Facebook starts mobile advertising push
News feed feature to contain messages
SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking site, is making its first push into mobile advertising, seeking a new source of revenue ahead of a planned initial public offering this year.
The company said Wednesday it will begin showing ads to the 425 million users of its mobile site. Advertisers will be able to insert marketing
“Facebook wants brands to make these pages their home on the web.”
ANALYST DEBRA AHO WILLIAMSON
messages into the news feed feature for people who access Facebook from wireless handsets, customer marketing director Mike Hoefflinger said during an event in New York. Facebook also announced other tools designed to help companies interact with customers on its pages.
Facebook, said to seek an IPO valuation of as high as $100 billion, is seeking new ways to generate revenue as it competes with rivals such as Google Inc. and Twit
ter Inc. While Facebook outpaced Yahoo! Inc. to become the biggest provider of display advertising last year, Google is now vying for the No. 1 spot, according to New York-based Emarketer Inc.
“Facebook wants brands to make these pages their home on the Web and is giving them the tools and ability to do that,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at Emarketer.
In other changes announced Wednesday, Facebook is giving businesses more flexibility in posting public photos and other con- tent, letting companies interact with potential customers in some of the same ways individual users share information with their friends. The changes will become available by the end of March.
Marketers with Facebook pages will be able to create a “Timeline,” which lets them publish a larger photo and list company milestones in chronological order, Face- book said. New administrative tools also let them track the activity of visitors to these pages.
Advertising sales rose 69 per cent to $3.15 billion last year, making up 85 per cent of the total, according to the company’s IPO filing. That came as the number of ads delivered rose 42 per cent and the average price per ad climbed 18 per cent.
In another effort to help marketers use its pages, Facebook also uses “Sponsored Stories” ads. With these ads, a marketer pays to be featured in user feeds if the users have signalled an affinity for a brand or business by “liking” it.
Facebook’s planned foray into mobile advertising was initially reported by Bloomberg last year.