Facebook new Engagement Ads = Really new? Really engagement? Really Ads?

Facebook has been the “consistent worst performing website” for advertising according to ValleyWag back in 2007. Things have not really moved since then, with the Facebook Beacon backfire, Facebook being said too much intrusive, the 12-cent to 7.5-cent CPM decrease in the last 6 months. But today is another day, all these troubles are from yesterday, and Facebook’s now launching a new ad system: “Engagement ads”. Engagement ads because now users would be able to interact with the pushed advertising, video as well as text style. What would that really change, how can it help more click-through and increase word spreading?

First thing interesting is this new engagement ads system works. Facebook offers to companies to enable the ability for people to interact with ads through commenting it (example on left, from Inside Facebook), using it to send virtual goods (specific activity from Facebookers, though I do not see that so often by now), and becoming fan of the ad (maybe becoming fan of the brand through clicking on the “Become fan” of the ad). That’s what Jeremiah Owyang says in his post after having had a meeting with Tim Kendall, Director of Monetization at Facebook. Practically that means people would indirectly spead the word about the ad with which they interact since the action the user do would reflect in the news stream of his/ her friends group. Basically if I become fan of ad, all my friends would know it, like when I become friend with someone.

But what’s being a little tricky is that Facebook would modify the News feed algorithm for brands that pay for this new ad service. Actually “News Feed uses an algorithm to communicate a users actions to the friends who would find it most interesting” explains AllFacebook, but when brands would be using the engagement ads system, every interaction with an engagement ad would be distributed to all your friends. Focusing on spreading more than on targeting and seems less directed on efficiency than on spamming (that’s my opinion).

If we look at all the advertising toolset that’s offered by Facebook, it’s all about traditional advertising, except pages and fan pages that can also be created by standard users (most certainly done try to attract MySpace users). Nothing about generating tools creating a full user experience of the brand, helping companies creating their facebook space. They much prefer let people comment on advertising. Fortunately we all know traditional IAB format stimulate agency creativity and generate interesting click rate as well as engagement, avoiding people to give their negative opinion about the brand and its advertising.

Unless companies pay more agencies to do real interactive and stimulating IAB format online advertising, there’s a lot to bet that the test now running would fail. Why do Facebook not give tools to companies to create and easily stimulate their community within the Facebook doors (something Ning-like) and sell them access to a dedicated dashboard to manage and score community members, as well as an API to connect with their CRM program? It would be hard at first but so much more valuable for brands. And Facebook as the power to change the rules of advertising in the Internet landscape and they should aim at doing something cutting edge like Google did with Google Adsense.

To read more on that topic:

• Facebook + Advertising = No online advertising, but community engagement
• Communication + evolution = From marketing to engagement
• Review of the Internet news of the Day
• Online Videos + Viral = Ideas to generate interest and lead to your products
• Fast.Fwd.Innovation Weekly Takeaway