GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

Re:GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account by billpatrianakos on Wednesday May 16, 2012 @01:37AM (#3980651)

Not exactly your main point but I have to agree that there's nothing stopping Facebook from being the next MySpace. Seriously. Not a thing. I think at this point the massive user base and their investment (their friends, photos, life in general) is about the only thing keeping them from switching. But even that can be overcome by others simply by making the switch easier by importing that information (think using Facebook's downloadable data on you as a means to do that). I can see ads getting lots of Likes because others friends like Movie or Brand X but beyond those kinds of ads people on Facebook aren't likely to leave the site. In fact the whole site is designed to keep you there do ads are kind of useless. Likes are meaningless. They don't generate dollars. Brand awareness is about the best thing you can get from Facebook.

You're right. Intent is seriously important. People use Google search as a means to get to another source of information regardless of whether their intent is navigational or informational. People on Facebook simply stay on Facebook until they're ready to either get offline or go search google.

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Re:GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account by nikcub on Wednesday May 16, 2012 @07:33AM (#3981558)

There seems to be a line of argument in this thread that goes something like this:

1. Google do very well with search advertising because it has intent

2. Facebook advertising is not based on intent

3. Ergo, Facebook advertising sucks

Display advertising is a very, very large part of overall advertising. Display advertising is larger than search advertising online. Further, intent or search based advertising relies on display advertising to generate interest.

95% of every dollar spent on advertising around the world each year is spent on display advertising. It works. It works so well that Google are getting into it to maintain growth (Doubleclick acquisition).

It also scales a lot better since intent inventory can not be easily generated (and funnily depends on display advertising).

It will just take a while for Facebook to figure it out, but i'm sure they will. Too many people spend too much time on Facebook for display advertising there to be ignored. It doesn't have to even be super efficient with the numbers they are hitting.

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Re:GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account by hansef on Wednesday May 16, 2012 @09:34PM (#3984929)

Display and and media placement are all about demographic targeting. My take is that Facebook's revenue breakthrough occurs when they figure out how to get all that money going to media buys to flow through them based on their ability to microtarget viewer demographics as this content moves online. I think that Facebook's take on the Adsense model doesn't necessarily mean advertising on third-party websites. See also: Facebook should buy Netflix.

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