
Facebook Lead Generation Ad Unit
Inside Facebook is reporting on a new Facebook Ads ad unit. The new facebook ad unit is an extension of the homepage engagement ads it has been running for large brands. The homepage engagement ads it has been running was the following 6 ad units; Facebook Event Ad, Facebook Video Ad, Facebook Gifts Ad, Facebook Page Ad, Facebook Website Ad, Facebook House Ad (as explained here).
Now there is a big difference between the new Facebook Direct Response Home Page Ad Unit & the homepage engagement ads mentioned above. In all the older engagement ads – the user was taken off the facebook homepage and directed to an inside page on facebook.com or to an external website. The new Facebook Lead Generation Ad Unit has the facebook user complete the facebook advertisers lead generation form on the Facebook.com homepage. This means facebook collects the form contents and passes them over to the advertiser. I’m guessing that this is charged on a CPL (cost-per-lead) – so advertisers will know exactly how much they will pay for each completed direct response form.
This new ad unit is being tested by Chick-fill-A for free samples of their chicken biscuits. When the unit is clicked it launches a popup with the form & gives users the option to quickly fill the form from their profile info (side note, it is only a matter of time until this is the default option – where the form pops up & the info is filled, im sure there will be an option to change / remove the profile info – but it will be more opt-out. This type of behavior pumps the click to form-submit conversion rate – as the user doesn’t really have to do much).
This move & the pending full roll out of this ad unit will no doubt make Facebook Ads the largest Lead Generation Ad Network on the web. While the test is perfect for a foodservice company (like the free chicken biscuit sample from Chick-fill-A), don’t be fooled to think this wont make its way to the more profitable side of the lead generation business. Think credit cards, mortgages, local service professional and much much more. Oh and just wait for the Facebook Ad Network & the Facebook Affiliate Program that was confirmed by its CEO – then you will be able to post these lead-gen offers on your site via facebook connect and share in the revenue that Facebook collects from the advertiser.
So, what do you think? Did Facebook just become the largest lead generation network on the internet?
~FBADS

Wow, Facebook really knows how to stay in the news. Hey i love it, bec i get to spin everything and hatch my (sometime crazy) theories on the future of the fb ad platform.





Facebook Commenting Widget & What It (could) means for FB Ads
20 02 2009FB Comment Box
A little off topic here for this blog, but try to stay with me and my out-there theories…
So today, facebook launched a publicly available Commenting Widget for any site via its Facebook Connect program. This is a very powerful tool – as it gives the ability to any site/blog to allow their users to use facebook logins to post comments on the site. That means the site doesn’t have to convince the user to sign up for an account, fork over personal info, check there email and verify it etc etc. In this day and age everyone has a facebook account – and now if you have any desire at all to leave a comment on a site that users FB connect commenting widget, there is no sign up – you just login with your facebook credentials and boom - you are verified and ready to leave a comment.
Now, you are probably asking – what the heck does this have to do with facebook ads (given the name of the blog – Ads on Facebook)? Well, here is what im thinking. If facebook can gain mass adoption across the web with this type of widget (which i think they will, given the points above) – they are in essence growing there “available impressions”. The elements inside the FB commenting widget are 100% controlled by facebook. While yes, you can change the background color and the such – you cant add any custom code or HTML to the widget (as most widgets work). So now Facebook has this block of code on your page that totally controls a (commenting) section of the page and can add anything they want. OK, so you know where im going with this – yes, they can use these widgets to display ads.
Now, i understand that fb wouldn’t even dream of adding ads anytime soon – as they want as few obsicales as possible in front site owners so they implement the fb commenting widget. But lets look a few years down the line & half of the web is using facebook connect as a commenting widget – the same time fb is trying to pump revenue to prepare for and IPO… would it be so crazy for them to start placing their ads inside the widget??? Look at google, 6 months ago they didnt have ads showing half the products that they do now (maps, images, there are more – just cant think of any off the top of head) – and now, they are popping up everywhere google can put them. This is also how they started with search – ad-free until people “needed them” for search. Whats gonna happen when site owners need FB for their commenting system.
Or maybe, that havard drop out is even smarter than that & can use the commenting widget (and the other 100+ widgets im sure they are already developing) to create the adsense 2.0 fb-style. Its pretty easy once you got a million sites using your widgets – you give the site owner the option to add facebook ads to the widget and share the revenue via a facebook affiliate program. And just like that, you double, triple your ad inventory… Couple that with the data that facebook can collect on your site – ie. the people who comment – what they like, what they do on fb etc etc. Damn talk about targeted ads!
Its amazing, that in this day and age – where it seems like the entire global economy is collapsing & the govt is about to take over the banking industry (if that doesn’t scare you nothing will!) — facebook keeps on better positioning itself to become the next big thing on the internet (oh, it already is…..).
Here is a 5 minute video facebook put out that shows you how to add the facebook commenting widget to your site in 5 minutes.
Let me know what you think in the comments. Am i crazy? Am i dead on? Do you have some other ideas how they can use these “widgets” for future business purposes?
Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: adsense, commenting widget, facebook ads, facebook affiliate program, facebook connect, facebook publisher program, google, widget
Categories : Facebooks Ads