Facebook today announced that its new version of Offers with larger images and calls to action are now available on Android.

In February, the social network began testing the new layout on desktop with an option to shop immediately or get a reminder before the promotion ends. The interface also lets users decide if and when to share the offer with friends. We started seeing this on iOS in early April, and the company officially announced it a few weeks later. Now, the product is uniform across desktop and mobile, including Android.

Overall, the new design is likely to increase conversions on Offers posts because of the cleaner design and more prominent buttons to “Get offer” or “Shop now.” The “Remind Me” button available for some retailers working with Facebook directly allows companies to prompt users to redeem their offer at a later date through a notification on Facebook.

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Facebook is continuing its test with a few global retailers to make Offers more effective in generating online sales. Part of this includes a new “remind me” button on offers that appear in the mobile feed.

When we found Facebook is testing a new version of Offers in February, the options to shop immediately or get a reminder before the promotion ends were only available on desktop. Now we’ve seen this on mobile, too. The “remind me” button could be especially useful here since the prominence of mobile ads leads to a lot of clicks, but users might not be as likely to complete a purchase on their phones.

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As part of a recent test that gives users a dedicated section of the site to collect offers they’ve claimed, Facebook is now recommending other offers that users might be interested in.

Last week we saw Facebook testing a new version of its Offers product, which gives users the option to shop immediately or get a reminder before the promotion ends. The new offers, which are being tested with a few select retailers, feature larger images and the interface lets users decide if and when to share the offer with friends. Offers are saved to a new section of a user’s account, which they can access from an Offers bookmark in the left-hand menu.

This week the social network began suggesting additional offers in the My Offers section of the site. Beneath offers that users have already claimed, users may see “Recommended Offers” from other retailers that have promotions going on. Facebook is perhaps hoping to turn this section into a destination for deal-hunting consumers.

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Facebook is testing a new version of its Offers product, which gives users the option to shop immediately or get a reminder before the promotion ends. The interface also lets users decide if and when to share the offer with friends.

The new implementation could be more effective in leading to direct sales for retailers, while helping users remember to take advantage of the offers they’re interested in and giving them more control over how their activity is shared.

A Facebook spokesperson says the company is working with a few global retailers for this test, but for now other pages aren’t affected and their offers will continue to appear in the original format.

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Facebook shared new statistics about some of its latest products for business pages today on its fourth quarter earnings call, including that nearly 500,000 pages have used Promoted Posts and 42 million users have claimed an Offer.

COO Sheryl Sandberg said revenue from local businesses was strong in Q4 2012, with the number of local businesses paying for advertising on Facebook doubling since the beginning of 2012. Sandberg says this is in large part because of Promoted Posts, which make it easy for businesses to buy ads directly from their pages instead of the more complicated ad dashboard. This product rolled out in June, and by December 300,000 pages had promoted 2.5 million posts. Now Facebook says nearly 500,000 pages have tried the offering, and about 30 percent are first-time advertisers on Facebook. More than 70 percent of pages who have tried Promoted Posts have become repeat customers, Sandberg says.

Then there are Facebook Offers, which are a type of post that pages can use to drive interest and sales for their business. In September Facebook began requiring page owners to spend a minimum of $5 or $10 per Offer, with the option to pay more to promote the deal and reach a larger audience. As with Promoted Posts, costs can vary by page, however the first Offer a page creates is free. Sandberg says costs per redemption for Offers compare favorably to those from email, newspaper, paid search and display media based on data from the Direct Marketing Association. Sandberg didn’t say how many pages have tried these offers, but 42 million claimants is significant. In October Facebook said the majority of users who claim an Offer on the social network do so after seeing a story about it from a friend, not the original page post, indicating the viral nature of the promotion.

Facebook today reported $1.59 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2012 ended Dec. 31 — a 40 percent increase from the $1.13 billion reported in Q4 2011. Revenue from advertising was $1.33 billion, representing 84 percent of total revenue and a 41 percent increase from the same quarter last year.

Facebook says the majority of users who claim an Offer on the social network do so after seeing a story about it from a friend, not the original page post.

Specifically, of the 100 most popular Facebook Offers, three-fourths of the claims came from friends of people who shared the Offer, explained Facebook Vice President of Business and Marketing Partnerships David Fischer at DMA 2012. Because claiming an Offer generates a story in News Feed and Timeline, these promotions can quickly go viral and reach a broader audience than a company’s fans. It’s important for Facebook to make this point, especially since Offers are no longer free to run.

About a month ago Facebook began requiring page owners to spend a minimum of $5 or $10 per Offer, with the option to pay more to promote the deal and reach a larger audience. As with Promoted Posts, costs can vary by page, however the first Offer a page creates is free.

Offers are created directly from the page publisher and do not require approval from Facebook before going live. Users can claim Offers on desktop or mobile and they will instantly receive an email from Facebook that includes the Offer voucher. Businesses have the option to add a barcode or unique coupon code to these Offers, allowing them to track how a campaign affected in-store and online sales.

Page owners looking for help creating an Offer can read a how-to on our Facebook Marketing Bible site.

Facebook today announced it will begin charging page owners at least $5 per Offers post, with the option to pay more to promote the post and reach a bigger audience.

Previously, page owners could create offers for free, just like making any other post. Companies, however, could pay to boost the unit into a page post ad, Sponsored Story or Promoted Post. Now that ad spend is mandatory. Businesses will still be able to run Offers for a minimal budget, but ads must be created in order for people to see Offers in their feeds.

Facebook also said businesses are now able to add a bar code or a unique code to these Offers, allowing them to better track the results of their campaigns and run them on e-commerce sites as well.

Facebook told us in February that offers would replace check-in deals — a promotion that was free to create but had to be approved by Facebook before going live. Consumers claimed these deals when they checked into a location through their phone. Although Facebook said no new check-in deals would be approved after the Facebook Marketing Conference where Offers were announced, the dashboard for creating check-in deals is still available for pages associated with a physical location.

A bug affecting Facebook pages, including several of Lululemon Athletica’s local pages, posted empty offers without the admins’ knowledge last week.

We’ve heard from a number of page owners that experienced this issue and several others that have the opposite problem: they can’t post offers to their page at all. As is commonly the case, there has been little communication from Facebook about the problems and page owners have been turning to Facebook groups and community forums to find out what to do. There are often dozens of bugs affecting different groups of users at any given time, but this one has been more than an inconvenience. For some, it has appeared damaging to their brand.

When fake offers were posted to certain fan pages last week, many admins thought their accounts had been hacked. Users were able to claim the offers, but the coupon they received via email turned out to be blank. Only after the Lululemon offers went viral did the company learn that the problem was the result of a bug in Facebook’s system. Facebook tells us it has removed the accidentally posted offers and sent an email explaining the issue to users who tried to claim them. However, some fans seem to be more upset with the businesses than Facebook.

Logan Ayliffe, who manages social media for French Broad Chocolates, says the company’s Ashville, N.C. store had to put up signs about the issue after fielding Facebook comments and phone calls from frustrated customers.

In a public Help Center thread about problems with Facebook offers, Ayliffe wrote, “I’ve spent the better part of two years building trust with my audience, never with the hard sell, always with the non-marketing-sounding culture building, always with the giveaways. And in one shitty bug, Facebook ate a chunk of that trust.”

He says he wanted to make up for the mistake by posting a legitimate offer to the page, but encountered another bug that initially prevented him from doing so. It seems that since Facebook introduced the “voice” feature for page owners to choose whether to post to their page as themselves or their brand, some admins have been unable to make offers. Facebook has not addressed the issue, but some users discovered that switching back and forth between their own voice and the voice of the page solves the problem.

Offers still haven’t rolled out to all business pages, though they were announced in February. Bugs like these might be part of the reason for the delay.

Page owners who are experiencing issues with offers can contribute to the Help Center thread here.

Facebook says that it will roll out its new self-serve offers feature to all local business pages in the U.S. today. [Update 5/3/12 5:10 p.m. PT - Facebook tells us that offers are still not available to all business pages, but it has expanded the self-serve beta.]

Previously, offers were only available to a small number of premium advertisers and beta partners. The company extended offers to some pages in New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Japan, and Turkey last month, but most pages in the U.S. did not have access. Facebook will continue to expand the number of pages eligible to create offers, but for now the option only seems to appear for pages categorized as “local businesses.”

Offers are a new story type for page owners to post coupons that users can collect from News Feed or ad units. Page owners can create offers directly from the page publisher on their Timelines. Unlike Facebook’s former check-in deal service, offers do not require approval from Facebook before going live. Here is the flow for creating offers from the publisher:

After creating an offer, a post will appear on a page’s Timeline and in some fans’ News Feeds. To expand an offer’s distribution, pages can buy Sponsored Stories targeting existing fans, their friends or anyone on Facebook. Claiming offers is simple — one click sends a coupon to a user’s email account — and results in prominent News Feed stories that increase awareness of the promotion.

Facebook has also made offers available through the API to some beta partners. This means developers can integrate the feature into their ads and page management platforms. We recently spoke to BuyBuddy founder and CEO Peter Goodman, who says his team plans to integrate offers into its ad platform as soon as possible.

Facebook added support for creating and managing offers through the API this week, but a spokesperson tells us that this is only available to select partners who already have access to the self-serve version of the feature.

Offers are a new story type for page owners to post coupons that users can collect from News Feed or ad units. The feature is still in beta for premium advertisers and a limited number of pages in the U.S., New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Japan, and Turkey. Facebook says it plans to launch offers widely in “coming weeks,” which might mean months from now based on how Facebook has used the term in the past.

Making offers available through the API means developers can integrate the feature into their social media management platforms. Even though the feature isn’t available to all pages yet, developers will be able to prepare for it. Although offers are free to create, businesses can buy Sponsored Stories to expand their distribution. Companies working with the Facebook Ads API will likely want to bring offers functionality to their ad tools so that advertisers can create and promote an offer from a single dashboard.