Facebook today announced a new way for mobile app developers to grow their business with an ad unit that helps them reach and reengage their users.
Organic and paid entries into the panel can appear side-by-side, with ads marked “sponsored”. Clicking through opens an app’s native iOS App Store application or Google Play application on your phone or tablet.
Facebook mobile ad reach, clicks, frequency, and spend can be tracked through a dashboard, and the ads can take advantage of all of Facebook’s biographical, interest, and device targeting options. This makes them much more flexible than Sponsored Stories, which advertisers could only target to friends of people who had already mentioned their brand or used their app.
That means developers won’t need an existing user base to advertise their apps, and they can be employed to promote game launches — currently a huge source of developer ad spend on Facebook’s website.
For example, ads for an new iOS-only girl’s fashion game could be targeted to iOS device-carrying females 16 to 45 years old, living in Los Angeles to maximize the relevance.
Facebook will be testing and we’ll be watching to make sure users don’t balk at a feed originally for friends’ photos and status updates that’s been diluted with paid ads for random games. If Facebook mobile app ads prove to be a cost-effective way to drive installs, and popular enough that it can show them frequently, they could pull spend away from mobile banners and in-app ad networks.
With Inputs from Techcrunch
Organic and paid entries into the panel can appear side-by-side, with ads marked “sponsored”. Clicking through opens an app’s native iOS App Store application or Google Play application on your phone or tablet.
Facebook mobile ad reach, clicks, frequency, and spend can be tracked through a dashboard, and the ads can take advantage of all of Facebook’s biographical, interest, and device targeting options. This makes them much more flexible than Sponsored Stories, which advertisers could only target to friends of people who had already mentioned their brand or used their app.
That means developers won’t need an existing user base to advertise their apps, and they can be employed to promote game launches — currently a huge source of developer ad spend on Facebook’s website.
For example, ads for an new iOS-only girl’s fashion game could be targeted to iOS device-carrying females 16 to 45 years old, living in Los Angeles to maximize the relevance.
Facebook will be testing and we’ll be watching to make sure users don’t balk at a feed originally for friends’ photos and status updates that’s been diluted with paid ads for random games. If Facebook mobile app ads prove to be a cost-effective way to drive installs, and popular enough that it can show them frequently, they could pull spend away from mobile banners and in-app ad networks.
With Inputs from Techcrunch