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Facebook's root problem is intent. Users who are googling something and seeing AdWords ads are looking for something and often the thing they're looking for sho

Facebook's root problem is intent. Users who are googling something and seeing AdWords ads are looking for something and often the thing they're looking for shows up as an ad so they - suprise! - click the ad and often become a conversion once on the site. With Facebook there is zero helpful intent. The only intent when you're on Facebook is to use Facebook. And if you do click an ad, you're less likely to become a conversion because your intent is still to get back to Facebook as soon as possible and see the rest of Dave's party photos or whatever.

fragsworth 14y ago
I wouldn't say Facebook has a huge problem here - users spend much more time on Facebook than on Google (by design) and even if they don't intend to do anything other than "use Facebook", the ads are effective as a result of their high exposure. That said, however, a very large group of users are there to play social games. With social game companies competing for ad space (for these often highly-profitable users), they're driving up the price of ads and making it less economical for other industries to advertise on Facebook.
wvenable 14y ago
When watching TV the intent is to watch TV, not purchase soap, a car, or a soft drink. It might be that Facebook's ads are simply the wrong type/style for the kind of interaction people use it for. It does seem like Facebook ads feel like Google search ads.
- franciscoapinto 14y ago
  > When watching TV the intent is to watch TV, not purchase soap, a car, or a soft drink. The difference being that facebook doesn't make you watch a 10 second ad between each one of Dave's party photos.
  - matthewcford 14y ago
    Clearly this is where they're failing.. should also inject pre/post roll ads on all videos
    - DEADBEEF 14y ago
      ...worked for youtube.
      - Drbble 14y ago
        Naw it was the ads overlaying the videos that made YouTube the win win experience it is.
  - wvenable 14y ago
    Could imagine a "Facebook brought to you by Ford" day where the entire interface is skinned -- I think that would be worth a lot of money.
- jrockway 14y ago
  Or, TV ads don't actually work very well. Since we can't track conversions, we don't really know. Advertisers are paying for it, so why rain on the parade?
natrius 14y ago
For brand advertisers like GM, intent is supposed to matter less. The lack of intent was always a known factor, but I personally expected big brands to be comfortable with Facebook's lower click through rates. The fact that they're not is a huge red flag.
- malandrew 14y ago
  True, but my impression is that most Facebook ads feel like performance ads and not display ads. I don't recall seeing GM ads on Facebook, but I would bet that they look and feel like performance ads and not display ads.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  My immediate reaction to this is that "Behemoth old company has not yet learned to optimize its Facebook messaging".
  - natrius 14y ago
    I assure you that plenty of Facebook employee time was likely spent trying to optimize their campaigns. Ten million dollar clients don't learn; they're taught.
malandrew 14y ago
Intent is huge. I've never been one to click on Google Ads except in real rare instances. Only once I observed my mom using Google did I realize the full value of intent and google ads while searching. She wanted to watch an episode of The Good Wife that she had missed so she searched in the Safari omnibar for "watch The Good Wife" and the first div under the search bar is an ad to some site that was not CBS that had the Good Wife available to watch via streaming video. To you and I, it's obvious that this "first result" is ad and we would skip over it to the first result. But to my mom, she thinks it's a search result and clicks on it. When she arrives on the site she thinks she's on the CBS site because they naively assumes like many consumers that the site showing the content would be CBS. She doesn't even think twice about the identity. When you are used to TV, you blindly trust that the site/channel showing the content is the correct one. The only reason I discovered this was because she asked me to pull up The Good Wife to watch on CBS. I, being a savvier internet user, just navigated straight to cbs.com to search there. I got to their Good Wife site and lo and behold, there is no streaming video available on CBS, only teasers and behind the scenes content. I told my mom that "No, CBS doesn't have it on their site" and she was like "Yeah they do. I watch it all the time". I then asked her to show me exactly how she found it on CBS and that was when she showed me that she in fact was clicking on the ad in Google Search between the search box and the search results thinking it was in fact the first result. That's the power of intent and Facebook doesn't have that.
- pmorici 14y ago
  "That's the power of intent and Facebook doesn't have that." Sure they do... Status Update from malandrew's mom: "OMG I can't wait to watch the new episode of The Good Wife tonight!" Facebook ads: "Click here to watch The latest Episode of the Good Wife" Facebook could has something better than Google intent in that they should be able to predict what you intend to search for before you go looking for it.
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    Facebook could has something better than Google intent in that they should be able to predict what you intend to search for before you go looking for it. You could say that Google responds to your demand while Facebook (at least in potential) creates new demands.
ericax 14y ago
So true. Facebook ads and Google Ads are essentially different.
veverkap 14y ago
Dave's party was awesome. :) This is very true. I only go to Facebook to use Facebook.
hkmurakami 14y ago
>With Facebook there is zero helpful intent. The only intent when you're on Facebook is to use Facebook. This might be the case right now, but what about in the future? I think that's what Google et al. are scared about. If users spend 90% of their internet time on Facebook, and Facebook figures out how to serve users with "What they are looking for" 5 years down the road, then users will have a very low barrier to trying out the Facebook "look-up" service. Right now, my use of the internet is (1) sites I already know exist, or (2) Google, in order to find things. What if this becomes (1.1) Facebook, to look at things served from other sites that I like, and (1.2) Facebook, to find things that I don't know about? That's scary for companies counting on the status quo. Sites' share of user time is important not for how they are now, but how things might become in the future. It's a huge about of leverage.
kposehn 14y ago
> With Facebook there is zero helpful intent. The only intent when you're on Facebook is to use Facebook. It isn't about intent - it is about interest. > And if you do click an ad, you're less likely to become a conversion because your intent is still to get back to Facebook as soon as possible and see the rest of Dave's party photos or whatever. Not necessarily. I'm working with a customer right now where I have a 24% conversion rate on movie tickets. They routinely shell out $7-$21 a pop with this conversion rate; the catch is, I have to be very careful about who I target. This kind of trend goes across the entire industry of FB ads - target well, optimize and approach based on interest and the money will follow.
- ThomPete 14y ago
  Interest is far from enough anymore and I think your example is an exception to prove the rule. Go watching a movie are such an ingrained part of life for many people and thus we are always "on the look" for a good movie to go watch. But try and do that with a car brand or any other non-commodity and intent suddently becomes the most important factor.
  - kposehn 14y ago
    Interest can be quite enough; I'd also say that GM's is the exception instead. Generally speaking, the majority of online advertising is geared toward interest in the first place because interest leads to intent. Facebook is earlier in the customer acquisition lifecycle as you can grab their interest before the intent, and then they'll go directly to you instead of searching. This is why Google in general has been so scared of Facebook (not that I think they should be). What is happening is that people are figuring out ways to cut search out of the loop. Take a look at all those online games you see on FB ads now. I can tell you that most of the MMO ad budget now goes to Facebook as you can easily get people to download the game and start playing, whereas trying to pick people off search for MMO's is obscenely expensive. As search saturates, marketers tend to move towards the point of greatest ROI, which happens to be in the interest phase. Cars are a tough sell, no matter where you try. I'm not saying that every single type of product works on FB, just that we really should not compare FB to AdWords in the first place.

fragsworth 14y ago

I wouldn't say Facebook has a huge problem here - users spend much more time on Facebook than on Google (by design) and even if they don't intend to do anything other than "use Facebook", the ads are effective as a result of their high exposure. That said, however, a very large group of users are there to play social games. With social game companies competing for ad space (for these often highly-profitable users), they're driving up the price of ads and making it less economical for other industries to advertise on Facebook.

wvenable 14y ago

When watching TV the intent is to watch TV, not purchase soap, a car, or a soft drink. It might be that Facebook's ads are simply the wrong type/style for the kind of interaction people use it for. It does seem like Facebook ads feel like Google search ads.

franciscoapinto 14y ago
> When watching TV the intent is to watch TV, not purchase soap, a car, or a soft drink. The difference being that facebook doesn't make you watch a 10 second ad between each one of Dave's party photos.
- matthewcford 14y ago
  Clearly this is where they're failing.. should also inject pre/post roll ads on all videos
  - DEADBEEF 14y ago
    ...worked for youtube.
    - Drbble 14y ago
      Naw it was the ads overlaying the videos that made YouTube the win win experience it is.
- wvenable 14y ago
  Could imagine a "Facebook brought to you by Ford" day where the entire interface is skinned -- I think that would be worth a lot of money.
jrockway 14y ago
Or, TV ads don't actually work very well. Since we can't track conversions, we don't really know. Advertisers are paying for it, so why rain on the parade?

natrius 14y ago

For brand advertisers like GM, intent is supposed to matter less. The lack of intent was always a known factor, but I personally expected big brands to be comfortable with Facebook's lower click through rates. The fact that they're not is a huge red flag.

malandrew 14y ago
True, but my impression is that most Facebook ads feel like performance ads and not display ads. I don't recall seeing GM ads on Facebook, but I would bet that they look and feel like performance ads and not display ads.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
My immediate reaction to this is that "Behemoth old company has not yet learned to optimize its Facebook messaging".
- natrius 14y ago
  I assure you that plenty of Facebook employee time was likely spent trying to optimize their campaigns. Ten million dollar clients don't learn; they're taught.

malandrew 14y ago

Intent is huge. I've never been one to click on Google Ads except in real rare instances. Only once I observed my mom using Google did I realize the full value of intent and google ads while searching. She wanted to watch an episode of The Good Wife that she had missed so she searched in the Safari omnibar for "watch The Good Wife" and the first div under the search bar is an ad to some site that was not CBS that had the Good Wife available to watch via streaming video. To you and I, it's obvious that this "first result" is ad and we would skip over it to the first result. But to my mom, she thinks it's a search result and clicks on it. When she arrives on the site she thinks she's on the CBS site because they naively assumes like many consumers that the site showing the content would be CBS. She doesn't even think twice about the identity. When you are used to TV, you blindly trust that the site/channel showing the content is the correct one. The only reason I discovered this was because she asked me to pull up The Good Wife to watch on CBS. I, being a savvier internet user, just navigated straight to cbs.com to search there. I got to their Good Wife site and lo and behold, there is no streaming video available on CBS, only teasers and behind the scenes content. I told my mom that "No, CBS doesn't have it on their site" and she was like "Yeah they do. I watch it all the time". I then asked her to show me exactly how she found it on CBS and that was when she showed me that she in fact was clicking on the ad in Google Search between the search box and the search results thinking it was in fact the first result. That's the power of intent and Facebook doesn't have that.

pmorici 14y ago
"That's the power of intent and Facebook doesn't have that." Sure they do... Status Update from malandrew's mom: "OMG I can't wait to watch the new episode of The Good Wife tonight!" Facebook ads: "Click here to watch The latest Episode of the Good Wife" Facebook could has something better than Google intent in that they should be able to predict what you intend to search for before you go looking for it.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  Facebook could has something better than Google intent in that they should be able to predict what you intend to search for before you go looking for it. You could say that Google responds to your demand while Facebook (at least in potential) creates new demands.

ericax 14y ago

So true. Facebook ads and Google Ads are essentially different.

veverkap 14y ago

Dave's party was awesome. :) This is very true. I only go to Facebook to use Facebook.

hkmurakami 14y ago

>With Facebook there is zero helpful intent. The only intent when you're on Facebook is to use Facebook. This might be the case right now, but what about in the future? I think that's what Google et al. are scared about. If users spend 90% of their internet time on Facebook, and Facebook figures out how to serve users with "What they are looking for" 5 years down the road, then users will have a very low barrier to trying out the Facebook "look-up" service. Right now, my use of the internet is (1) sites I already know exist, or (2) Google, in order to find things. What if this becomes (1.1) Facebook, to look at things served from other sites that I like, and (1.2) Facebook, to find things that I don't know about? That's scary for companies counting on the status quo. Sites' share of user time is important not for how they are now, but how things might become in the future. It's a huge about of leverage.

kposehn 14y ago

> With Facebook there is zero helpful intent. The only intent when you're on Facebook is to use Facebook. It isn't about intent - it is about interest. > And if you do click an ad, you're less likely to become a conversion because your intent is still to get back to Facebook as soon as possible and see the rest of Dave's party photos or whatever. Not necessarily. I'm working with a customer right now where I have a 24% conversion rate on movie tickets. They routinely shell out $7-$21 a pop with this conversion rate; the catch is, I have to be very careful about who I target. This kind of trend goes across the entire industry of FB ads - target well, optimize and approach based on interest and the money will follow.

ThomPete 14y ago
Interest is far from enough anymore and I think your example is an exception to prove the rule. Go watching a movie are such an ingrained part of life for many people and thus we are always "on the look" for a good movie to go watch. But try and do that with a car brand or any other non-commodity and intent suddently becomes the most important factor.
- kposehn 14y ago
  Interest can be quite enough; I'd also say that GM's is the exception instead. Generally speaking, the majority of online advertising is geared toward interest in the first place because interest leads to intent. Facebook is earlier in the customer acquisition lifecycle as you can grab their interest before the intent, and then they'll go directly to you instead of searching. This is why Google in general has been so scared of Facebook (not that I think they should be). What is happening is that people are figuring out ways to cut search out of the loop. Take a look at all those online games you see on FB ads now. I can tell you that most of the MMO ad budget now goes to Facebook as you can easily get people to download the game and start playing, whereas trying to pick people off search for MMO's is obscenely expensive. As search saturates, marketers tend to move towards the point of greatest ROI, which happens to be in the interest phase. Cars are a tough sell, no matter where you try. I'm not saying that every single type of product works on FB, just that we really should not compare FB to AdWords in the first place.