Facebook lauds big jump in ads
Social networking site says it now has 3 million advertisers
Facebook now has 3 million advertisers, the majority of which are small businesses.
“Our mission is to connect the world, and connecting people to small businesses that provide their local business services is really an important part of that mission,” Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told USA TODAY.
“Over a billion people are connected to at least one small business on Facebook, and we have 50 million small businesses who are actively using our free products every month and now 3 million advertisers,” she said.
The sharp increase in advertisers — up 50% in one year — is an impressive milestone that escalates competition with Google, analysts say. “Three million active advertisers is pretty huge,” eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson said.
Increasingly, advertisers say Facebook is a “very important part of their advertising arsenal,” Williamson said. “That is supported by the fact that the number of advertisers on Facebook is increasing rapidly.”
The giant social network is campaigning to grow the number of paid advertisers around the globe.
In the fourth quarter, Facebook said it had 2.5 million businesses actively advertising on the social media service.
Facebook has identified small businesses as one of its biggest opportunities. Mobile has accelerated adoption among small businesses, says Dan Levy, Facebook’s vice president of small business.
More than 1 million advertisers created an ad directly from a mobile device. And, Levy says, more than 70% of its advertisers are outside of the United States.
“Mobile has really enabled so much of this growth, especially outside of the United States, where so many people just start on a mobile device,” he said.
Facebook fourth-quarter sales rose 52% to $5.84 billion, buoyed by its growing success in selling advertising on mobile devices.