Facebook doubles its display advertising inventory overnight

August 7, 2008
by Robert Weatherhead

This is all very interesting and should please many a Facebook fan but the one thing to note from a display advertising perspective is that hidden amongst the changes to the layout is an additional advertising spot! Previously the Facebook display advertising format on their standard pages has been either a single skyscraper (served by MSN) or one of their own, flyer ads, for which they use their profile targeting. But since the redesign, not only have the ads moved from the left hand margin to the right, they have doubled the ads shown. They are now showing either two of their own flyer ads, or one of their own in addition to one of the MSN skyscrapers. So they now have double the advertising inventory they can sell.

This is great for Facebook as it doubles the potential ad revenue they can generate, but only if they can sell the space. In a lot of instances in the past you will have seen Facebook’s own ad in one of the flyer spaces when they haven’t been able to sell that space. Now they have double the inventory to fulfil what are their chances? I’m not sure if they are in a position to fulfil this potential just at the moment but I suppose it made sense to introduce this change as part of the redesign rather than needing to make it further down the line.

And what does it do for user experience? The one display ad tended to go pretty much unnoticed but doubling the ad space changes that slightly. If this new model is a success, where next? A third and fourth ad sacrificing user experience in the search for share holder value? It could be a slippery slope if they go down this route.