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TBG Digital’s CEO Simon Mansell tells me “this is huge news that show mobile is potentially going to be the big revenue driver that Facebook needs, especially because the usage in there.”

According to a new study by TBG Digital on 278,389,453 Sponsored Story ad impressions across 17 clients, mobile news feed Sponsored Stories (the only ads Facebook shows on mobile) have a stunning click-through rate of 1.14% at a $0.86 CPC. That means Facebook earns $9.86 per 1000 impressions (eCPM), and that could actually rise as more advertisers realize the power of mobile Sponsored Stories and compete for impressions there.

Compare those numbers to the desktop news feed Sponsored Stories that get a 0.588% CTR at $0.63 CPC and earn Facebook an eCPM of $3.72, and Facebook is getting 1.93x the CTR and earning 2.65x as much on mobile sponsored stories compared to what it makes on the web.

. Google Shortcuts

2. Scribble

say ads that are disguised as content have higher click-through and engagement rates than intrusive banners because they’re contextual and have quality conte

a new survey due out today by Harris Interactive for MediaBrix, a social and mobile ad firm, says otherwise. Harris asked online adults what they thought about three native ad formats—Twitter’s promoted tweets, "Sponsored Stories" on Facebook, and video ads that appear to be content. According to the survey, a majority found the ads negatively impacted or had no impact on their perception of the brand being advertised.

45 percent found promoted tweets misleading, while 57 percent and 86 percent said the same about sponsored stories and video ads, respectively.

Page post link ads delivered a 53 percent ROI. Page post photo ads delivered a 24 percent ROI. Page post ad units delivered an ROI 26 times higher than right-hand-side ad units. Page post photo ads delivered a 37 percent higher click-through rate than page post link ads and 20 times the CTR of right-hand-side ads. The cost per click for page post photo ads was 17 percent lower than the CPC for page post link ads and right-hand-side ads. Page post link ads delivered a 30 percent higher action rate than page post photo ads, as well as a 55 percent higher rate of purchasing users (the rate of purchasing users were 61 percent higher than for right-hand-side ads).

Page post link ads typically perform well for lead-generation campaigns and are effective in converting users off site. Page post photo ads are designed to capture attention with larger, more engaging photos, creating a seamless experience between paid, owned and earned media. Our study shows that this ad format demonstrated a higher CTR at a lower CPC resulting in a higher ROI than ads on the right-hand side.

Facebook users will sit still for ads that, per current reports, will take over your desktop screen and run for 15 seconds, up to three times a day per user. What are the odds of that? 

Initially, the 15-second autoplay ads will appear on Facebook's desktop site; the social network is still working to bring them to its mobile app as well.

Facebook is expected to offer four daily "slots" for its video ads, each targeting a very large demographic: Women over 30 Women under 30 Men over 30 Men under 30

Share breaking news updates: Lavrusik and Hershkowitz said posts that included the terms “breaking” or “breaking news” saw engagement 57 percent higher than non-breaking news posts

Use a conversational tone and include analysis: Posts with a personal tone or clever language saw engagement of 120 percent above the average, and posts with analysis received 20 percent more referral clicks.

Start conversations by asking questions and responding: Posts with prompts for conversation of questions saw engagement 70 percent above the average

If you use Facebook to communicate about or administer a promotion (such as a contest or sweepstakes)

Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App. ii.    Promotions on Facebook must include the following: a.    A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant. b.    Acknowledgment that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. c.    Disclosure that the participant is providing information to [disclose recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook. iii.    You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.

Currently, there are six different ad placements available to advertisers: Homepage All Facebook News Feed (desktop, mobile) Typeahead Logout Page (available only through Facebook IO)

Selecting “Homepage” as a placement will display your ads on the News Feed on desktop, right-hand side on homepage, and on News Feed for mobile.

Ads under the “All Facebook” place option may be shown on the right-hand side of Facebook, the desktop News Feed, or the Mobile News Feed. Facebook will decide exactly where to display your ad in order to drive the most clicks and actions, according to your budget.

Facebook confirmed to me it quietly unlocked the new device and OS mobile ad placement options when it officially launched its new mobile app install ads two weeks ago. These ads let developers pay to show links to their App Store or Google Play apps in the Facebook mobile news feed. Facebook needed a way to make sure devs were reaching users on the devices they build apps for.

Device and OS placements are somewhat similar to Facebook’s “broad category” device targeting that lets advertisers reach people with specific makes and models of phones like LG Androids or iPhone 5s. However, these ads can show up on both desktop and mobile. Placement targeting lets advertisers choose where they show up, not just to who.

there’s also the Android vs iOS socio-economic divide. A recent Forrester study found that iPhone-using households had an average yearly income about $16,000 higher than Android households. That means operating system and device type could augment data like biographical info, interests, and work and education history for targeting high or low-end products via Facebook ads.

at the social network served up 39 percent more ad impressions in the most recent period than Q1 2012.

That impression increase likely has as much to do with Facebook's daily active user base growing by 26 percent year-over-year to 665 million people as it does any efforts to further boost its advertising revenue—up 43 percent year-over-year to $1.25 billion

Facebook’s mobile monthly active user base climb 54 percent to 751 million people (including 189 million people who only check Facebook from their mobile devices, up 128 percent year-over-year), but once again mobile jumped as a percentage of Facebook’s ad revenue, having gone from 0 percent in Q1 2012 to 14 percent in Q3 to 23 percent in Q4 to 30 percent in Q1 2013. Desktop ad revenue "stayed flat," Ebersman said, before qualifying the stagnation. "Flat desktop revenue does not reflect a particular trend relative to desktop demand. Instead, more inventory is being shown on mobile because that’s where people are spending more time," he said.

to determine if any given Page post shows up in the news feed, Facebook looks at four main factors: If you interacted with an author’s posts before: If you Like every post by a Page that Facebook shows you, it will show you more from that Page. Other people’s reactions to a specific post: If everyone else on Facebook shown a post ignores it or complains, it’s less likely to show you that post. Your interaction with posts of the same type in the past: If you always Like photos, there’s a better chance you’ll see a photo posted by a Page. If that specific post has received complaints by other users who have seen it, or the Page who posted it has received lots complaints in the past, you’ll be less likely to see that post. This factor became a lot more prevalent starting in September 2012.

Let’s say Darth Vader posts that he and Luke Skywalker have confirmed that they are father and son. To determine if Yoda saw this post in his news feed, Facebook would look at: whether Yoda had Liked or interacted with posts by Vader in the past, if Leia and Han Solo Liked the relationship post by Vader when Facebook showed it to them, whether Yoda tended to interact with relationship change posts in the past, and whether anyone else had complained about Vader or this particular post by the Sith Lord.

There are conflicting reports about the actual impact on average reach, though. Some like PageLever say it stayed stable, but others like We Are Social and SocialBakers say that average Page reach decreased by as much as 50 percent.

A new study by Facebook brings some big news that, curiously, at first blush might not seem like much news at all. It's this: If you want to create successful ads for the social network, just do the same thing you would do if you were advertising on TV. Or in magazines. Or on the radio.

"Marketers were asking us, 'Are the fundamentals of advertising on Facebook the same as the fundamentals elsewhere?'" Bruich says. The results of the study point to yes, he says, and that means "the experience they've built up over the years and the instincts they've had can be applied to making more successful ads on Facebook."

Bruich is presenting the results of the study in a paper called "What Traditional Principles Matter When Designing Social" at the Advertising Research Foundation's Audience Measurement 7.0

According to Joyus founder and ex-Googler Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, people are five times as likely to buy something from a video ad than from a picture on an e-commerce site, and buy five times as often.

The Facebook videos will run silently until the user chooses to activate the sound, which will relaunch the ad from the beginning. How long before Facebook offers an ad-free newsfeed to users--at a price?

audience for mobile apps has hit 58 million in primetime — 8 p.m.

The IAB estimates that the U.S. mobile ad market brought in $3.4 billion in 2012. The IAB didn't break out revenues for apps vs. the mobile web, but Flurry has estimated that 80% of mobile activity occurs on apps

Kantar Media calculated that TV advertising accounted for $74 billion in ad revenues in 2012. Even if apps generated 100% of mobile ad revenues, the market would still be just 4.5% that of TV.

Facebook has lost 10 million users in the US and seen no growth in monthly visitors in the UK over the past year

Research shows that the number of unique visitors to the Facebook website from computers, smartphones and tablets has fallen from 153m in March 2012 to 142m in March this year, having peaked at 158m last August.

1.11 billion monthly active users around the world, up 23% from a year ago. Mobile monthly active users were 751 million, up 54%. But much of the growth is coming from poorer nations, where advertising revenues are lower

The 15-second ads will begin playing on users’ News Feeds without audio, and they will stop playing if users scroll past them. Users who are interested in viewing the video ads can tap them, after which a full-screen version, with sound, will begin playing. Facebook said in announcing the test last December that for mobile users, video ads are pre-downloaded when their devices are connected via Wi-Fi, so they do not consume additional data, and users on data plans will not see their usage rise.

People can expect to begin seeing these new ads over the next few months.

we’re working with a company called Ace Metrix to help us review and assess how engaging the creative is for each ad — before it appears on Facebook. Ace Metrix will allow us to objectively measure the creative quality of the video in the Facebook environment and highlight performance indicators for advertisers such as watchability, meaningfulness, and emotional resonance. We’re taking this step in order to maintain high-quality ads on Facebook and help advertisers understand what’s working to maximize their returns on investment.

Market-research outfit eMarketer projected that Facebook will account for 21.7 percent of the global mobile ad market in 2014, up from 17.5 percent in 2013 and just 5.4 percent in 2012. Google still commands the lion’s share of the sector, with eMarketer pegging it for a 46.8 percent share in 2014, and attributing its drop from nearly 50 percent in 2013 to the social network’s growth. eMarketer also predicted a modest gain for Twitter, to 2.6 percent in 2014, from 2.4 percent in 2013 and 1.5 percent in 2012. For the sector as a whole, eMarketer projected that mobile advertising will jump 75.1 percent in 2014, to $31.45 billion, accounting for nearly one-quarter of total worldwide digital ad spending.

In 2012, only 11 percent of Facebook’s net ad revenues worldwide came from mobile, and last year, that figure jumped to 45.1 percent. In 2014, eMarketer estimates that mobile will account for 63.4 percent of Facebook’s net digital ad revenues. Mobile accounted for 23.1 percent of Google’s net ad revenues worldwide in 2013, and eMarketer estimates this share will increase to 33.8 percent this year.

Twitter has confirmed our scoop with the announcement of Tailored Audiences - its name for retargeted ads. Available globally to all advertisers via a slew of adtech startup partners, advertisers will be able to target recent visitors to their websites with retargeted Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts.

Twitter’s users are on mobile. Seventy percent of its ad revenue already comes from the small screens, and it likely follows that a majority of engagement is on mobile, too.

retargeting happens like this. You visit a website, say a travel booking site, and look at a page for buying a flight to Hawaii. You chicken out at the last minute, don’t buy, and navigate away, but the site has dropped a cookie for that Hawaii flight page on your browser. Then, when you visit other sites or social networks that run retargeted ads, they detect that cookie, and the travel site can show you an ad saying “It’s cold in SF. Wouldn’t a vacation to Hawaii be nice?” to try to get you to pull the trigger and buy the flight it knows you were already interested in. But without cookies on mobile, you can’t retarget there… …unless you can tie the identity of a mobile user to what they do on the computer. And Twitter can. It’s one of the few hugely popular services that individuals access from multiple types of devices.

Each month 250 million Facebook users tag posts with location.

Right now Nearby is very static. It doesn’t even show you Places where friends are currently checked-in. That has to change. If a friend is checked-in at a Nearby Place, that should be called out in the results and used as a strong signal of relevance.

Facebook Events is also sorely missing from the experience. Facebook should work into Nearby results Events that I’m invited to, as well as Suggested Events that my friends are attending so I don’t miss a party down the block.

12.8 million small business have a free-to-use Facebook Page, and 8 million use it monthly. By making advertising easier, Facebook got 300,000 of them to buy its new Promoted Posts ads, Sheryl Sandberg explained on today’s earnings call. 25%, or 75,000 of them had never bought Facebook ads before.

by designing ad products for mom & pop, Facebook can turn the long tail of businesses into spenders.

Mobile is also where users are consuming branded content on mobile.