Traffic
US Led Facebook Growth in August 2010, Mexico and India Tied for Second
[Editor's Note: The data cited in this article is excerpted from Inside Facebook Gold , our data service tracking Facebook's business and growth around the world. Please see Inside Facebook Gold to learn more about our complete data and analysis offering.] The United States has fully bounced back from a period of slow growth in June. Following fairly strong July numbers , we’re now seeing a big gain of five million new monthly active users in August for Facebook’s home country. Seasonality can serve to explain some of what’s happening in the US — early summer has traditionally been a slow period for social networks and other youth-dominated sites, as high school and college kids take a break from school. But there appears to be more to the story. The overall penetration level of the US has continued to creep up through monthly volatility, now standing at 43.8 percent overall. The common wisdom has held that US growth would likely level out at around 40 percent penetration. That hasn’t happened yet, with the US continuing to provide the strongest gains for Facebook more often than not. Still, the US cannot at this point grow quickly enough to keep up with the group of developing-world nations led by Mexico and India, which both came in at just under 1.7 million new users. Mexico and India seem a world apart from one another — and they are, in both geography and population. Yet they’re closer in terms of internet penetration, at about 30 million and 80 million respectively . The two countries are also similarly experiencing booms of youthful, internet-savvy people . Mexico is on the verge of becoming North America’s second largest market , while India has huge potential as more and more of its residents gain access to the internet . Several more countries on this leaderboard offer a similar story. Indonesia’s growth rate has slowed somewhat over the course of this year, but it still looks set to pass the 30 million mark, and is just a few thousand users short of beating the United Kingdom to become Facebook’s second-largest market. Its smaller neighbor, the Philippines, is on a similar trajectory. Turkey, the United Kingdom and Canada all fall into the same bucket as the US, in terms of growth: each month, it’s something of a surprise to see them reappear on the leaderboards. Canada, notably, is on the verge of becoming the first medium-sized country to break 50 percent penetration. Finally, Germany and Brazil deserve special note. We’ve heard several times that these markets will be tough for Facebook because the social network is catching hold with wealthier, more worldly users first, instead of the mass market. Yet they also continue to post satisfying growth numbers. It might be worth remembering, at this point, that Facebook won out over MySpace by catching hold with similar groups. The countries listed above accounted for a bit over half of Facebook’s total growth in August, sending 14.7 million new monthly active users to the network — almost double what the top 10 added in July. They grew an average of 7.5 percent each. The traffic and growth data cited above is excerpted from the full Facebook Global Monitor, September 2010 edition. The Global Monitor is available through Inside Facebook Gold , our data and analysis membership which also includes analysis on developments, risks and opportunities in the Facebook business ecosystem. To learn more or join the membership, please visit Inside Facebook Gold .
Ads API Profile: Marin Software Provides Audience Segmentation Across Facebook and Paid Search
Facebook’s performance advertising system lets buyers target users based on identity, location, interests, and Facebook connections, but it doesn’t provide the control to utilize these targeting parameters on a large scale. To allow companies to build more powerful tools for designing and managing ads, Facebook released an Ads API last fall. One company offering a tool which make it easy to create segment-targeted ads and optimize for specific metrics is Marin Software . The company comes from having developed search marketing software, and does a notable job providing flexible options for businesses on Facebook who also rely on search traffic. Here’s a closer look. Marin Software’s product is designed to save time and maximize returns for enterprise class marketers. Those who license the browser-based tool can create, manage, and track Facebook ads alongside paid search campaigns on a large scale. Users can integrate the tool with other analytics programs, utilize algorithmic bidding, monitor the paths consumers take to conversion, and use advanced segmenting options to target very specific audiences. Company Profile Marin Software was founded in 2006 as a paid search management application developer, building tools for advertisers and agencies spending over $100,000 a month on marketing. While offering some planned services and best practices to help its 200 current clients maximize the value of the tool, it doesn’t actually manage any campaigns itself. Upon the release of the ads API, Marin Software assigned some its 130 employees to develop competencies around Facebook ads. This summer, Marin Software entered the social network advertising arena by adding Facebook ad management capabilities to its tool. A dozen clients,including advertisers Education Connection and Macy’s, and agencies Red Bricks Media and Razorfish, are on track to purchase $3 million a year in Facebook ads and track 15 billion impressions through the tool. Clients are charged a percentage based on their total spend volume : 4.5% on $100,000 to $250,000 per month down to 2% on anything over $2 million per month plus prior tier percentages. Marin maintains its headquarters in San Francisco and offices in New York, Chicago, London, and Singapore. The company has raised a total of $33.5 million in rounds led by Benchmark Capital, and DAG Ventures, with its most recent Series D round also joined by Focus Ventures, Amicus Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners. Segmentation, Optimization and the Road to Conversion Marin Software’s browser-based tool opens to a dashboard in which users can see individual and aggregated graphs and charts of performance statistics from Facebook ads and paid search channels like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. The ability to see which channel is providing the lowest cost per click helps users determine where to allocate their spend. Different ad variations from across channels can be assembled into groups to allow users to collectively track all their ads linking to a certain product, targeted at a specific region or interest group, or that use a certain creative. For busy managers who don’t want to constantly monitor all their ads, users can manage by exception. Filters allow users to focus on ads and campaigns that need attention, such as only showing those with negative click-through-rate changes. Universal search quickly locates specific ads or campaigns, and a find and replace feature facilitates making edits to multiple ad creatives simultaneously. One-time and recurring reports in categories like traffic/cost or gross profit can be easily generated, customized, and formatted. Specialized conversion/revenue reports can be made to track different business types like hotels, lead generation, phone or email marketing, reservations, and commerce. They can be branded with a company logo, exported to PDF or Excel, or hosted at a URL to allow users to import updates to their analytics whenever they want. The tool can also be integrated with analytics systems like Omniture, Coremetrics, Dart, and Atlas. One of the most innovative features of Marin Software is the ability to optimize bidding based on your business model. Performance marketers can optimize for margin, those looking to generate leads can minimize cost per lead, and e-commerce businesses can optimize for net margin. Users can even optimize for custom conversion types such as capturing an email address. Soon, users will be able to optimize for Facebook-specific conversion types such as visiting a Page or viewing a Facebook video. To keep each ad fresh, users can enable dynamic creative rotation based on time intervals, or decreases in CTR or impressions. For example, a new image or headline could be rotated into your existing targeting parameters every five days or when CTR slips more that 20%. Marin Software’s audience segmentation feature allows users to take an ad or ad group’s audience and divide it into many targets. For instance, an ad aimed at males who like “Hiking” could be segmented into five age buckets and five different states, instantly creating 25 different targets for a single headline, body, image and destination URL. Multivariate testing can be performed and monitored in this way, and spend can be allocated to the targets with the highest conversion rate or revenue. One of the biggest advantages of managing paid search and social network marketing in the same system is the ability to accurately divide spend for the highest ROI. Since Facebook is rarely the last click before a purchase, you can use Marin Software to find out where Facebook is in the funnel. The Paths tab shows the sequence of channels a customer took to make their purchase, such as visiting a company’s Facebook Page, then performing a Google search and clicking on that company’s ad, leading them to convert on the website. Without this feature, despite the Facebook Page swaying the customer’s opinion, you wouldn’t know Facebook had anything to do with the conversion. The Paths tab also reveals insights such as users who visit Facebook then click a search ad spend more per conversion than those who only click an ad. Marin Software is strong where many other ads API tools aren’t. Its audience segmentation, conversion-based bidding, dynamic ad rotation, and analytics are all high quality. While it isn’t as good at producing thousands of ad creative variations as Techlightenment’s Alchemy , the ability to see Facebook ad spend in the context of search marketing campaigns gives users the big picture necessary to optimize returns efficiently. Ads API Spend Will Grow Alongside The Tools Marin Software’s VP of Marketing & Partnerships Matt Lawson believes the ads API industry will grow swiftly over the next few years. As Facebook enhances the functionality of the ads platform, “advertisers will get better ROI and they will shift more dollars to the Facebook channel.” Similar to how spend increased on Google search ads as optimization and analytics tools were released, Lawson sees the same thing happening as Facebook ads API tools develop. Once the allocations between social network and paid search marketing level out, advertisers will need to optimize across channels. “People are interacting with more ads in different mediums and channels – and [Marin Software is] finding what the key levers are to pull.” One pain point for Marin Software’s clients has been around Facebook’s ad creative approval process. Creative rotation is delayed and the edited ad is pulled as Facebook approves an ad’s new image. This is especially frustrating since image approval takes much longer than text approval in paid search. “Hopefully in the future Facebook will allow us to keep an old ad up and running until the new one is approved.” Lawson expects that improved day-parting, a feature requested by many ads API tool clients, will be integrated into the platform in the near future. While Marin Software has some ways around the current lack of functionality, he thinks a platform side solution would result in more consistency in ad inventory and a more uniform experience for Facebook users. While considerably newer than others in the emerging Facebook Ads API industry, like TBG Digital , Marin Software will continue to provide a tool enabling a holistic approach to search and social network advertising.
Ads API Profile: Marin Software Provides Audience Segmentation Across Facebook and Paid Search
Facebook’s performance advertising system lets buyers target users based on identity, location, interests, and Facebook connections, but it doesn’t provide the control to utilize these targeting parameters on a large scale. To allow companies to build more powerful tools for designing and managing ads, Facebook released an Ads API last fall. One company offering a tool which make it easy to create segment-targeted ads and optimize for specific metrics is Marin Software . The company comes from having developed search marketing software, and does a notable job providing flexible options for businesses on Facebook who also rely on search traffic. Here’s a closer look. Marin Software’s product is designed to save time and maximize returns for enterprise class marketers. Those who license the browser-based tool can create, manage, and track Facebook ads alongside paid search campaigns on a large scale. Users can integrate the tool with other analytics programs, utilize algorithmic bidding, monitor the paths consumers take to conversion, and use advanced segmenting options to target very specific audiences. Company Profile Marin Software was founded in 2006 as a paid search management application developer, building tools for advertisers and agencies spending over $100,000 a month on marketing. While offering some planned services and best practices to help its 200 current clients maximize the value of the tool, it doesn’t actually manage any campaigns itself. Upon the release of the ads API, Marin Software assigned some its 130 employees to develop competencies around Facebook ads. This summer, Marin Software entered the social network advertising arena by adding Facebook ad management capabilities to its tool. A dozen clients,including advertisers Education Connection and Macy’s, and agencies Red Bricks Media and Razorfish, are on track to purchase $3 million a year in Facebook ads and track 15 billion impressions through the tool. Clients are charged a percentage based on their total spend volume : 4.5% on $100,000 to $250,000 per month down to 2% on anything over $2 million per month plus prior tier percentages. Marin maintains its headquarters in San Francisco and offices in New York, Chicago, London, and Singapore. The company has raised a total of $33.5 million in rounds led by Benchmark Capital, and DAG Ventures, with its most recent Series D round also joined by Focus Ventures, Amicus Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners. Segmentation, Optimization and the Road to Conversion Marin Software’s browser-based tool opens to a dashboard in which users can see individual and aggregated graphs and charts of performance statistics from Facebook ads and paid search channels like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. The ability to see which channel is providing the lowest cost per click helps users determine where to allocate their spend. Different ad variations from across channels can be assembled into groups to allow users to collectively track all their ads linking to a certain product, targeted at a specific region or interest group, or that use a certain creative. For busy managers who don’t want to constantly monitor all their ads, users can manage by exception. Filters allow users to focus on ads and campaigns that need attention, such as only showing those with negative click-through-rate changes. Universal search quickly locates specific ads or campaigns, and a find and replace feature facilitates making edits to multiple ad creatives simultaneously. One-time and recurring reports in categories like traffic/cost or gross profit can be easily generated, customized, and formatted. Specialized conversion/revenue reports can be made to track different business types like hotels, lead generation, phone or email marketing, reservations, and commerce. They can be branded with a company logo, exported to PDF or Excel, or hosted at a URL to allow users to import updates to their analytics whenever they want. The tool can also be integrated with analytics systems like Omniture, Coremetrics, Dart, and Atlas. One of the most innovative features of Marin Software is the ability to optimize bidding based on your business model. Performance marketers can optimize for margin, those looking to generate leads can minimize cost per lead, and e-commerce businesses can optimize for net margin. Users can even optimize for custom conversion types such as capturing an email address. Soon, users will be able to optimize for Facebook-specific conversion types such as visiting a Page or viewing a Facebook video. To keep each ad fresh, users can enable dynamic creative rotation based on time intervals, or decreases in CTR or impressions. For example, a new image or headline could be rotated into your existing targeting parameters every five days or when CTR slips more that 20%. Marin Software’s audience segmentation feature allows users to take an ad or ad group’s audience and divide it into many targets. For instance, an ad aimed at males who like “Hiking” could be segmented into five age buckets and five different states, instantly creating 25 different targets for a single headline, body, image and destination URL. Multivariate testing can be performed and monitored in this way, and spend can be allocated to the targets with the highest conversion rate or revenue. One of the biggest advantages of managing paid search and social network marketing in the same system is the ability to accurately divide spend for the highest ROI. Since Facebook is rarely the last click before a purchase, you can use Marin Software to find out where Facebook is in the funnel. The Paths tab shows the sequence of channels a customer took to make their purchase, such as visiting a company’s Facebook Page, then performing a Google search and clicking on that company’s ad, leading them to convert on the website. Without this feature, despite the Facebook Page swaying the customer’s opinion, you wouldn’t know Facebook had anything to do with the conversion. The Paths tab also reveals insights such as users who visit Facebook then click a search ad spend more per conversion than those who only click an ad. Marin Software is strong where many other ads API tools aren’t. Its audience segmentation, conversion-based bidding, dynamic ad rotation, and analytics are all high quality. While it isn’t as good at producing thousands of ad creative variations as Techlightenment’s Alchemy , the ability to see Facebook ad spend in the context of search marketing campaigns gives users the big picture necessary to optimize returns efficiently. Ads API Spend Will Grow Alongside The Tools Marin Software’s VP of Marketing & Partnerships Matt Lawson believes the ads API industry will grow swiftly over the next few years. As Facebook enhances the functionality of the ads platform, “advertisers will get better ROI and they will shift more dollars to the Facebook channel.” Similar to how spend increased on Google search ads as optimization and analytics tools were released, Lawson sees the same thing happening as Facebook ads API tools develop. Once the allocations between social network and paid search marketing level out, advertisers will need to optimize across channels. “People are interacting with more ads in different mediums and channels – and [Marin Software is] finding what the key levers are to pull.” One pain point for Marin Software’s clients has been around Facebook’s ad creative approval process. Creative rotation is delayed and the edited ad is pulled as Facebook approves an ad’s new image. This is especially frustrating since image approval takes much longer than text approval in paid search. “Hopefully in the future Facebook will allow us to keep an old ad up and running until the new one is approved.” Lawson expects that improved day-parting, a feature requested by many ads API tool clients, will be integrated into the platform in the near future. While Marin Software has some ways around the current lack of functionality, he thinks a platform side solution would result in more consistency in ad inventory and a more uniform experience for Facebook users. While considerably newer than others in the emerging Facebook Ads API industry, like TBG Digital , Marin Software will continue to provide a tool enabling a holistic approach to search and social network advertising.