Facebook Ads

Facebook announced last week that it would start testing facebook ads inside facebook applications. Up until now facebook was happy to let facebook app developers monetize their applications with 3rd part ad networks – but with the current momentum of the facebook ads cpc / cpm program it a no brainier to add the ads here.

But this raises all sorts of questions to me;

Will advertisers be able to target specific apps?

Will facebook releases demographic data of users of a specific app?

Here is a big one;  once they are comfortable monetizing facebook apps with facebook ads – will they stop allowing fb app devs to user 3rd party ad networks to serve ads inside the facebook apps?

Can fb ap owners run 3rd party ads along side the same app that is running facebook ads?

Will fb ads monitize as well as other 3rd party fb ad networks?

Now, if you read the blog post on the facebook developer blog, they titled it: Sharing your best practices for making money on Facebook Platform – and they make no mention of the facebook ads inside facebook app canvas pages until the 2nd to last paragraph. They try to focus the post on building “real” business around the facebook platform and facebook applications. 

Here are the first 2 paragraphs in the blog post (click here to read the full post on the fb dev blog)

We launched Facebook Platform to give you the opportunity to create innovative new experiences for our users, and with that gave you the flexibility to monetize those experiences in the ways you best saw fit.

Since launch we’ve seen many of your applications grow from brand new applications with zero users to businesses with tens to hundreds of thousands or even millions of monthly users. And as applications have grown, we’ve been excited to witness so many of you building real businesses based on your users’ engagement and earning significant amounts of revenue via numerous models including advertising, sponsorships, and charging users for your (or related) services.

The post then goes on to link to some pages on the facebook developer wiki to help facebook app owners make the most out of the the “real business” they are building on the facebook platform. These links include:

Business Models for Facebbok Apps

fb app 3rd party monitization  partner directory 

Interesting articles on facebook ap monetization

So, while i do have some conspiracy theories about this (like i usually do) it doesn’t seem that they plan on doing anything game changing any time soon. I mean if they were about to ban all 3rd party ad networks on fb – would they really link to a directory of outside fb ad networks??? This will be every interesting to see how it plays out & what effect it will eventually have on the facebook ads program and eventually the facebook affiliate / partner program.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Here is a screenshot of the facebook ads live inside a facebook app (image courtesy of  AllFacebook  (a must read facebook blog).

facebook ads in facebook apps

Side note; While writing this post it got me thinking about my post from last week: Facebook Commenting Widget & What It (could) means for FB Ads - Here is another example of Facebook adding and adding to their demo-targetable ad inventory. While adding facebook ads to facebook apps might be a more natural extension of the facebook ads program than adding facebook ads to the facebook commenting widgets – they both have the same common goal = further the facebook ads platform and make it a must buy for anyone doing any internet marketing (which it might already be…).