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Facebook expands ad network

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 27 Jan 2016
The Audience Network will now place adverts for publishers on mobile Web sites.
The Audience Network will now place adverts for publishers on mobile Web sites.

Facebook has expanded its advertising offerings to the whole of the mobile Web, not only mobile apps, through its Audience Network service.

The Audience Network service allows marketers to leverage Facebook's insights and place adverts outside the main Facebook app, such as within mobile apps.

The Audience Network will now place adverts for publishers on mobile Web sites, as digital media consumption has grown significantly within the mobile space.

The service works by marketers letting Facebook create adverts for them and strategically place them within mobile apps or Web sites based on the social network's specific audience targeting knowledge. Facebook then takes a cut of the revenue.

"We're also enabling 2.5 million Facebook advertisers to reach more of the people they care about on mobile devices," Facebook spokesperson Mike Murphey said in a blog post.

"Digital media consumption in mobile Web browsers grew 53% from 2013 to 2015. On average, news sites receive approximately 40% of their traffic from mobile devices and 93% of their mobile audiences come via mobile Web."

The adverts focus on app downloads and sales. The Facebook Q4 2015 results showed a billion-dollar annual run rate for advertising spend through the Audience Network, with the bulk of that value being passed to publishers.

This week, Facebook is expanding its Audience Network to allow marketers to efficiently monetise mobile Web traffic. The feature is still in beta testing. Publishers can sign up for the service here.

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