Upcoming Paid Social Features We Can’t Wait to Take Advantage Of

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With over 1.18 billion daily active users, Facebook is the land of opportunity for advertisers who are looking to get their message in front of a wide audience of consumers. From 2015 to 2016, the number of active advertisers has increased 50%, pushing Facebook to the No. 2 ad publisher spot right behind Google. With display budgets on the rise, retailers are looking for new ways to reach the right customers on social media. As a result, Facebook is testing a variety of new ad types to add to their portfolio and I can’t wait to try them out. Let’s take a look at my favorite four:

#1: Facebook’s Dynamic Product Ads expand past remarketing

Dynamic Product Ads are feed-based remarketing that allow us to dynamically serve products to website custom audiences on Facebook and Instagram. Traditionally DPAs were only possible for past website visitors, or people tracked by the Facebook pixel. Facebook is now rolling out DPAs for in-market audiences who haven’t necessarily visited the site. This means we can use DPAs for prospecting and acquisition campaigns for our retailers. We are already achieving great performance for our clients thanks to our expertise optimizing product feeds, and we can’t wait to start testing the expansion of this product further.

#2 Dynamic Ads for Local Retail

Dynamic Product Ads on Facebook and Instagram are currently only available for eCommerce, but soon this ad type will have the option of taking local store location and inventory into account. Similar to Local Inventory Ads on Google, the goal of this ad unit is to drive foot traffic to local stores, showing target users the exact availability of retail items. More info here. Adlucent will be able to implement these for our retailers, utilizing their store feeds combined with product feeds.

#3 Mid-Roll Video Ads

One of the most buzzed about new advertising features on Facebook are mid-roll sponsored video content. The social network is testing showing in-stream ads on social video content, similar to YouTube, and sharing a percentage of the advertiser fees with the user who owns the content. This has been extremely successful on Google, with many iconic YouTubers stating that they are able to generate a steady income from the ads placed on their content. This is a great incentive for publishers, especially with how much growth Facebook video has experienced last year. 

#4 Business-Friendly Facebook Messenger Features

When Facebook broke Messenger out into its own app, it foreshadowed additional features for both users and advertisers to come. Facebook is now testing CTAs (call to actions) on ads where the click sends users to Messenger, instead of their website or page. The existing ad targeting options will all apply, and advertisers can embed a structured message for the user to get the conversation started. We can see this being useful for B2B companies, or for very specific audiences with a high engagement goal. Additionally, Facebook is rolling out sponsored messages, which is a highly targeted, in-context ad where businesses can re-engage people who have an open, existing conversation with the business. With sponsored messages advertisers can send targeted updates, information about promotions, reminders and other relevant messages.

Consumers are actively engaging with their mobile devices, shopping across channels and consuming large amounts of video content. These new Facebook solutions will allow retailers to align their advertising efforts with the way consumers are shopping today. I can’t wait to take advantage of these, and I’ll make sure to share the performance results as soon as I do. Now I’d love to hear from you — what Facebook features do you currently use? Which one of these excites you the most? Share below!

Adlucent

Adlucent is the performance marketing agency that proves outperformance has no limit. Powered by our purpose-built platform, Deep Search™, Adlucent unifies the best of human and machine for a scientific approach to marketing. We work transparently in partnership with B2C and B2B retailers and brands to create custom, predictive programs that drive ever-better outcomes. Our services include paid search, shopping, social, retail media networks, display media, video, performance creative, consulting, and measurement. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Adlucent is part of Advantage Solutions and ranked one of the top marketing companies in the U.S. by AdAge.