Are Facebook's New Adverts going to work?
One of my most recent PPC blogs looked at the new format of Facebook and the move to introduce two paid search adverts to the site replacing the previous one.
This new site format has now been compulsory for a few weeks and users are now being presented with a selection of adverts supposedly geared towards their interests. I had a quick browse around the site to see if this was the case. I clicked on four different pages to see what adverts that supposedly should have been of interest to me where shown.
The following adverts where deemed as being of interest to me.
An advert for an Apple i-Phone
An advert about the making of Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles
An Oasis on NME Radio advert
An advert for Liam Gallagher T-shirts
An advert for Enjoy England
An advert for adventure days/holidays
An advert for hair replacement surgery
An second advert for hair replacement surgery
Why where these adverts shown to me?
I have Oasis listed in my favourite music on my profile page so that would account for The Oasis on NME Radio and Liam Gallagher T-shirt adverts and I suppose based on my age and the fact I use Facebook (however infrequently) an i-Phone could be appealing to me (it’s not) however the rest of the adverts shown are pretty confusing and not based on my interests or activities listed on my profile. The fact that two adverts for hair replacement therapy have been shown to me is also confusing as I have a full head of hair (honest!)
If Facebook don’t get this right soon then advertisers are going to stop advertising on the site and they are going to stop making so much money. Get it right and Facebook’s move to the new format will be justified. They must be able to target adverts more closely than they are currently doing so its about time they did.
