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"They're going steal a hugely valuable ad market from Linkedin." Why? Facebook isn't known for career/jobs. It's for users to look at fun photos, chat, and pl

"They're going steal a hugely valuable ad market from Linkedin." Why? Facebook isn't known for career/jobs. It's for users to look at fun photos, chat, and play games. I contend it would be hard for Facebook to be known as a professional site (let alone have the credibility for advertisers to migrate en masse) "Furthermore local advertising on Facebook is vastly under-utilized" If we both already agree that search converts better than social ads, why would local advertisers switch from Google to Facebook? If it's only about price, Google can undercut Facebook in an instant. EDIT: If anything, the recent attempt to add job/career to profile page for Facebook smacks of desperation. Like trying to go after an established market.

ig1 16y ago
Advertisers don't care if it's a professional site or not. Look at the Oracle ads in consumer news magazines. Companies will advertise where they can reach their target market. Right now on my Facebook page I have two professional ads (one for a CRM system and one for a business IT news site) and two Facebook game ads. On top of that Linkedin is truly awful when it comes to targeting. Their job categories are ridiculously broad, if you want to target Software Engineers or Aero Engineers, you can't. Instead you have to target "IT" and "Engineering" - categorizations which combine together barely related roles. It would be very easy for Facebook to offer more precise targeting, that alone would be a killer feature over Linkedin. Search has a higher CTR but not a higher eCPA, a well designed Facebook ad can convert much more cheaply than buying targeted keywords, you'll need to buy many more ads, but the end cost is what matter. (Incidentally most local companies don't advertise online at all, it's not a case of stealing customers from Google, etc. but rather a case of persuading them that it's worthwhile. Hence the rise of local ad brokers who buy CPM and sell CPA, as it's much easier to convince a local business to advertise through you if they don't have to pay you until after you generate business).
- chailatte 16y ago
  Most advertisers don't have the budget/time/patience to run and manage ineffective ads across multiple sites. Especially when you know your Facebook users have a mindset of 'fun', i.e games, chatting, photos. Sure, some companies have huge budgets (oracle), and some companies are just trying their luck (small CRM company), but that's no way to have a very profitable advertising platform. Sooner or later these advertisers will leave for greener fields. After all, what good is ads targeting, when the users ignore the ads to play games/look at photos? As far as cost for ads is concerned, I don't think Facebook stands a chance. Google can undercut Facebook anytime with their 30 billion dollar cash reserve.
  - ig1 16y ago
    Consider it from an advertiser prospective if you make $5 per customer, and it costs you $1 to get a customer from Facebook, then you'll quite happily keep paying Facebook $1 for as long as you keep getting customers. If Google undercut them and offer you ads for $0.50, you'll buy both ! I currently buy ads at Google, Facebook, Linkedin and PlentyOfFish. Find me another source of effective advertising and I'll advertise there too. Unless your margins are razor thin and you have tiny volumes, it seems unlikely that the extra time you have to spend managing your ad campaigns would justify not using them. After all just because the CTR of Facebook is smaller than Google it doesn't mean you have to invest more time into it because your ad has to be seen 100x more often to get the same CTR.
    - chailatte 16y ago
      That was a mispeak. I should've used 'money-losing' instead of the word 'ineffective'. My point is there are only certain ads that is money making on Facebook, thus my reference to users' mindset of 'fun'.

ig1 16y ago

Advertisers don't care if it's a professional site or not. Look at the Oracle ads in consumer news magazines. Companies will advertise where they can reach their target market. Right now on my Facebook page I have two professional ads (one for a CRM system and one for a business IT news site) and two Facebook game ads. On top of that Linkedin is truly awful when it comes to targeting. Their job categories are ridiculously broad, if you want to target Software Engineers or Aero Engineers, you can't. Instead you have to target "IT" and "Engineering" - categorizations which combine together barely related roles. It would be very easy for Facebook to offer more precise targeting, that alone would be a killer feature over Linkedin. Search has a higher CTR but not a higher eCPA, a well designed Facebook ad can convert much more cheaply than buying targeted keywords, you'll need to buy many more ads, but the end cost is what matter. (Incidentally most local companies don't advertise online at all, it's not a case of stealing customers from Google, etc. but rather a case of persuading them that it's worthwhile. Hence the rise of local ad brokers who buy CPM and sell CPA, as it's much easier to convince a local business to advertise through you if they don't have to pay you until after you generate business).

chailatte 16y ago
Most advertisers don't have the budget/time/patience to run and manage ineffective ads across multiple sites. Especially when you know your Facebook users have a mindset of 'fun', i.e games, chatting, photos. Sure, some companies have huge budgets (oracle), and some companies are just trying their luck (small CRM company), but that's no way to have a very profitable advertising platform. Sooner or later these advertisers will leave for greener fields. After all, what good is ads targeting, when the users ignore the ads to play games/look at photos? As far as cost for ads is concerned, I don't think Facebook stands a chance. Google can undercut Facebook anytime with their 30 billion dollar cash reserve.
- ig1 16y ago
  Consider it from an advertiser prospective if you make $5 per customer, and it costs you $1 to get a customer from Facebook, then you'll quite happily keep paying Facebook $1 for as long as you keep getting customers. If Google undercut them and offer you ads for $0.50, you'll buy both ! I currently buy ads at Google, Facebook, Linkedin and PlentyOfFish. Find me another source of effective advertising and I'll advertise there too. Unless your margins are razor thin and you have tiny volumes, it seems unlikely that the extra time you have to spend managing your ad campaigns would justify not using them. After all just because the CTR of Facebook is smaller than Google it doesn't mean you have to invest more time into it because your ad has to be seen 100x more often to get the same CTR.
  - chailatte 16y ago
    That was a mispeak. I should've used 'money-losing' instead of the word 'ineffective'. My point is there are only certain ads that is money making on Facebook, thus my reference to users' mindset of 'fun'.