These new advertising alternative, which displays ads within the Facebook search typeahead, would empower advertisers to target Facebook users searching for specific content — even competitors. Also, the new form of sponsored ad will not appear in the actual search results page, but only in the drop-down box under the search bar. Microsoft currently has a deal with Facebook to place ads on the search results page.
Josh Constine, a technology journalist for TechCrunch, was the first to report on sponsored results, which Facebook initiated testing last week, and the social media giant told TechCrunch the results will be identical to organic search results, other than being labeled as sponsored, wrote the following about Facebook’s new feature:
Image Courtesy: (TechCrunch)
“The Sponsored Results will look just like organic results in the typeahead search box atop every page, except for being marked with a tiny word ‘Sponsored’,” says Constine.
According to Constine, Facebook says that the sponsored results will be sold on a cost-per-click basis, and they can be targeted to users searching for any page, application, place, or possibly event, without the permission of the targeted businesses. The company said in a statement to sister blog Inside Facebook:
“We are currently testing a feature that displays sponsored results along with the organic results when people are looking for things on Facebook. We try to show people apps and pages they will be most interested in.”
Constine further states that these ‘Sponsored Results’ will appear as users type a Facebook search. For instance, if I’m searching for a Starbucks page I may see a Sponsored Result for “Star Line Coffee House,” or something similar.
Users will only see Sponsored Results that are almost identical and most of the time in competition with the real results. That is because they are not keyword based ads. Advertisers who want to buy a Sponsored Result will have target a specific page that people are searching for.
TechCrunch’s Constine also hinted that advertisers seeking to capitalize on sponsored results must specify specific business or pages, rather than general terms, adding that the results will only appear in the typeahead, and not on the search results page. Sponsored Results will only appear on the search drop down bar, not on the results page.
Constine concludes that this new feature could be a boon for advertisers, as it is just another way to target Facebook’s user base of nearly 1 billion. But, it could also be utilized by advertisers to punt special offers, competitions or other associated entities within Facebook that users may miss if only the standard Facebook page shows up as they are typing a search. These Sponsored Results could also be further customized using Facebook’s targeting algorithms, so they are only displayed for specific types of users.