Facebook is to serve ads into third-party mobile apps amid a raft of new developments outlined at its F8 developers conference in San Francisco. The push means Facebook can sell lots more ads without fear of turning off audiences on its own platform by jamming their News Feed. It is also a signal that the social media behemoth is making a major land grab to own the mobile environment.
Facebook also announced changes to the way it will let users sign into third-party sites. Anonymous log-in means that user's data is not automatically shared with the third party. That could prove a blow to companies currently learning more about their audiences from the data they receive from Facebook log-ins.
Southern Cross Austereo, for example has seen digital traffic soar in recent years via Facebook referrals. Director of digital and innovation Clive Dickens recently told AdNews that all ad-funded businesses would have to consider single sign-in becasue advertisers were demanding more than ratings. The company is rolling out single sign-in, but log-in via Facebook made that simple for audiences and SCA was reaping the benefits of the data it receives, said Dickens.
It also launched an API so that app makers can link to each other within their apps, and will allow them to use Facebook functionality.
The ad network
The Facebook Audience Network will use the company's data to target users, with Custom Audiences, core audiences and lookalike audiences all in play.
Marketers and media buyers can then push ads into apps that sign up to become part of the network and use those tools to target people. Three formats are initially available: Banner, interstitial and native. The latter format has been touted as the smartest format given the personal nature of mobile devices: people are more likely to engage with crafted, useful or amusing content that is relevant to them.
The move could be a massive earner for Facebook, acutely aware of turning off its billion strong audience with too many ads. Because of the data it holds on users and because marketers can use the system directly without the need for intermediaries, it will likely attract a major chunk of mobile ad revenues.
Despite the amount of time that people spend on mobile devices and the increasing penetration of smartphones, the lack of cookies means that has been harder to monetise. But an app-based environment means that cookies are no longer needed, because more information is acquired about users that download apps. Facebook, with all the data it holds on users, the ability to see what they are interested in through 'likes' and now an mobile ad network bringing together a diaspora of apps is a major move towards owning the mobile web.
Almost aside from that, bringing together a network for app-based advertising as well as the broader mobile environment will likely lead to a much bigger proportion of marketers dollars flowing into mobile.
Allowing users not to share their data with other third parties also means Facebook can let users choose whether to allow the platform to keep all of its rich data on them in its entirety.
See Facebook's announcement on the Audience Network here.
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