flyers” advertising format that turns it into a [...]
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:04 am
The Numbers Behind Facebook Flyers…
I just read a great post over on Mashable about the revamped Facebook flyers advertising system (originally from allfacebook). Palin Ningthoujam describes how they work and what they are all about but doesnt touch an amazing issue I am intrigued abou…
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:06 am
Someone even profited of this, by exploiting it, big time!!!
http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/09/24/pwning-facebook-how-to-think-like-an-uber-affiliate/
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:36 pm
[...] clipped from mashable.com [...]
October 23rd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
[...] new advertising system on November 6th. This isn’t especially surprising considering the recent upgrades to Facebook Flyers that we reported on yesterday, but will mark a major milestone for the [...]
October 26th, 2007 at 7:59 am
[...] Mashable.com: Facebook Flyers 2.0: The Promise and Pitfalls of Social Networking Ads [...]
October 29th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
[...] already showed off the potential interface for such a product with a recent upgrade to their Flyers advertising program, where advertisers can target users who have entered specific profile data. The company could also [...]
October 29th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
[...] already showed off the potential interface for such a product with a recent upgrade to their Flyers advertising program, where advertisers can target users who have entered specific profile data. The company could also [...]
November 17th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Someone even profited of this
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Ugh, facebook has too many ads, that’s why I don’t use it anymore.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:08 am
They’ve really clamped down on this