Facebook just announced the expansion of the Audience Network from strictly apps to the mobile web. This means that Facebook’s 2.5 million advertisers can reach more people on their mobile devices.
According to the company, which cites data from comScore, digital media consumption in mobile web browsers grew 53% from 2013 to 2015 with news sites seeing 40% of their traffic from mobile devices and 93% of that from the mobile web (according to SimilarWeb).
“Until today, publishers had limited options to create rich and engaging ad experiences for the people who visit their mobile websites,” says Facebook’s Mike Murphey. “Over the past several months we’ve worked with global mobile web publishers Hearst, Elite Daily, USA Today Sports Media Group, Time Inc. and more, to test the Audience Network for mobile web in a closed beta.”
“We’re expanding into mobile web with successful native formats that make up over 80 percent of the impressions on the Audience Network today and perform up to 7x better than standard banners formats,” Murphey says. “Publishers can now leverage our fully customizable native units, and innovative formats like carousel ads that showcase multiple images to create unique ad experiences that match the look and feel of their mobile website. We’re also helping publishers create easy-to-implement native versions of standard formats, such as 300×250 medium rectangle, to improve the ads experience of every ad served from Audience Network.”
A couple months ago, Facebook released some stats on Audience Network, saying apps using it account for 6% of all mobile app time spent.
Image via Facebook