Author: Najibullah Mohammadi
1. Introduction
Taking the importance of ads in different business related issues into concern; advertising has had a very long shaping up and existence history. From the traditional form of sales messages using papyrus and wall posters by ancient Egyptians to the more advanced and modern (internet-based) form, advertising has always changed its form based on the needs of a specific era.
Advertising is a form of marketing, through which messages are exchanged for the sake of selling or promoting a product, a service or an idea. Originating source is called the sponsor of an ad who usually pays an advertising media to do so. Advertising is a major part of businesses today. A total of 529.43 billion dollar was spent in 2018 [1]. History of advertising goes back to the wall paintings and rock art paintings of 4000 B.C. China had an oral type of advertising. They were usually using voice and different types of music instruments such as flutes for advertising purposes. Egyptians, on the other hand, used papyrus for sales messages [1].
Social media is a computer based interactive technology that is used by the public for sharing ideas, news, information and various types of media such as photos, voice and video [2]. The growth of the Internet and specifically Internet- based social media has made it possible for one person to communicate with thousands of people about products, services and ideas. Facebook as a leading social networking service was founded in 2004 and made available for the public use in 2006, is the most popular social media. It has 2.2+ billion subscribers, with an average of 500+ million active users daily. Facebook had 16640 million dollar ads revenue in 2018 and the company expects to double the amount in 20191.
The main purpose of advertising is to make the public aware of a phenomenon. Social Media, specifically Facebook, with a community of 2.2+ billion subscribers tops the list of social media to be used for advertising. In this article, I am talking about the effectiveness of Facebook ads and the different approaches Facebook has in terms of advertising. The designing platform of Facebook and specific audience selection will be discussed. Different advertising facilities of Facebook have been elaborated and the steps taken for making ads even more effective and smart.
2 Facebook and Advertisement
Free version of Facebook has a lot for a company or individual in terms of publicity and marketing. Everyone can have a profile, a page, a group or all of them at once where they can talk about literally anything they want, their products, ideas or interests. As a profile one can have friends who are usually seeing what one posts or shares. As a page one needs followers so that the idea may reach there. Being a group member can also be utilized for the same purposes [3].
On the other hand, the paid version of Facebook has got a lot more to attract the sponsors. Taking the example of websites clicking into concern, Facebook have come up with a new approach that may make a big difference to banner advertisements and CTR’s (click through rates) – targeting. Facebook will allow targeting based on demographic profiles and interests that users reveal about themselves on their pages. The more targeting options that are available to a social network, the more likely they are to be able to get better prices [4]. Since most of the subscribers have given basic information to Facebook and that the Facebook tracks likes and dislikes of the subscribers, it is quite simple to target the desired audience. Audiences can be targeted by location, age, relationship status, interests and even language [4].
Facebook has focused its advertising strategy around its vast member data, allowing advertisers to target an audience segment precisely. Facebook offers advertisers the ability to reach their exact audience – from a broad demographic, to a geographic preference, and to a more granular interest development [5]. This means Facebook’s ad platform can be beneficial for both small and large businesses, in comparison to contextual and search advertising, with the advanced targeting capabilities allowing them to zone in on their specific target audience, businesses can make full use of their advertising budgets by avoiding paying for ads that are delivered to the wrong people [5]. Facebook has wide advertising targeting options, which can improve performance and effectiveness of a company’s online advertising, because ads are displayed to the users who are most likely to be interested in advertised objects, thanks to information shared on Facebook users’ profiles. With such a precise targeting company can reach a demanding customer group according to its advertising goals. Facebook Ads targeting tool shows the estimated number of users encompassed by firm’s ads, so it is easy to widen or constrain a target group. For an advertisement any number of targeting filters can be set. All of the filters above help audience selection at its best [4]. Targeting filters for Facebook Ads can be divided into the following groups:
1. Location – is based on the user’s IP address and profile information about location.
2. Demographics – based on age, gender, relationship status or preferred language.
3. Education and work – can be based on the user’s attendance of a specific school. and likes – targets ads according to information from user profiles, status updates, attended groups and page connections.
4. Connections – aimed at users (and/or their friends on Facebook) connected with group, page, application administrated or created by advertiser.
In the terms of paid advertising on Facebook, Sponsors need a measure of how efficient the ads on Facebook are. On Facebook there are commonly used web advertisements. The significant difference to common web pages is that Facebook users manifest their preferences, hobbies and sympathies. All such information is very valuable for marketers to target their marketing campaigns to the specific customer groups or even individuals. Thanks to this information shared on FB, precise advertising targeting is possible, therefore no more tracking cookies are necessary to track browsing habits (i.e. interests) of users, because users are expressing them on the social network publicly [5]. Facebook has been used as an advertising platform soon after its start, through application Facebook Ads. Advertisements on Facebook are subject to an auction, where advertisers compete among themselves for an audition through bidding the price of click on their ad (pay per click) or the price of displaying their ad to selected target group (pay per impression). Advertisers get suggested bid ranges which currently are winning the auction among similar adverts. The advertiser sets a maximum bid (per click or per thousand impressions), but Facebook charges only the amount required for an advert to win an auction. This price may be lower than the maximum bid set by advertisers, making a marketing campaign more efficient. Advertisers have also control of their daily budget – the maximum amount that can be spent on campaign per day. If a daily budget is spent, the advertisement will automatically stop showing until the next day of a current campaign [5].
As a conclusion, Facebook filtering for addressing a particular audience can be called the start of a new era in advertising. What Facebook has to offer a business is something that every company looks for when advertising their products, personalized marketing. The concept of personalized marketing is when a business targets a product to an individual customer. The product or service that the company is offering them is something that the customer may be looking for or interested in. One of the initial things you notice when you begin using Facebook is the advertising that runs down the sides of your page, whether it’s your profile or the main news feed.
References:
[1] S. Vranica and J. Marshall, “Plummeting newspaper ad revenue sparks new wave of changes,” vol. Wall Street Journal 20, 2016.
[2] J. H. Kietzmann and K. Hermkens, “Social Media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media,” vol. Business Horizons, 2011.
[3] A. M. Kaplan, “If you love something, let it go mobile: Mobile marketing and mobile social media 4×4,” vol. Business Horizons, 2012.
[4] K. Curran, S. Graham, and C. Temple, “Advertising on Facebook.,” vol. International Journal of E-business development 1, pp. 26–33, 2011.
[5] M. Vejacka, “Facebook advertising and its efficiency on the Slovak market,” 2012.