Marketers struggling to come to terms with the latest downer on mobile ads have another set of figures to pore over with a new study showing Facebook mobile ads are 23 times more engaging than their desktop equivalent.
The findings, in the latest quarterly report from ad agency TBG Digital, follow last week’s admission by Google that it was struggling to make money from the smartphone revolution, as its traditional online ad formats were not compatible.
Facebook, however, appears to be finding the opposite, although observers are quick to point out it is starting from a much lower base. Mobile ads that run in the news feed had click-through rates 23 times higher than its Desktop News Feed and Right Hand Side ad formats alone.
This has helped to push average click-through rates across the whole Facebook ad network, as measured by TBG, by some 81% in Q3 (compared to only 11% last quarter), with the US seeing a 99% increase.
The numbers are based on 520 billion impressions, in 190 countries for 282 of Facebook’s biggest clients, and it has been analysing the data quarterly since Q1 2011 in conjunction with the University of Cambridge.
The last quarterly report published by TBG showed that click-throughs were 14 times that of desktop ads. Mobile is also being used to lift performance on desktop: TBG found that targeting desktop and mobile News Feed ads together gave an even better performance.
TBG chief executive Simon Mansell said: “In Europe, the preference is for ads that are direct-response focused. Brands are more interested in formats like the ASU [advertising standard unit], which sends traffic off Facebook to those brands’ sites,” he notes.
But as Facebook introduces more formats to the mobile platform, this is likely to pick up, said Mansell. “The new ad unit to promote mobile applications could see an uptick in mobile ad buys from brands looking to promote mobile apps specifically.”
Related stories
FB playing catch-up on mobile ads
