In the modern world, there’s nothing more ubiquitous or prominent in comparison to Facebook. No other online social media is to offer further exposure to prospects. And many avenue businesses managed to leverage an effective use of FB as a marketing platform. The paid advertisement has become one subject of moving matter through different iterations.
You may want to know the timeline of Facebook ads. The evolution brought some interesting, convenient & popular milestones.
Facebook Ads History
- 2004: Generation of Ad Revenue Under ‘Flyers’ Project
Roughly some months after its foundation, there started to occur some plans to monetize the media. It aimed at the provision of a small-sized financial cushion to set off the company ground.
Facebook started to sell bits & pieces of certain ad space. It includes companies promoting different sorts of offerings towards students. It wasn’t exactly any sophisticated means of digital advertising, yet marked a milestone in FB marketing history.
- 2007: Official Launching of Facebook Ads Platform
3 years after the initial project works, the company stepped forward to introduce an official large-scale ad platform. It allowed the business to create an individual profile to post photos, contents & user engagement.
It also included ‘Social Ads’ to combine social actions based on business-related activities. The features-initiated advertisement went through specified, targeted information. The ads started to appear on news feed & particular ad space.
- 2011: Introducing ‘Sponsored Stories’ – Desktop Ad Program
The project allowed paid advertisements to appear directly on the news feed. But the initial program was limited to specified ads & limited appearance per day. Eventually, it came with the idea of sharing sponsored content among virtual friends only.
There were reasons for the program to fail, from the user perspective. But digital advertisers took it one big step to market the products/services. Nonetheless, it was somewhat difficult to take out the ads entirely for FB users.
- 2012: Initiating Mobile Ads Program
Until 2012, the mobile app barely provided any monetary space. Even the users weren’t exactly happy about ads to cover the news feed. Then the company decided to keep ads somewhat easy on its mobile app.
The followed strategy aimed at keeping the sponsored ads discreet. It allowed limited ads from real estate, pressing & growing businesses with attractive content. This project managed to gain success to push the advertisers to drive further towards collective demands.
- 2014: Starting Brand New Advertisement Structure
The primary advertisement structure comprises of two sections – campaigns & ads. Campaigns included overarching plans to advertise specified objects. The level allowed the user to optimize & even measure the individual advertisement result. Meanwhile, ads remained as one subset of the campaign. It came with its own budget, targeting distinctive audience segments.
The improvised structure triggered a revolutionary change in the digital marketing platform. It made the entire system a thoughtful regimented structure. Not to mention, the program made it easier for everyone to navigate the ads space.
- 2016: Initiating Bost for Messenger
FB moved forward to capitalize on the ads potential through its messaging function. Among several means, the incorporation of Chatbot was to give a certain advantage. There were two paths for bot incorporation – Sponsored Messages & Click-to-Messenger ads.
The former one directly appeared on Messenger inbox to establish automated communication by clicking on the message. In the meantime, the latter path came with CTA leverage in user inbox with incentive contents.
- 2018 – 2020: Expansion of Ads Format
Over time, FB continued to introduce the further format to ease the digital advertising. As for 2020, there are 8 different formats available for ads –
- Photo
- Video
- Story
- Messenger
- Carousel
- Slideshow
- Collection
- Playable Content
You’re to expect further expansion with time ahead of progressing the ads program.
- Future of Facebook Advertisement
Neither of the processes nor practices seems to have any stagnant concept. The entire platform will continue to evolve, changing the current forms. Emergence of privacy & data regulation is to call for lots of modification as well as improvement.
Customers don’t want interruption while scrolling down the news feed. It’s important to keep the advertisement occurring naturally. And the demands will obviously result in further change in its current structure, policy & format.