Facebook has decided to test Search Ads in selected industries in the US and Canada. What does this experiment mean for the search advertising[1] industry?
Facebook is always eager to try out new monetization ideas. This time there’s a really interesting one with an attempt to test search ads.
It was back in 2012 when Facebook tried Sponsored Results for the first time, but the experiment didn’t last long.
This time, Facebook is re-introducing Search Ads in its search results and Marketplace, which takes them into direct competition with Google.
More details about the experiment
Facebook has decided to test a small set of advertisers from the automotive, ecommerce and retail industries in the US and Canada.
These advertisers are able to pick the placement of ‘Search Results’ in Ads Manager and they are currently not charged for the specific placement. A business cannot currently run a search ad without running a news feed ad first. Thus, it currently serves as an extension to an existing ad, but it can still offer useful insights to Facebook about the success of this experiment.
Moreover, there is no option yet to target specific keywords[2] or phrases in the beta phase, which could change in the future if search ads roll out to more advertisers.
Image: Techcrunch[3]
The ads are repurposed news feed ads of image or carousel format since videos are not currently supported. Search ads won’t appear on desktop and they will have a clear label of ‘Sponsored’ tag to help users understand why they are seeing the specific result. Users are currently able to opt out from seeing the ads but they