Native ads from publishers are coming to the Facebook News Feed - Blurring the line between news and advertisements
Native ads from publishers are coming to the Facebook
News Feed
Blurring the line between news and advertisements
By Casey Newton on
April 8, 2016 03:00 pm
Publishers make an increasing percentage of their
revenues through so-called "branded content" — articles and videos
that look and feel like standard editorial products, but paid for by
advertisers. At the same time, publishers' audiences are increasingly migrating
from their websites to other platforms, most notably Facebook. Until now, it
has been against Facebook's rules for publishers to post paid articles on their
pages, which also appear in your News Feed. But after pressure from publishers,
Facebook has agreed to allow sponsored posts on pages, the Wall Street Journal
reported today.
Publishers that wish to post sponsored content must have
pages that have been verified by Facebook, and will be required to
"tag" the brand that paid for the post. "For a long time, for
media companies, Facebook has been primarily about distribution," Dan
Rose, the company's vice president of partnerships, told the Journal. "But
we're increasingly trying to help partners make money. And this is something
they've been asking for a lot."
They've been asking because readers typically respond
better to these ads than traditionals and banners — and are significantly more
expensive as a result. (Vox Media, which owns The Verge, makes a variety of
native advertisements, and they constitute the majority of its revenues.) In a
blog post, Facebook said the new policy applies to text, photos, videos,
Instant Articles, links, 360 videos, and Live videos. It's considered
promotional if it "specifically mentions or features a third party
product, brand, or sponsor."
Facebook benefits here in a few ways. One, it
distinguishes ads from editorial content at a time when some publishers were
surreptitiously posting ads and not identifying them as such. Two, it lets
Facebook distinguish between paid and regular posts on publisher pages, and
sort them in the News Feed accordingly. And if paid posts generally perform
worse than editorial posts, as one would imagine, Facebook will benefit when
marketers pay to boost those posts in the News Feed. This begins to answer the
question of how Facebook will monetize its big push into live video — some of
its publisher deals allow it to share revenue with publishers on sponsored
posts.
Today's move feels inevitable, and for publishers, it's
significant. (Expect to see a lot of live video series sponsored by
advertisers.) The question for regular people is how they'll feel about seeing
yet another ad format in the News Feed. We're about to find out.
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