Ask any Facebook user about Facebook Ads – they only want one thing – less of them.
In an attempt to boost revenue and appease Wall Street, Facebook has been rolling out a ton of announcements over the past few weeks about additional ad placement on user pages, search results and third party sites – paving the way for a content ad network similar to Google’s Adsense. Facebook also announced a new targeting option that allows businesses to target ads to users based on their phone number or email address. Facebook may have over estimated the willingness of users to simply accept the new ad units. Negative feedback is flooding social networks such as Twitter. Just occasionally checking the tweet stream I discovered users posting comments such as these:
@Dopeness_Chriz Facebook got too many ads now…
@JulietDread Is it just me or is Facebook getting more and MORE covered with Ads and Advertisement???? :/
@Vulture9 I’m not going to use the #Facebook app on my tablet or phone anymore there are to many ads going to log in on browser to avoid them.
@AnnuSparkz Wow these facebook ads are a #pissoff
@GOLD_rush5261 Why are there ads on my Facebook?!?
@ColourMeTahh First Facebook Now Twitter .. These Damn Ads Better Get On Somewhere !!
@karemeow So many “sponsored” ads on Facebook that I didn’t ask for.
@food_crush There are 5 weight-loss ads on my Facebook page right now. Do you think Facebook is trying to tell me something? Frankly, I’m
offended.
@drumminlogan 3 out of 6 facebook ads I’m seeing are zoomed in front images of men in underwear. Another is just a guy w/ shirt off. #WTF.
@haylee_batson I’m getting really fed up with all of these ads on everything, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr … EVERYTHING. It’s getting fucking old.
As a marketer I applaud deeper access to user data and more ad units, however I’m starting to get concerned that ad performance and user engagement will begin to suffer more than we’ve seen over the past few months. While Facebook continues to add users and more ad display units we’ve seen our cost per sale figures continue to rise across the board with decrease volume.
Is Facebook closely monitoring the situation? Will they take action soon to appease both advertisers and users? Are they still seeing enough gains internally to not only continue with the current ad display changes but possibly include more ads in even more intrusive ways? Will Facebook users eventually stop clicking ads all together? Let me know your opinions and predictions in the comments.
