Examples of ad formats available on the Facebook Audience Network
At the recent F8 developer conference, Facebook unveiled its new Facebook Audience Network, a supply platform for mobile publishers that leverages the social media giant’s user data and advanced audience-buying tools. Though still in testing, the Audience Network is already available to some buyers, and has collected a few notable publishers like the Huffington Post, The Mail Online, vintage clothing shop Vinted, and popular mobile game Cut the Rope. Available inventory includes banners, interstitials and native ads.
The network will be built around Facebook’s audience-buying technology. This means that, like buying on Facebook mobile, the Audience Network won’t be open to programmatic buying on an impression-by-impression basis. Buyers will not be able to plug in DSPs or other external tech layers to improve targeting and cost-efficiency (although they can add CRM data to better identify the audience).
In other words, Facebook is sticking with the “network” model, based on closed run-of-network buys. In the past year or two, networks have largely been supplanted by “platforms,” where publishers sell inventory in a transparent, self-serve environment and buyers can apply their own technology to directly control and verify their purchases. Many former networks have launched private exchanges, which blend the exclusivity and ad quality of a premium network and the transparency of an open platform. A telltale example of the shift came earlier this year when AOL Networks rebranded as AOL Platforms, to advertise its commitment to the newer model.
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But Facebook says the network model is simpler for both publishers and buyers, and more accessible to smaller players who often can’t afford big tech partners or (in the case of publishers) dedicated monetization teams. For app developers, joining the network and monetizing their app is a simple matter of installing Facebook’s software development kit. For buyers, purchasing network inventory is as simple as clicking a checkbox labeled “include off-site ads” when building a Facebook campaign.
Facebook’s biggest value-add, for buyers of all sizes, is its data. Facebook’s trove of detailed, user-input data on billions of global consumers is the envy of digital marketers the world over. The Audience Network will connect Facebook’s that data with ads on other publishers’ apps, for unprecedented reliability and granularity in audience targeting.
While Facebook isn’t seeking exclusive publisher relationships (meaning publishers in its network are free to sell on other networks and exchanges), its data may be enough to draw major advertisers away from competing platforms. So far Target, Coca-Cola and Audible have run test campaigns on the Audience Network.
