Tag: facebook mobile marketing

The industry is now wondering if the social networking giant has finally mastered this channel.

Facebook has been the recipient of massive criticisms due to its lack of mobile marketing revenues, which had lead to its exceptionally disappointing initial public offering (IPO) stock nearly a year ago.

At that time, there were hundreds of millions of users accessing the service without ads on smartphones and tablets.

Investors were disappointed that mobile marketing had apparently been ignored by Facebook, when it could have been used to reach these millions upon millions of people, but it was not. What has since been discovered, is that the executives at the social networking giant were perfectly aware of this trend and they were already well on the way to building their strategy.

The Sponsored Stories mobile marketing social ads were only the tip of the iceberg.

That element had only just been introduced at the time of the IPO, but what the investors didn’t know at that time – and what has only recently been revealed – is that Facebook had a great deal more up its sleeves for its mobile marketing programs. It took several months, but it has now been proving itself capable of exposing ads to the smartphone and tablet using masses in compelling and effective ways. This was far beyond what most people at that time could have predicted.

The mobile marketing ads at Facebook were not an instant success, but they did gradually build traction until they were earning $305 million by the fourth quarter. This represented approximately 23 percent of the overall ad sales revenue for the company. It is also one of the main reasons that the social network stock price has nearly doubled the low to which it plummeted shortly after the IPO, hovering near the $30 mark.

One of the main reasons that the ads in the Facebook mobile marketing strategy are considered to be successful is that they aren’t the same as those that are used on the desktop site. On the standard website, the ads run along the right hand side of the page. Instead, the smartphone friendly ads are worked right into the news feed and have both a look and a feel that are comparable to the posts that are made by their friends and the other brands and pages that they have liked.

The leading social media network has increased its advertising spending limit twice over.

Facebook Inc. has just revealed that the mobile marketing budget for the next quarter will be double that of what it was during the previous quarter, as it aggressively moves forward into the smartphone and table environments.

The social network leader has stated that these devices are among its primary goals.

Though Facebook has been experiencing considerable growth through its mobile marketing, last quarter’s progress was not as great as some of the more aggressive estimates from Wall Street had predicted. The company has expressed that broadening its reach through smartphones and tablets will be a vital step as a rapidly growing percentage of its more than one billion global users start to access their profiles by way of these devices.

The company’s mobile marketing business overall grew at the fastest pace it has seen since last May.

It was in that month that the initial Facebook public offering occurred. This mobile marketing growth assisted the business in growing its revenues by 40 percent. Those achievements were considerably greater than the targets set by Wall Street.

Just ahead of this announcement, the shares of Facebook had been riding steadily at $31.24 (US). However, immediately following the release of the new doubled mobile marketing budget, the shares dropped 8 percent, only to recover after hours that day. According to an analyst from Raymond James, Aaron Kessler, “Overall solid quarter but maybe high expectations going into the quarter.”

Facebook, itself, has stated that 23 percent of its total ad revenue comes from its mobile marketing business. This represents a considerable increase over its 14 percent from the third quarter.

Kessler also pointed out that he, and some other investors, may have been expecting more substantial results from the mobile marketing business. He stated that “Mobile revenue was expected to be a little higher.”

Facebook’s finance chief, David Ebersman, was the one to express that the social network had “basically doubled” its mobile marketing ad revenue from the Q3 2012 to the last quarter. He pointed out that half a year ago, there was no revenue over that channel at all, but that “In the course of a pretty short period of time, we’ve dramatically ramped up our ability to monetize mobile.”