Facebook Gives Advertisers a Warning About Site Speed

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Your site’s speed on mobile devices will soon be a factor deciding how many people see your Facebook ads, according to an announcement from the social network this week.

In Facebook’s words:

“Over the coming months, we’re working to improve ad experiences for people by considering website performance and a person’s network connection in our ad auction and delivery system.”

While it isn’t clear exactly how site speed and page performance will be implemented into Facebook’s algorithm for displaying ads, the social network is already introducing features to help brands deliver content more quickly across Facebook.

In addition to the use of Accelerated Mobile Pages, Facebook is introducing prefetching to help users see the content they are interested in as quickly as possible. This week’s announcement explains that prefetching starts loading mobile content in the Facebook in-app browser before a user ever clicks a link.

According to their estimates, this speeds up mobile site load time by as much as 29 percent and decreases the rate of site abandonment during the loading process.

The new Facebook help page dedicated to prefetching goes a bit more in-depth about how the system actually works:

“For each News Feed mobile ad, Facebook attempts to predict how likely a person is to click on an ad. If the prediction score meets the requirements, we prefetch the initial HTML page when the story first appears on a person’s screen. This content is cached locally on the person’s device for a short amount of time. If the person clicks on the ad, Facebook loads the initial page from the cache. The initial page then makes regular web requests to the publisher’s server to load the remainder of the page. We currently only cache the initial HTML page. Keep in mind that the CSS, Javascript or images on the website are not cached.”

Ultimately, Facebook’s changes are aimed at improving their overall ad performance and increasing engagement with ads. Advertisers with slow-performing sites tend to also underperform in many ad metrics.

While Facebook’s new feature will improve content delivery speed across the board, the company also offered five tips for tuning up your site:

  • Minimizing landing page redirects, plugins and link shorteners
  • Compressing files to decrease mobile rendering time
  • Improving server response time by utilizing multi-region hosting
  • Using a high-quality Content Delivery Network to reach audiences quickly
  • Removing render-blocking javascript
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Facebook Makes Offers Easier To Use and Find

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Facebook Offers have been around since 2012, allowing brands to distribute coupons to users for special promotions. However, they never really took off like many of Facebook’s advertising features.

The social network is trying to turn that around by improving Offers to make it easier for people to find, save, and redeem coupons, especially from mobile phones. The changes also make it easier for brands to control who sees and uses their coupons.

Offers have always functioned by distributing online and in-store coupons as ads or organic Page posts that link to a brand’s site. When a person clicks the ad or post, they were then emailed a copy of the coupon.

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Facebook has streamlined and integrated the feature more thoroughly into their platform. While users can still click on Offers to visit the advertiser’s site and redeem their coupon via email. However, now offers will also be saved to a new Offers bookmark tab linked to their account.

This way, customers can quickly and easily access their coupons through Facebook’s mobile app and cashiers can easily scan the promotional barcode on their phone. Also, Offer codes will be shown at the bottom of the screen when users travel to an advertiser’s site to immediately redeem the code. That means they don’t have to exit the app to open their email, making the process less convoluted for users.

Not only is Facebook trying to make Offers easier to use and more attractive to users, the company is working to make sure those who show interest but don’t immediately redeem coupons don’t forget about you. When a saved offer gets close to expiring, Facebook will alert users to let them know time is running out to get savings.

On top of all of this, Facebook is making it easier for users to find Offers shared by brands with a new Offers tab on brand Pages.

Offers shared organically by brands are still available to anyone who sees it in their feed, however, Facebook is improving targeting for offer-carrying ads with more ad-targeting options. These including selecting people in your customer database to offer loyalty promotions or targeting similar individuals based on their characteristics.

According to media reported Tim Peterson, Facebook is working on expanding their Offer targeting options for brands even further, but it is unclear when those improvements can be expected. For now, Offers are getting a big shot in the arm that will make them more attractive to users and more effective for brands who use them.

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Add Twitter’s New Message Button To Your Site Today

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Twitter has introduced a new way for users to get in touch with your brand directly from your website with the Message button, as the company announced in a tweet today.

The button can be embedded on any website and allows anyone with a Twitter account to direct message you with just a single tap.

The button is stylistically what you would expect from Twitter’s other buttons and is very easy to set up. However, you should double-check your settings to make sure you can receive direct messages from everyone, not just your followers.

To add the new Message button to your site, just head over to the Twitter Publish page. Scroll down and select the Twitter Buttons option.

Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

From here, select the Message button option.

Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

Input your Twitter user name and user ID (found in the “Your Twitter Data” section), and finally click Preview. This generates a code you can paste anywhere you want on your website. You can even customize the button to autofill messages, hide usernames, or select a default language.

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Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

The new button is just one of several ways you can use Twitter to provide customer service, answer questions, and keep people excited about your brand. Add it to your site now to find out what your customers have to say.

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22 Reasons For Your Brand To Get On Instagram Today

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Instagram is still typically thought of as a niche social platform. But, with over 300 million daily active users and counting, the Facebook-owned app is far from a scrappy upstart.  It’s a hugely popular platform that is still being overlooked by advertisers and brands.

Brands that incorporate Instagram into their social media strategy have been shown to receive high levels of engagement and brand awareness. Even more, the platform has been shown to be a powerful lead generation tool.

These aren’t the only reasons your brand could benefit from being on Instagram. In fact, Buzzoid compiled 22 reasons you should consider the platform into a stylish infographic. Check it out below, or at Buzzoid’s site.

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Twitter Lets Select Brands Create Their Own Searchable Emoji “#Stickers”

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Image Source: Pepsi

Image Source: Pepsi

Earlier this year, Twitter rolled out a new feature known as #Stickers that let users add searchable emoji to their photos posted on the social platform. Since then, Twitter says millions of photos containing #Stickers have been tweeted and shared around the world.

Initially, the emoji available for these “virtual hashtags” were limited to the options Twitter created. However, the site is starting to open the door to allow brands to create their own #Stickers as an ad type called Promoted Stickers.

As Twitter says in their announcement:

“Brands can design four or eight stickers — like accessories and other props — for users to add to their own photos. Photos with a brand’s stickers are shared with all of a user’s followers, allowing brands to be featured by their fans in a truly authentic way. #Stickers act as a visual hashtag, meaning that photos with your brand’s sticker will be connected and discoverable to anyone who taps your brand’s sticker. This allows a brand to see and engage with the people who are using their stickers in creative ways.”

Pepsi is the first brand to use Promoted Stickers, with 50 custom “#PepsiMoji”rolling out to 10 countries, including the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, and Russia. The stickers are part of a larger “Say It With Pepsi” campaign and can be found in the Twitter #Stickers library.

The company has already begun sharing tweets with the stickers, like this one from Pepsi Canada:

Since Twitter is initially keeping the Promoted Stickers limited to a select number of brands and managed accounts, it is unclear how much they cost or what tools may be available to help create new branded stickers. It is also unclear when or if the social platform plans to expand the service to more brands in the near future.

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Pinterest Adds A New Way To Bid On Ads

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Pinterest-logo

Pinterest is continuing to bulk up its ad platform by allowing advertisers to now buy ads based on how much they want to pay for impressions, the company announced today. In the past, advertisers were only allowed to choose how much they wanted to pay for engagement.

Along with the new way to purchase ads, Pinterest has also added frequency capping to their ad services.

“Now you can bid on a CPM [cost-per-thousand impressions] basis and we’ll optimize how we deliver your ads to reach more people,” according to a Pinterest blog post. “You can also specify the maximum number of times someone sees your campaign. By using this new solution, you’ll get more impressions for your campaigns at more efficient rates and drive higher results.”

This latest move continues Pinterest’s trend of expanding their advertising offerings to bring in more businesses. Earlier this year, the company increased the number of targeting options for ads. They have also made Buyable Pins available to users on all devices, including desktop.

While advertisers have been able to bid for how much they are willing to pay for engagement, Pinterest’s CPM-based ads were only available at fixed prices until now. These prices typically ranged between $30 and $40. Those prices should go down as the new bidding process will increase competition.

The feature is just rolling out, but already JCPenney, The Home Depot, and General Mills are running tests with the new CPM-based ads. The new ads are already available for all business in the U.S, UK, and Canada. More countries are expected to come in the future.

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Facebook Blocks Ad Blockers While Giving Users More Control Over Ads

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Facebook operates one of the largest ad services on the internet and they claim they have finally figured out how to beat ad blockers with two new changes to their ad platform.

To start, the company has announced they have created a way to get past ad blocking extensions on desktop to show ads to everyone who visits their site – even if they don’t want to see them. The company was unwilling to say how they have accomplished this, but most likely they have created a way to ‘cloak’ their ads so they are not able to be targeted and blocked by popular ad blockers.

While Facebook is blocking ad blockers on desktop devices only, they are most likely working to do the same on mobile in the near future.

To compensate for this, Facebook is trying to make sure the ads users see are more relevant and useful to their lives by giving new control over what ads are shown in their news feeds.

The new ad control tool was released today and lets users add or remove interests from an “ad preferences” list to show what topics they are most interested in.

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“When they’re relevant and well-made, ads can be useful, by helping us find new products and services and introducing us to new experiences—like an ad that shows you your favorite band is coming to town or an amazing airline deal to a tropical vacation,” Andrew Bosworth, VP of ads and business platform for Facebook, wrote in a blog post. “But because ads don’t always work this way, many people have started avoiding certain websites or apps, or using ad blocking software, to stop seeing bad ads. These have been the best options to date.

To help refine their ad service, Facebook commissioned research firm Ipsos MORI to survey users from around the world to determine why users are ad blockers have become so popular. The majority of those surveyed said the main reason they started using ad blockers was because advertising often disrupted their browsing experience.

“While people want a personalized online experience, they dislike ads that are disruptive, however personalized,” wrote Adam Isaacson, research director of Ipsos Connect. “Those that block the content on the page, that pop up with sound and that slow the content on the page were all seen to be disruptive by our qualitative sample.”

The hope of the new changes to Facebook’s advertising service is that giving people more control will make users more interested in the ads their shown and provide a more seamless browsing experience. While many will complain about the move to thwart ad blocking software, the ability to choose what you’re shown will hopefully make the change easier to swallow.

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You Won’t Believe What Facebook is Trying to Ban! (It’s Clickbait)

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FacebookClick

We can all pretty much agree clickbait is the worst. There’s nothing as annoying as clicking a misleading headline only to be taken to a poorly made website, usually covered in ads, and filled with bad copy. Thankfully, Facebook is trying to put an end to clickbait with new changes to their ranking algorithm.

After reviewing tens of thousands of articles and headlines, a team at Facebook built a system they believe will block huge amounts of clickbait by targeting common phrases. According to Facebook, the system works similarly to an email spam filter but for the News Feed.

The social network specifically defines clickbait as headlines that withhold information or exaggerate to create misleading expectations. That means headlines like “You’ll Never Believe Who Tripped and Fell on the Red Carpet or “Apples are Actually Bad For You?!” won’t be able to cheaply rack up clicks.

As Facebook explains:

We’ve heard from people that they specifically want to see fewer stories with clickbait headlines or link titles. These are headlines that intentionally leave out crucial information, or mislead people, forcing people to click to find out the answer. For example: “When She Looked Under Her Couch Cushions And Saw THIS… I Was SHOCKED!”; “He Put Garlic In His Shoes Before Going To Bed And What Happens Next Is Hard To Believe”; or “The Dog Barked At The Deliveryman And His Reaction Was Priceless.”

For most Facebook brands and publishers, this is good news. You won’t have to compete with sites that use cheap methods to rack up clicks and shares without creating compelling content. However, if you’ve been using clickbaity headlines, you may be in for trouble.

In the coming weeks, brands that are guilty of using clickbait will see their news feed visibility decrease substantially. If you want to avoid this, Facebook says to put more effort into your headlines and share content people want to read.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has taken efforts against clickbait. Back in 2014, the company released a similar update designed to cut out clickbait by measuring how long people stayed on a site before returning to Facebook. It also compared click-through rate and engagement rate to determine if content was actually high-quality.

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Instagram Draws Inspiration From Snapchat With New ‘Stories’

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Instagram is launching a new feature, but many are saying the new feature seems inspired by another popular social photo app – Snapchat. The new feature called Instagram Stories lets users and brands share a collection of moments that disappear after 24 hours.

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If that sounds familiar, it is because the feature is very similar to Snapchat Stories. Not only does it allow users to easily package their best moments of a day into one easy-to-view collection, but Instagram Stories also includes the ability to draw on photos or videos to make them even more exciting.

“With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about over-posting,” an Instagram rep told AdWeek.

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The new feature is already available on iOS and Android mobile operating systems. It can be found at the top of Instagram feeds, where you can either share your own stories or tap icons to look at what others have shared in the past day.

Unlike most Instagram videos, clips included in stories are limited to 10 seconds. There are also no likes or comments on stories.

For now Instagram isn’t saying whether marketers will be able to take advantage of stories by promoting them like normal posts, however, businesses can still use the feature to engage with the community and build recognition for their brand and products.

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Tumblr and Reddit Launch Ads That Pay Users

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Source: Scott Beale/Flickr

Source: Scott Beale/Flickr

Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only social media platforms you can advertise. Smaller, more niche social networks like Reddit, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Tumblr have all gotten in on social advertising with innovative ad formats and placements. Now, two of those sites have both announced new ads on their networks that directly give back to their users.

Tumblr and Reddit have announced two separate plans for ads that will run on their networks and compensate users for allowing their blogs or content to be included.

In the case of Tumblr, the service is rolling out ads that will be shown across their blog network. Users can opt out of having the ads shown on their specific pages, but those who decide to be included can receive compensation just for allowing the ads.

Details on how much users will be paid and how have yet to be released, as Tumblr says they are “still working out the details of the partner program, but as soon as we have details to share, we’ll make announcements.”

While Tumblr says they will be outright paying users for participating, Reddit’s new ad service isn’t quite so direct.

With the launch of Promoted User Posts, brands can now take advantage of content being posted on the site by promoting it for more to see. This means you can spot a post organically shared on Reddit by a user and boost it to the front page or user feeds with the original poster’s permission.

However, instead of paying users for allowing their content to be used by brands for promotion, Reddit is opting to reward them with a lifetime of “Reddit Gold.” Reddit Gold is the site’s premium membership program which costs $29.99 a year and can be gifted to users by others.

“There are car enthusiasts on Reddit,” CEO and founder Steve Huffman told Ad Age. “Makeup addicts, people who discuss movies, books and video games where these commercial relationships are already developing with our users. It is not a stretch for the advertiser to come in here and engage with our audience.”

These innovative ads are a smart way to involve the communities that already exist on the social networks and make them feel invested in the ads they are seeing. It also presents an opportunity for brands to take advantage of things already being shared to better promote their brand and products.

“This isn’t traditional display advertising,” Huffman told Ad Age. “This is different and more personable. You have to bring your A game here and if you do, it works amazingly.”

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