In an effort to boost its advertising repertoire, Facebook on Tuesday unveiled new ad offerings both for its own platform and for its third-party ad network.
The biggest newcomer in Facebook’s Audience Network is native video. The company said on Tuesday that the same auto-playing native video ads found on Facebook will now be made available to partner publishers and inside other apps. Videos are among the most lucrative online ad formats right now, so it’s no surprise Facebook is bolstering its offerings here.
Facebook is also adding click-to-play formats (useful for games), carousel ads (for showing several images in one ad), and Dynamic Product Ads to its interstitial ad options.
Introduced earlier this year, Dynamic Product Ads are Facebook’s answer to Google’s Product Listing Ads. They let advertisers show customizable ads to users based on what they’ve viewed or clicked on in the past — shoes from the same designer whose bag they just viewed, for example. Facebook says the format has been been so successful that it’s now adding even more features in an effort to bolster conversions.
Facebook also says that it will tweak its algorithm in hopes of serving ads to users who are more likely to make a final purchase, not just click on an ad. The company says that might have a negative effect on overall click-through rates, but if successful, it should make those clicks more valuable to advertisers.