We mentioned a few months ago about Facebook testing News Feed versions of it’s page post ads, and it looks like they’ve gone live in the UK. One of the first brands to be using this feature seems to Absolut UK. As you can see the ad looks just like a page post from a page that a user is a fan of, except it includes a ‘like page’ button in the top right hand corner, along with the word ‘sponsored’ at the bottom. Facebook have been testing ads in the News Feed as early as 2006, as reported by Inside Facebook, when users who joined sponsored groups would be alerted when friends interacted with the same brand page.
This latest test from Facebook shows that they’re no longer limiting news feed inventory to entities that users have already connected to. Apparently early tests showed a much higher CTR than the sidebar, although this would surely be expected? Obviously the main concern for brands is to carefully select the ad content in order to not frustrate and alienate their potential audience. At the same time, Twitter’s advertising platform of ‘Promoted Tweets’ use the same model, by inserting content into the feed without a user needing to be connected in anyway. They’ve fortunately never received any backlash, do you think Facebook will? There’s definitely no doubt that Facebook are pulling out all the stops in order to gain more revenue ever since the dreaded IPO.
