Since February, we’ve seen 25% growth in the number of active advertisers on Facebook. With 2.5 million advertisers now using the platform, people and businesses continue to connect more and more through Facebook.
We know from our work with businesses that these connections are increasingly happening on mobile devices. As people spend more time on their phones, we’re working to build the tools advertisers need to reach people with relevant content on mobile and effectively measure the impact of their mobile campaigns.
As some of the world’s largest brands and agencies gather in New York City this week for Advertising Week, we’d like to share four updates on what we’re building to help advertisers capitalize on mobile and give people a better ads experience.
TRP Buying: A familiar way for TV buyers to plan, buy and measure on Facebook
TV has long been one of the best platforms for marketers to build their brands. And new Facebook-commissioned custom research conducted by Nielsen shows that boosting TV campaigns with Facebook video ads drives incremental reach, increases efficiency and improves effectiveness.
  • Incremental Target Audience Reached: Measured across 42 US campaigns,1 when TV and Facebook were combined, advertisers saw a 19% increase in targeted reach versus TV alone. When Millennials were the target audience, incremental reach increased to 37%.
  • Efficiency: Across the same 42 campaigns,2 Facebook impressions were two times more likely to hit their target audience than TV impressions. This means advertisers spent less to reach their target audiences.
  • Effectiveness: A study by Nielsen of seven recent campaigns3 showed that, compared to people who saw TV alone, people exposed to both TV and Facebook demonstrated a 3.2 percentage point increase in ad memorability, 11.5 percentage point increase in brand linkage and a 22.7 percentage point increase in likeability linkage.
Knowing that TV and Facebook complement each other, we’re introducing a way for advertisers to plan, buy and measure Facebook video ads using target rating point (TRP) as the metric. Marketers can plan a campaign across TV and Facebook with a total TRP target in mind, and they can buy a share of those TRPs directly with Facebook. Then, Nielsen’s Digital Ad Ratings measurement system can verify Facebook’s in-target TRP delivery, and Nielsen’s Total Ad Ratings system can verify the TRP delivery for Facebook and television combined.4
To learn more about TRP buying, advertisers can visit Facebook Blueprint or reach out to their sales representatives.
Brand Awareness Optimization: Helping brand advertisers focus on metrics that matter
Ads typically fall into one of two categories—brand awareness or direct response (DR)—each of which has different objectives. While we have had several optimization capabilities for campaigns with a DR objective, like online conversion or app installs, historically we’ve offered fewer options for brand campaigns. That’s changing now with Facebook’s new brand awareness optimization bidding.
Brand awareness optimization is designed to help advertisers find the audiences most likely to recall their ads. It takes two primary factors into account: attention and reach. We’ve found that, when it comes to brand awareness, it’s not just how many people you reach that matters—it’s also crucial to break through and earn people’s attention. By analyzing hundreds of brand campaigns we found that the longer someone spends with an ad, the more likely they are to remember what they’ve seen.
Brand awareness optimization will be available when buying in the Ads auction, as well as through the Reach and Frequency tool in Power Editor. It will be available on Facebook and Instagram this October as a limited release, with full availability in the coming months.
Mobile Polling: Your campaigns are mobile; your measurement should be too
To help brand advertisers understand the impact of their mobile campaigns, we launched mobile polling earlier this year in collaboration with Nielsen. Today we’re announcing that we’re also partnering with Millward Brown Digital on brand lift insights for Facebook and Instagram, allowing advertisers to conduct mobile polling on both platforms.
Conducting mobile polls for mobile campaigns allows advertisers to measure campaign effectiveness in the same place the campaign’s messages are being delivered, making the measurements more representative and accurate. Polling also relies on experimental design methodology, which means marketers can clearly observe the changes in brand metrics caused by their campaigns.
Advertisers interested in mobile polling through either Nielsen or Millward Brown should reach out to their Facebook sales representatives.
Video in the carousel format: An engaging ad format gets even better
Last year, we launched the carousel format for Facebook, which gives advertisers more creative real estate in News Feed to showcase their products and drive actions like app installs and website visits. Carousel ads have proven to be amazing storytelling tools for brand marketers, and today we’re announcing the ability to add video to the carousel format.
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Pairing video with the carousel format gives marketers more options for compelling storytelling in News Feed. For instance:
  • An auto dealership can use a nationally branded video for a new car model followed by regional car promotions
  • A retailer can show a video promoting a new line of sportswear followed by images of featured products
  • A CPG company can use a nationally branded video for a new food item, followed by images of various meal preparations
Video in the Carousel format will begin rolling out this week in Power Editor, and will expand to the Ads Create Tool in the coming weeks.
Find us at Advertising Week
Headed to Advertising Week? Here are Facebook’s speakers and events scheduled for this week.