Facebook has officially announced the availability of Facebook Audience Network, giving marketers access to more than one million Facebook advertisers and enabling businesses to extend their campaigns beyond Facebook and into other mobile apps.
With Audience Network, marketers can customize banner, interstitials, and native ads to match the particular aesthetic of their brand’s app. From there, Facebook’s network of advertisers can serve users with relevant ads. “We’ve done a lot of work over the years to help you build and grow your app and this is really the first time we’re going to help you monetize in a serious way on mobile,” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and chairman of Facebook, said during F8. “The mobile ecosystem needs a way to deliver these native, personalized ads to people.”
The Audience Network will help advertisers increase app engagement and installs, but then will expand to include more marketing objectives. The service is available to select advertisers now, and will roll out to others in the coming months.
At the conference, Facebook announced improvements to its mobile ad management service as well. Marketers can now run mobile ads by copying their app’s Apple App store or Google Play URL into Facebook Ad Manager. Brands do not need to register with Facebook to run adds on the platform.
In addition Facebook discussed improvements to its universal login feature, primarily, the ability for brands to promote app downloads to users who visit its website while logged in through Facebook. If users don’t want Facebook sharing their personal information across several devices and applications, they can now log in to apps anonymously. Anonymous login integrates with Facebook Login. “Anonymous Login is Facebook’s answer to the death of cookies. Cookies just don’t work for mobile,” says Larry Drebes, CEO of customer profile management provider Janrain. “This is a new way to handle customer profile management for unique users across devices without forcing the user to give up personal data.”
What’s more Facebook announced FbStart, an app growth acceleration service that leverages existing technology from Facebook partners such as Adobe, MailChimp, and Salesforce desk to help businesses grow and monetize their apps.
Zuckerberg announced that F8 will become an annual event, with next year’s show slated for March 25.
The F8 news and updates follow an announcement earlier this week of Facebook Business Manager’s expansion. Business Manager serves a limited number of marketers in the U.S. with a tool that integrates ad accounts, apps and permissions, and pages in a single interface. Business Manager can simplify workflow and control all aspects of a brand on Facebook, and can add or delete ad accounts linked to the company. Business Manager will roll out internationally within a few weeks, though there’s no official date for full availability.
