Facebook Tests Ads Targeted At Status Updates

[faceblogger]

Facebook Tests Ads Targeted At Status Updates

It appears Facebook has begun publicly testing advertisements based on status updates and wall posts published by users. This is something we’ve been expecting for over a year but now we’re finally beginning to see the first implementations of it live on the site.

Rather than posting the standard “Sponsored” title above advertisements on the right hand side of a user’s profile, Facebook is testing a version which states “Related adverts”. In the image below, Facebook appears to be using the words “sun” and “play” to generate related status updates and advertisements which appear to be musically related as a result of the word “Play”.
While we’re not quite sure how this works, but it’s clear that the content it supposed to be related. Over the past couple years we’ve discussed how targeted advertising based on status update content makes a lot of sense. If Facebook can surface advertisements about information related to the thoughts a user is having at any given point, there’s an increased likelihood that the user will respond to those ads. It will be interested to see if these improve ads as Facebook expands their testing.

 

[blogspotter]

Need more examples. This seem a bit unrelated.. Contextual FAIL?

 

[faceblogger]

Need more examples. This seem a bit unrelated.. Contextual FAIL?

I am not saying it is happing and I was trying to figure it out from some of my profiles and still not sure if this is true or not. Launched some campaigns last week and I did not see any significant difference in trhe conversions either. So, I'm not sure if it is really happening or not, however since it was discussed on Allfacebook.com I thought the post was worth some attention.

 

[blogspotter]

I am not saying it is happing and I was trying to figure it out from some of my profiles and still not sure if this is true or not. Launched some campaigns last week and I did not see any significant difference in trhe conversions either. So, I'm not sure if it is really happening or not, however since it was discussed on Allfacebook.com I thought the post was worth some attention.

I was referring to the article.. not you

 

[vinnythejinny]

Very vague example. How does the music, SXSW is directly connected or related to sun, game and play? allfacebook is generally very good info and mostly very accurate but this one if at all true isnt proper targetting. Lets wait and watch, dont think they will roll-out immediately maybe only 0.5-1% sample test impressions

 

[AdHustler]

Makes no sense to me in this context. How is the related story an ad in any way?

The way it would make sense to do the targeting would be:

User makes a status update:

"User Name I feel like crap today and i've felt like crap for a month. I wish I had health insurance so I could finally see a doctor."

Then if Facebook would allow you to target on the following criteria:

Status Keyword: health insurance
Status Time: today (other options being "yesterday,this week,this month,ever"
Location: Within 15 miles of Asbury Park, NJ

You could craft an ad like

Need A Doctor?
No insurance required. Our office only charges $49 for a non insured patient checkup.

...or something of that nature.

This would make Facebook almost as effective as search engine marketing because you could target intent rather then just interests.

 

[vinnythejinny]

Makes no sense to me in this context. How is the related story an ad in any way?

The way it would make sense to do the targeting would be:

User makes a status update:

"User Name I feel like crap today and i've felt like crap for a month. I wish I had health insurance so I could finally see a doctor."

Then if Facebook would allow you to target on the following criteria:

Status Keyword: health insurance
Status Time: today (other options being "yesterday,this week,this month,ever"
Location: Within 15 miles of Asbury Park, NJ

You could craft an ad like

Need A Doctor?
No insurance required. Our office only charges $49 for a non insured patient checkup.

...or something of that nature.

This would make Facebook almost as effective as search engine marketing because you could target intent rather then just interests.

Exactly, bringing Intent + Location + Time would make it a killer even better than SE in some cases.

 

[AdHustler]

This thread inspired me to write a blog post: If I Were The Boss At Facebook Ads | Ad Hustler