Facebook Audience Network

What is the Facebook Audience Network or F.A.N?

The Facebook Audience Network is a new way for advertisers to extend their brand campaigns off facebook, into other mobile applications, mobile websites, instant articles, and videos using the same targeting data. Identical targeting, measurement, and delivery steps are taken to ensure each ad on the Audience Network helps you accomplish your campaign goals. Audience Network placements are useful when your goal is to increase website conversions, mobile application installation, mobile application engagement, dynamic ads, video views, or to generate more clicks to your websites. This means advertisers have more available ad units at lower costs, while publishers have another way to make money. Additionally, it means Facebook users will see the same Facebook ads all over the web. Essentially, the advertisements follow the users around the internet.

Facebook Audience Network Versus Google

In May of 2016, Facebook announced that the Facebook Audience Network was on track for a 1 billion dollar annual run rate. For being less than two years old, 1 billion dollars is very impressive. What's even more impressive is that researchers saw 10 times year-by-year (2015/2016) increase in FAN enabled apps using native formats! Additionally, Facebook has also chosen to expand FAN to mobile web inventory. This expansion is huge because it drastically increases FAN's reach. This drastic and rapid expansion hasn't gone without notice either. FAN is starting to become a big threat to Google, which has always been the dominant player in the industry.

Even with Facebook Audience Networks rapid expansion, Google is still the dominant mobile ad network. More specifically, the Google Display Network makes over four times ($4.14 billion) the revenue that FAN generates. However, Facebook has become the largest native-ad network available.

What's Next for FAN?

The Facebook team says they would eventually like to offer even more ad formats as well as different platforms. They also want to include additional marketing objectives in the future in addition to encourage app installs or app engagement. The Facebook Audience Network team expects to see better performance with the development of more ads, apps, and publishers. In the coming months, the Facebook Audience Network also plans to add additional advertisements for its mobile campaigns.