Facebook’s New Ad Format Outperforms Standard Ads

With 1 billion users and expectant shareholders, Facebook is under great pressure to improve its monetization of users to turn its customer base into advertising revenues. In October 2012 Facebook launched the new Page Post Ad format, which shows each ad directly in a user’s newsfeed side by side with posts from friends.

Utilizing users’ regular webcams EyeTrackShop tracked gaze patterns on Facebook pages featuring the new ads. In five online visual performance studies independent of each other, participants took the surveys from their own homes without knowing the subject of the test.

Results from the five visual performance studies show that the Facebook Page Post Ad attracts 92% of the users’ gaze, which is more than 200% higher visibility compared to the Facebook Standard Ad, which only 46% of the users see.

Other visual performance studies executed by EyeTrackShop have shown that up to 50% of all online ad impressions are never looked at.

When EyeTrackShop compared pricing to visual performance the Facebook Page Post Ad had a significantly lower CPV* – Cost per Visual – than the average online display ad. In other words the cost of a Facebook Page Post Ad is only 30% of the average online display ad, making Facebook an untapped potential for brand advertisers.

*Cost per Visual is the Cost per thousand views that can be compared to the concept of CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions)