Facebook allows advertisers to choose Sponsored Stories placement in News Feed or mobile

Facebook advertisers are now able to buy Sponsored Stories in News Feed and on mobile separately from other ad placements by using the Ads API or Power Editor tool, the company tells us.

Previously, advertisers could not choose where their Sponsored Stories were shown, and they did not get a breakdown of performance by placement. This change will give advertisers more control over their ads and more data to be able to optimize their campaigns. For the first time, advertisers will be able to specifically indicate that they want their ads to be shown in the mobile News Feed, which presents new opportunities for app and game developers to reach Facebook users while they’re on their phones.

As seen in this image from Power Editor, advertisers can choose to show their ads in on the desktop right-hand side, desktop News Feed, mobile News Feed or all locations. This is useful for advertisers whose page or application is desktop- or mobile-only. For instance, a page seeking to drive users to a landing tab would want to promote within the desktop News Feed, but not on mobile where tabs aren’t accessible. An iOS or Android developer, however, would want to choose mobile only.

With Sponsored Stories, advertisers can only reach users who have already Liked their page or added their app, or who have friends that have connected with a page or app. Advertisers can’t specifically choose their own copy, but they can choose to promote different actions, for example, Liking a page, earning a high score or reading an article. Third-party mobile apps can then drive users to a specific section within their app or an app download page. The following story from Turntable.fm was not promoted with Sponsored Stories, but it shows the type of activity that can be sponsored and how it could drive app downloads.

Advertisers looking to promote a page or particular post might want to run different ad variations to find the best performing placement. Sponsored Stories in the feed are likely to have higher clickthrough rates than those on the right-hand side, but is too early to tell what sort of price variation there is between these different locations.

Advertisers can buy mobile or desktop News Feed placement through a third-party provider with access to the Ads API or through the Power Editor tool, but not the main self-serve ad dashboard.

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Facebook monetizes users logging out with premium ad placement on logout page

Facebook announced today that premium ads will be displayed on a new “logout experience” page, immediately after Facebook users log out of Facebook using their desktop web browser. This is part of a significant overhaul of its premium advertising options available to advertisers working directly with the company.

Previously, when users logged out of Facebook, they were redirected to the logged-out home page that prompts users to either login or register a new account. Now the page can feature a very large and prominent ad, which logically replaces the signup portion of the page that is not relevant to users who already have Facebook accounts. We have a photo of the logout page below from today’s keynote presentation, but are awaiting more images from Facebook to confirm the exact appearance of the new page:

Though many Facebook users stay logged in for long periods, this potentially represents monetization of hundreds of millions of monthly pageviews that previously display advertising. The addition of premium ads to the logout page will help Facebook generate enough impressions to reach the 75 percent of fans that it guarantees through its Reach Generator solution for Premium advertisers, also announced today.

Any premium page post ad is eligible to be shown on the logout screen. This includes videos, photos, offers, events and questions. A user does not have to be connected to a page in order to see this type of ad.

Stay tuned for more coverage of today’s fMC event, and see our liveblog of the keynote presentation.

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The Facebook Like Button Placement Guide for Websites

The following is an excerpt from the Facebook Marketing Bible, the comprehensive guide to marketing your company, app, brand, or website using Facebook. The full version of this article, available through a Facebook Marketing Bible subscription, includes an explanation of which Like buttons have publishing capabilities, strategies for adding Like buttons to brand websites, social games, and web apps, and more content types that news, shopping, and review sites can add Like buttons to.

Facebook’s Like button can help a variety of sites forge communication channels with their visitors and generate referral traffic from Facebook. We’ve previously published a Like button style guide for choosing between the various Like button formats, and a walk-through of how to pick the Open Graph meta tags that will maximize the lifetime value of your Like buttons. In the third installment of this series on using the Like button, we’ll look at examples of what kinds of content sites can add Like buttons to and what types of posts to publish to those who click these buttons.

Articles –  Placing lightweight Like buttons on articles allow users to quickly share them with friends, but the button’s owner can’t publish future news feed updates to those who click.Authors – Add Like buttons for authors to their dedicated author profiles, next to their by-line in articles they’ve written, or simply at the beginning or end of any of their articles. Then publish any new stories, quotes, or insights by that author to all those who’ve clicked their Like button. For example, news site The Independent has added a Like button to one of its authors, Simon Carr.

Topics – Rather than putting lightweight Like buttons on articles, news sites can tie Like buttons to a topic discussed within the article. When future articles discuss the same topic, sites can reuse the same Like button, and publish these articles as news feed updates to those who’ve already clicked the button. For example, a Like button could be created for Barack Obama, healthcare, or the iPhone 4.

Review Subjects – By placing a standard Like button on the subjects being reviewed, such as a restaurant or film, users can express their affinity for that thing to their friends, and opt in to receive news feed updates whenever news reviews of it are added. For example, a site could add Like buttons to Bender’s Bar & Grill, or the film Aladdin.

Products – Placing Like buttons on each item an ecommerce store carries gives users a quick way to share with friends, driving additional sales. The site can then publish news feed stories to those who’ve clicked the buttons about when items are put on sale, almost out of stock, restocked, or redesigned. This button can also be shown at the end of the checkout flow, making it easy for users to share the news of their purchase with friends. For example, a bike store could put the Like button on the new Tommaso road bike.

Access the full Like button placement guide for websites containing strategies for more types a sites, a review of the functionalities of different Like buttons, and a walk-through of how to publish to Like buttons, as well as the other parts of our series on the Like button in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s industry leading resource for marketing and advertising on Facebook.

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