Compass Labs

Social marketing platform Compass Labs today announced a new dynamic campaign solution, The Social Advertising Optimizer, which automatically manages an advertiser’s bids. The tool can identify and optimize campaigns by ad placement, targeting and creative combinations based on different weighted actions and goals. Compass Labs says The Social Advertising Optimizer has helped clients achieve a 17 percent decrease in conversion costs. It is available as a standalone product or integrated in Compass Lab’s main platform, the CLIQ Ads Manager.

Optimal

Social advertising and analytics company Optimal, Inc. has launched Optimal Analytics, an audience analytics dashboard for demographic and engagement statistics, as well as competitive analysis across sources like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr. The tool looks at historical engagement data for top brands and daily interactions among millions of demographic and interest-based segments to give marketers key insights about their competitors and target audience. Marketers can get daily or weekly emails about the most engaging content from competitors or visit the tool directly to generate new consumer insights or build lookalike audiences for ad targeting.

Viralheat

Social marketing suite Viralheat today released a mobile app version of its platform, including the Viralheat stream and publishing tools. The app lets users manage multiple Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts from their iPhones. They can schedule posts, monitor conversations, respond and check analytics.

Facebook Exchange retargeting ads that appear within News Feed deliver an average increase in ROI of 197 percent compared to FBX ads on the right hand side of Facebook.com, according to an early study by Nanigans.

Nanigans was among three “Qualified DSPs” with alpha access to Facebook’s first tests of putting FBX ads — targeted by web browsing cookies rather than Facebook data — into the desktop News Feed. Earlier this week, the social network gave beta access to several more DSPs.

Previously, FBX ads were only delivered in the sidebar. Many advertisers were already pleased with the performance of these ads compared to performance on other exchanges, but News Feed inventory could really give Facebook the edge. Sponsored Stories and Page Post Ads in the feed can have 10 to 20 times higher clickthrough rates than sidebar ads.

Now Nanigans has shared data from its recent alpha tests: an average 17.1 times higher CTRs and 51 percent lower CPCs for FBX in News Feed versus in sidebar. As mentioned, ROI was 197 percent higher as a result. These numbers come from more than 10 million ad impressions between April 18 and May 6 from retailers selling a variety of products, Nanigans says.

Among the benefits of FBX over other exchanges were lower costs per acquisition and ads that appear above the fold and on brand-safe pages. With News Feed inventory, FBX ads are in Page Post Link format, meaning they’re much bigger than before, and they get prime real estate among posts from users’ friends and pages. Additionally, News Feed-based FBX ads include options for Likes, comments and shares, which could lead to other types of engagement or even virality.

Facebook today announced that it is opening desktop News Feed inventory to more Facebook Exchange partners.

This will allow businesses to retarget Facebook users who visited their websites with Page Post Link ads in the News Feed, instead of with small ads in the right hand column. News Feed ads typically have much higher clickthrough rates than sidebar ads. Facebook had been testing this with a few demand side platforms (DSPs) Nanigans, Mediamath and Tellapart since late March and said the test was successful.

Now all “Qualified DSPs” have beta access and can create News Feed-based FBX campaigns for their customers. FBX retargeting ads are still not eligible for mobile, however.

The ads will appear in the News Feed the same as any other page post ad or Promoted Post bought through Facebook’s internal platform. Users will not be able to differentiate if the ads were purchased through the FBX or Facebook’s internal platform. Like previous FBX ads, Facebook’s format places a number of restrictions on creative, where advertisers might be used to more dynamic rich media ads on other exchanges. However, the new format introduces options for users to Like, share or comment on an ad, whereas previously users could only click on the ad and be taken to a third-party site.

Because this ad type uses Page Post Link ads, businesses can use “unpublished posts” to test and optimize different creative options. However, realtime dynamic creative is not available for this format. An example Page Post Link ad is below.

Richard Williamson, who was part of the original iPhone team at Apple, has become a director of engineering at Facebook, according to LinkedIn.

Bloomberg first reported the story this week after hearing the news from unnamed sources. Williamson built software for the original iPhone and then led the company’s efforts on a maps product. He was fired by Apple in November after the maps app was largely considered a failure.

In departures news, Facebook product manager Antonio Garcia-Martinez, who spearheaded the social network’s moves into the retargeting space with the Facebook Exchange, this week had his last day with the company.

Garcia-Martinez came to Facebook in April 2011 after his company AdGrok sold to Twitter. He says FBX was built by a team of three in one month. He did not share his post-Facebook plans except to say, “Probably a few months in either forest, ocean, or desert. And then another ride on that startup roller coaster that got me here in the first place.”

Back on the hiring front, Facebook removed 32 job listings from its careers page this week, likely after filling roles in engineering, recruiting, infrastructure, user operations and other areas.

Prior listings removed from Facebook’s careers page:

• System Engineer, Linux (Menlo Park)
• Software Engineer, Mobile (Malaysia)
• Business Operations Associate – SMB (Menlo Park)
• Financial Planning & Analysis, Lead – Sales (Menlo Park)
• Payroll Specialist (Menlo Park)
• CRM Technology Partner (Menlo Park)
• System Engineer, Linux (Menlo Park)
• Information Operations Engineer, Security (Menlo Park)
• Systems Engineer, Citrix (Menlo Park)
• Global Manager, People Growth (Menlo Park)
• Business Sourcer (Menlo Park)
• Design Recruiter (Menlo Park)
• Executive Technical Sourcer – Contractor (Menlo Park)
• Lead Recruiter (Dublin)
• Recruiter (Contract) (Dublin)
• Recruiting Lead, Infrastructure (Menlo Park)
• Recruiting Program Manager – Mergers and Acquisitions (Menlo Park)
• Sourcing Manager, Cabling Infrastructure (Menlo Park)
• Supply Chain Procurement Coordinator (Menlo Park)
• Content Strategist, Global Vertical Marketing (6 month contract) (Menlo Park)
• Presentation Designer, Business Marketing (Menlo Park)
• Associate, Marketing Designer (Contract) (Singapore)
• Media Solutions, Polish (Dublin)
• Ads Risk Associate (Austin)
• Team Lead, Risk Operations (Hyderabad)
• Analyst, User Operations, French (Dublin)
• Team Lead, User Operations Intellectual Property (Austin)
• Account Manager, South Africa (Dublin)
• Business Account Manager, Global Accounts (London)
• Vertical Client Partner (London)
• Client Partner, CPG (New York)
• Client Partner, Tech/Social Commerce (Seattle – Menlo Park)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Facebook has launched a small test to introduce Facebook Exchange Ads in its News Feed on desktop, according to the Facebook Studio blog.

The company is working with a small group of demand side platforms (DSPs) including TellApart, MediaMath and Nanigans. It has also said it will begin making the ads available for more DSPs and advertisers in the coming weeks.

The new retargeting ads will appear in the News Feed only on desktop. Facebook has yet to introduce mobile retargeting into the FBX. Previously, Facebook Exchange ads were reserved for the right ads column which only appear on desktop.

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PMD Marin Software goes public – Ad tech company Marin Software today went public after raising $105 million from an initial public offering priced at $14 per share. The stock opened at $19 per share and closed at $16.26. Marin began in 2006 as a paid search company, but was an early Facebook Ads API partner in 2010, and it continues to hold an ads badge as part of the social network’s Preferred Marketing Developer program.

Facebook updates mobile SDKs - Facebook this week released version 3.2.1 of the Facebook SDK for iOS and version 3.0 for Android. Both include a number of bug fixes and other improvements. The iOS SDK now supports frictionless requests without importing the deprecated headers. More information is available from the company’s developer site.
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Facebook removed 26 job listings from its careers page this week, likely after filling roles in engineering, recruiting, product marketing, sales and other areas.

It seems the company has found another partner manager to work with DSPs involved with the Facebook Exchange, as that program is quickly growing. There was also a job removed for a Manager, Business Partner Management, PMD Program.

Prior listings removed from Facebook’s careers page:

• Software Engineer, Compiler & Virtual Machine (Menlo Park)
• Financial Analyst, Infrastructure and Technology (Menlo Park)
• Technology Sourcing Specialist (Contract) (Menlo Park)
• Executive Administrative Assistant – Contract (Menlo Park)
• Paralegal (Legal Assistant) (São Paulo)
• Facebook Exchange (FBX) Partner Manager, PMD Program (Menlo Park)
• Product Specialist, User Operations (Menlo Park)
• BI Engineer (Menlo Park)
• BI Engineer, Visualization & Reporting (Menlo Park)
• Manager, IT Engineering (Menlo Park)
• HR Specialist – Contract (São Paulo)
• Recruiter (Tokyo)
• Data Visualization Designer (Menlo Park)
• Research Participant Recruiter (Menlo Park)
• Engineering Manager, Data Center Design (Menlo Park)
• Asset Strategy & Optimization Analyst (Menlo Park)
• Associate Product Marketing Manager (Menlo Park)
• Product Marketing Director, Monetization (Menlo Park)
• Online Marketing Specialist – SMB (Menlo Park)
• Payment Operations Analyst – Contract (Austin)
• Risk Analyst, Contractor (Austin)
• Account Manager, QSR (New York)
• Account Specialist, Global Marketing Solutions (Menlo Park)
• Manager, Business Partner Management, PMD Program (Menlo Park)
• Client Partner, Quebec (Toronto)
• Global Business Manager, APAC (Singapore)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Ads on the Facebook Exchange have lower costs per click and costs per impression, but web retargeting has lower costs per unique and better clickthrough rates, a recent AdRoll study has found.

AdRoll also found that there was little overlap in audiences reached with FBX and web retargeting, indicating that advertisers should employ both to maximize their retargeting efforts.

AdRoll looked at 468 advertisers who ran campaigns on standard display and FBX in the last six months of 2012. On average, FBX offered 82 percent lower CPMs and 70 percent lower CPCs than web retargeting. However, cost per unique was 86 percent higher than elsewhere on the web, and clickthrough rates averaged 40 percent lower. Web display ads are much larger than Facebook ads, and they often include rich media, whereas Facebook ads are static and mostly text.
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E-commerce customers who were targeted with Facebook Exchange remarketing ads after first seeing a traditional Facebook ad generated 89 percent more in sales revenue than customers who entered the remarketing pool through non-Facebook channels, according to a study by Nanigans.

In a four-month study of an online retailer that generated $1.2 million in sales revenue from 5,188 customers who were retargeted through the Facebook Exchange, Nanigans found that the combination of FBX ads and native Facebook audience targeting through the Ads API was more effective in generating sales than either tactic alone.

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Diligant integrates FBX – Media-buying platform Diligant announced this week that it has begun serving ads through the Facebook Exchange real-time bidding system. Digilant says it is the first partner to serve FBX ads direct in Mexico.

Adobe shares FBX results – Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer Adobe this week shared results from its first month of targeting ads through the Facebook Exchange. Adobe says FBX resulted in a conversion rate nearly 70 percent higher, and a cost per lead more than 50 percent lower than the average for eight other real-time bidding sources, though it was the second best performing ad supply source overall, not No. 1. Adobe noted FBX’s “favorable pricing” and “lower competition levels” than other exchanges.

Court rules Facebook doesn’t have to allow pseudonyms – Facebook won a case this week against a German privacy organization that argued the social network should not force users to use their real name on the site, according to the Associated Press. Germany has strict privacy laws, but the court ruled that the laws weren’t applicable in this case because Facebook has European headquarters in Ireland. Facebook says its real name policy helps protect users.
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