Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

"Native" advertising is expected to drive 74% of all US display ad revenue by 2021, up from a 56% share in 2016, but Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian isn't a fan.

Native advertising is paid content that fits a specific publication's style and editorial guidelines. The idea is that unlike standard banner ads — which users can become blind to and easily overlook — people are more likely to engage with content that looks like the rest of the content on a site.

Speaking at a small press conference at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal last week, Ohanian described native advertising as something "nobody actually reads but everyone has just bought into."  Marketers have been fooled into thinking people are reading their native ads, when instead, Ohanian believes they've simply been tricked by "Facebook arbitrage."...

So, what does optimized Facebook advertising actually look like? If you're looking for some great examples, you've come to the right place. In this post, we'll quickly go over the two overarching formats for Facebook ads: right-hand column ads and News Feed ads. Then, we'll show you 8 different types of Facebook ads, each including real-life examples -- along with some insights into why that ad is so successful.

Before we get to these examples, let's chat for a second about the four components of a good Facebook ad (or any ad, really) regardless of its type. Remember, people are on Facebook to stay up to date on their social lives, not necessarily check out your products. This is why keeping these four things in mind is important for any Facebook ad you make....

In January 2017, Small Business Trends released the results of a survey of over twenty-six-hundred small business owners, revealing that sixty-two percent of them believe Facebook ads are ineffective. With complaints of little-to-no ROI, these entrepreneurs say they will not use Facebook advertising again. Some experts, however, challenge this viewpoint, saying that properly targeted Facebook ads do indeed, provide results.

"When businesses don't see the results they hope for, it's usually because they haven't done enough testing on their ad copy, visuals, and the ideal combination of information to target the right audience," says Vitruvian Digital Advertising Founder, Kristie McDonald.

Jeanine Blackwell, Founder of The Launch Lab agrees, saying that marketers aren't asking themselves the right questions to determine an effective target market for their ad campaigns. "The problem is that most advertisers only use the simplest of criteria to let Facebook know who they want to see their ads, such as gender, age, and income," says Blackwell. "When you couple this information with more insights on the behaviors and unique interests of your audience, you can deliver your ads only to people likely to be interested in what you offer."

Both experts agree that a testing budget as small as five or ten dollars a day, focusing on different mixes, can tell you what you need to know before you begin to invest larger amounts in your campaign....

Imagine if you owned a shop and you could follow up everyone who walked into your shop with an advertisement.

You could even change your ad based on what aisles they visited.

…the products they picked up

…the part of the shop they visited

…which cash register they went to

….or didn’t go to.

Powerful? Yes!!! Facebook custom audiences are this and much more...