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With Facebook’s announcement of Graph Search, marketers anxiously awaited to see how they could take advantage of the new real estate. Look at all that space!
Last fall, “Sponsored Results” started appearing in the search bar. Even though there isn’t much traffic, these ad units are surprisingly powerful. We’ve seen CTR in the 5-10% range, and CPCs of $0.05 – $0.10. Advertisers can use this ad unit to “brand bid” on competitors’ names, or what’s even more powerful is to target a set of users and bid on a wide range of popular keywords.
This is especially sneaky because we’re not really bidding on the keywords, we’re bidding on a set of users to search for anything.
See how Degree Tree and Oxford Seminars come up when I start to search for Coca-Cola?
So will these ads be effective with Graph Search? Let’s take a look at old vs. new:
At first glance, Graph Search is a much wider bar – wide enough for them to have replaced the Facebook logo with just the “f”!
The ad still looks pretty good, and it’s not in a “Sponsored” section like before, but they’ve added the “Sponsored Software” badge to let users know it’s an ad. Will this affect CTR? As Graph Search is released to more and more users, we’re expecting:
Search volumes to increase, since Graph Search one of the 3 pillars of Facebook, as mentioned by Zuck. Might search on Facebook be bigger and more effective than RHS (right-hand side ads)? We think so.
Graph Search expands search from a single term to social connectedness, geography, and actions. How will us marketers choose to serve ads within this framework?
We think sponsored stories are even more important, since graph search is based on a user’s context ¾ what their friends have done.
How do we get more results in graph search, paid or not? Get more social actions ¾ likes, comments, check-ins, offers claimed, and so forth. We’re way beyond the days of just growing fans.
Matt Prater spends his professional life managing Facebook marketing campaigns, training agency partners, and working closely with brands such as Nickelodeon, Nike, Viacom, and PBS. His area of expertise includes ad campaign management and project development. Earlier this year, Matt was a featured speaker at several social media workshops for agencies in Bogota, Colombia as a part of the Content Factory Certified Partner program. He graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder with degrees in Economics and Political Science. Outside of work, Matt is an avid tennis player and enjoys rock climbing, cycling, and travel.
Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads. He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the "million jobs" guy-- on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations.You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos-- down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He's spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel.You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths-- likely in a city near you.