Facebook makes buying mobile ‘Sponsored Stories’ ads easier
Facebook is making it easier for advertisers to purchase mobile-only “Sponsored Stories” ads by adding them to the services they can purchase without going through the company’s sales team.
These types of ads — which appear on the news feeds of users accessing the social network from their phones and tablets — can now be bought using Facebook’s ads API and Power Editor. This lets potential advertisers create and purchase various types of ads for the social network on their own.
“Facebook is always looking for ways to improve products and has responded to requests from marketers to control the placement of their sponsored stories,” the company said in a statement, according to Business Insider. “As companies are promoting services more frequently on mobile, this option gives them the opportunity to focus on specific placements that will impact them most directly.”
The move comes as the effectiveness of Facebook’s advertisements, as well as its ability to make money from mobile, continue to be questioned by investors, analysts and observers.
Such concerns were raised before Facebook’s IPO, when the company announced that it was having trouble making money from its mobile users. And just before the IPO, General Motors had announced that it would be cutting all of its Facebook ads.
But making mobile “Sponsored Stories” easier to purchase may alleviate some of those concerns. That is, if Facebook can actually get people to click its ads.
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