Did you know that Facebook had 654 Million Mobile Daily Average Users and 1.07 Billion Mobile Monthly Active Users worldwide in June 2014? Those numbers reflect a staggering 39% and 31% year-over-year increase (respectively)!
While the rise in mobile Facebook users has necessitated a strategic pivot from advertisers, there is a rate-limiting factor that affects the deliverability of mobile Facebook ads: your audience’s cell signal.
The potential for poor cell connectivity is particularly detrimental for the ROI of expensive video ads, which may experience difficulty loading for users on-the-go, or in areas with weak cell reception.
There’s already enough reticence to online ads to begin with — add choppy, stalling video to the mix, and odds are that video ad is dead on arrival… or just playing dead, like our mascot Maven the Corgi!
But fear not, Facebook marketers!
In a scoop reported by AdAge, a Facebook spokeswoman revealed that the platform will now allow advertisers to target ads based on “how strong someone’s phone signal is when they visit the social network.”
This cell-signal targeting allows advertisers to deliver high-bandwidth video ads only to users with signals strong enough to enjoy them in full, while delivering text-only ads to users with less virile cell connections.
This new targeting capability poses obvious benefits for advertisers looking to capture audiences in developing countries, where cell networks are not as expansive as those in the United States and Europe.
As Facebook continues to expand its suite of video ads (as its acquisition of LiveRail indicates), odds are we’ll see further targeting capabilities to come.
Now if only we could apply the same targeting to Hyperlapse videos…