As the social giant with more than many features, there are certainly places where ads can be made to appear.
One of which, is at the search feature. Called the 'Search Ad Placement', it shows ads in search results for terms that have commercial intents. And here, after nearly a year of testing the ad type in News Feed and Marketplace search results, Facebook is rolling out this Search Ad Placement more broadly to all advertisers.
Initially, the ad placement is only available for Facebook on mobile.
"Testing shows that advertisers and people are finding value in ads in search results, so we’re rolling out these ads more broadly," said Facebook Director of Product Management Nipoon Malhatra.
According to Facebook on its announcement:
"The ads are designed to fit the experience on the given search results surface (Marketplace search or general search). They look similar to News Feed ads and have the same transparency and controls, including a 'Sponsored' label so it’s clearly marked as paid placement."
To have their ads appear in Facebook's search results, advertisers can either select 'Automatic Placement' so their ad campaigns can extend to general search results and/or Marketplace, or choose the 'Facebook Search Results' placement in Ads Manager if they want to have more specific and less broad placement.
Targeting for ads in search are based on the advertiser’s chosen people-based targeting options, in addition to relevant search term keywords.
The keywords however, are determined by Facebook, not the advertiser. This also takes account a combination of ad features (ad text, product, category, title and description).
By opening up this ad placement to more advertisers, Facebook is giving marketers the direct access to users who are already actively searching for their product or service on the platform.
Facebook is a big social media network. With more than plenty of features, there are places that can be overlooked. But given that Facebook's ad inventory has become saturated, a new placement should benefit advertisers running a product sales or conversion-focused campaign, but are trying to avoid all the noise generated by other ad placements.
In return, this Facebook’s search ad placement can also benefit the social media giant that wants more revenue.
What should be noted here is that, Search Ad Placement is not a standalone option, meaning that advertisers must first be running a News Feed ad to have the ad also shown in search results.