Unless you haven’t logged in to your Facebook account in the past year or so, you’ve probably seen some ads on your feed. This really isn’t a surprise, since people don’t have to pay to be able to use the site. Facebook has to make money somehow, and running ads makes the most sense.
And if you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably noticed that Facebook ads are slowly evolving and becoming more and more prominent. At first their ads only appeared as small boxes on the right hand-side of the news feed. As things progressed, some ads also started to appear on the news feed and businesses on Facebook were also given the opportunity to promote their posts and pages on user’s feeds.
But perhaps the biggest change to hit the Facebook ad landscape happened yesterday when the social network started placing news feed ads from its ad exchange, FBX. For the uninitiated, FBX is Facebook’s version of Retargeting (or Remarketing as we like to call it). It works by letting companies display their ads on the right-hand side of Facebook based on the browsing habits of users.
So for instance, if you started looking at websites selling used cars and you suddenly went back to Facebook to see what your friends are up to, you will most likely see ads for used cars on the right hand side of the site.
Yesterday though, Facebook took FBX to the next level by displaying those retargeted ads right on users’ news feeds, making them much more noticeable.
Facebook’s venture in the ad remarketing space is a clear indication of how powerful the ad technology is. If you haven’t done so yet, it’s highly recommended that you check out how remarketing works, because this ad format has some of the highest conversion rates around.
The stellar results of remarketing ads can be attributed to the fact that it only targets people that have already expressed interest in your products or services. For example, let’s say a user visits a site that sells shoes. The curious shopper decides to look around but leaves without buying anything. If the site has remarketing ads enabled, the system will tag that shopper’s browser, which will allow it to follow the user as they browse other parts of the web.
So when that person checks their mail or reads articles on other sites, they will be able to see an ad reminding them to complete their purchase on the original shoe website. This type of advertising builds a sense of familiarity with consumers, thus making them much more effective compared to irrelevant advertisements.
The targeting capabilities of remarketing are so powerful that it has become the go-to ad type for most e-commerce websites. Of course, don’t take our word for it. Try it out on your site and bring back those lost visitors today!