Facebook set to sell TV-style ads for up to $2.5m a day
Facebook will start selling brands space on its site for TV-style commercials, according to two Bloomberg sources familiar with the plans.
Currently, brands can only post videos on their own pages but the new service would allow marketers to buy directly into Facebook’s 1.5 billion feeds with a 15-second ad. The cost? Up to $2.5m for three showings per day.
Similar to the way TV ad space is marketed, the spots will target users based on age and gender rather than Facebook’s current system which lets marketers target ads based on location and areas of interest.
The service will apparently be available by the end of this year, however Facebook has yet to comment on any of the rumours.
COO Sheryl Sandberg has acknowledged the increase in Facebook activity during prime time TV hours, saying: “Every night, 88 million to 100 million people are actively using Facebook during prime-time TV hours in the United States alone” and has also boasted that Facebook’s viewership is three times that of the Super Bowl (where 30-second ads sell for an average $4m).
However, Zuckerberg has been reluctant to capitalise on this, to avoid overloading users with ads, and last week said he plans to limit the amount of ads people see to about one for every 20 updates, equating to five per cent of a person’s newsfeed.