Facebook rolls out mobile ad unit to promote apps

PanARMENIAN.Net - Just a few weeks after introducing its first mobile ad unit, Facebook has launched another one, this time designed to help mobile app developers market themselves, Mashable said.

Facebook is testing the new unit with a “limited set of beta partners” Vijaye Raji, a software engineer at the company, wrote on Facebook’s blog on Tuesday, August 7. The units drive users to new apps. If a user clicks on an ad and they don’t have the app already, they’ll be directed to the App Store or Google Play to download it.

The unit is automated; to buy an ad you merely have to fill out an online form and delineate which demo you’re trying to reach and what your budget is. Once you buy a unit, you can use Facebook’s analytics tools to assess its performance.

As Raji notes, there is clearly an audience for such a unit: In the past 30 days, Facebook has sent customers to the Apple App Store and Google Play 146 million times.

The introduction comes after Facebook introduced Sponsored Stories for the News Feed in June. A few independent studies have deemed the ads more effective than traditional desktop ads. Despite such success, investors appear skeptical of Facebook’s odds of maintaining its revenues via mobile ads.