Facebook to display ads inside users' newsfeeds, simplifies marketing tools

Inc is eliminating various types of advertisements on its website in an effort to simplify a system that it acknowledged was confusing marketers.

The world's No. 1 social network, which is seeking to revive revenue growth, will still display ads inside users' newsfeeds and on the right-hand side of its web pages. But it will sharply reduce the options marketers can choose for those so-called ad units.

"What we realized is that even though every ad product is really good on its own, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. It should really be simpler," Fidji Simo, a Facebook product manager for ads, said at an event at the company's Menlo Park, California headquarters on Thursday.

The changes will be rolled out over the coming weeks and months. Facebook said the streamlined system would not affect pricing on its ads, but would not comment when asked how the changes could affect overall revenue.

Advertising accounts for 85 percent of Facebook's revenue, and it is trying to reinvigorate revenue growth following a sharp slowdown early last year.

With consumers increasingly accessing Facebook on mobile devices such as smartphones, Facebook has scrambled to roll out new types of ad formats suited to small mobile screens. Facebook has also begun letting advertisers show ads based on users' Web browsing history and has introduced tools that allow marketers to better measure ad effectiveness.

The company is widely expected to introduce video ads this year, but it made no mention of them at the event on Thursday.

Facebook shares have fallen about 15 percent so far this year, compared with the Dow Jones industrial average's 14 percent rise.

As part of the changes, marketers will no longer be asked to choose from a list of 27 different ad units. Instead, marketers will pick from six or seven objectives, such as driving foot traffic to a real-world store or generating "likes" for a company's page.

"Offers" ads for product discount coupons, for example, will no longer be a separate category for online merchants. Instead, a general ad unit will include the link for a coupon.

Merchants with brick and mortar stores will still have a separate "offers" ad unit.

Facebook executives noted that marketers will still be able to select ads that run only on mobile devices or on personal computers..


Ravi Bhatia

Facebook brings Home's 'chat heads' to iPhone, iPad

Facebook said Tuesday that features from its new Home software for Android-powered smartphones will begin spreading this week to Apple's popular iPhones.

"Home was about our ability to demonstrate what you can do when you own the whole experience," Facebook's chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, said during an on-stage chat at the All Things D conference devoted to mobile technology.

"We are working closely with Apple; with Microsoft, with everyone to try to get as good a Facebook people-first experience you can across all devices." (Also see: Facebook reportedly in talks with Apple and Microsoft about bringing 'Home' to iOS, Windows Phone)

The first Home feature to arrive on iPhones will be "chat heads" that let message exchanges with friends follow people as they navigate the social network.

Facebook last week staked out a "home" on Android smartphones as it stepped up its challenge to Apple and Google in the booming mobile market. (Also see: Facebook Home review)

The software weaves the social network into the homescreen of HTC and Samsung phones powered by the latest versions of Android to focus experiences on "people and not apps."

"We're not building a phone and we're not building an operating system, but we are building something that's a lot deeper than an app," Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters early this month.

The Android software, which allows users to see Facebook's "Cover Feed" when they turn on their phones, became available for download last week from Google's online Play shop in the United States.

A version should be available in Europe in the coming months, according to Facebook, which said it was in the process of tailoring Home for tablet computers.

Taiwan-based electronics firm HTC launched a Facebook homescreen smartphone called HTC First, released through US carrier AT&T at a price of $100.

Users can start with Facebook on the homescreen and navigate and switch back and forth between apps, as well as simultaneously send and receive messages through "chat heads" overlaid on the screen.Read more.....