Facebook commercialisation proceeds apace with ‘buy now’ button trial
Facebook is set to add a shiny new button to its burgeoning drawer of clickables in the form of a ‘buy now’ tab to help businesses monetise their presence on the social media channels news feed and pages.
The additional functionality comes in the wake of strong growth in digital ad spending on the platform, which now accounts for a 7.8 per cent share of all world spend, up from just 5.8 per cent a year ago, according to eMarketer.
This picture is particularly true on mobile devices, where the firm is expected to absorb a full 22.3 per cent of the global mobile advertising market, a significant increase on last year’s figure of 17.8 per cent.
Estimates by the research firm conclude that the US retail industry will splash out $11.18bn on digital advertising this year, a rise of 16.7 per cent from 2013, with these advertisers devoting 37 per cent of their budgets to mobile.
In total US ecommerce will hit $304.1bn in 2014 with mobile ecommerce sales accounting for 19 per cent of this figure, £57.79bn, according to eMarketer.
Commenting on the introduction Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst, eMarketer said: "Not so long ago, people assumed that Facebook would be best suited for building awareness and engagement, not for influencing conversion or sales. With this step, Facebook is becoming even more firmly established as a major player in direct response advertising, and though this test is still only a test, it's a definite sign that Facebook wants to restart its efforts to become an ecommerce company as well."