It's no secret that Facebook is making a huge play for mobile advertising—a move that's paying off—and now those ads in your News Feed are prompting you to take action.
A music app you haven't used in awhile can prompt you to "Listen Now."
The social network has displayed mobile app install ads in News Feeds for about a year, sending its users to the Apple's App Store or Google Play to download advertisers' apps. But Facebook realized that it wasn't helping developers remain engaged with its users post-installation. On Tuesday Facebook introduced deep-links in app ads, so if you're already using an app like HotelTonight, that app can turn up in your News Feed with a call to "Book Now." Same thing with gaming, music, and shopping apps. There are seven prompts: "Open Link," "Use App," "Show Now," "Book Now," "Play Game," "Listen Now," and "Watch Video."
App installs are a quickly growing chunk of Facebook's mobile ads business, though the company declined to say how much revenue install ads are bringing in. Sriram Krishnan, the network's product manager of mobile app ads, said install ads have prompted 145 million downloads this year. Some 3,800 developers were advertising their apps in the first quarter of the year, growing to 8,400 developers in the second quarter. More than 40 percent of Facebook's $1.6 billion in second-quarter ad revenue came from mobile.
"We want to help the mobile app developer end to end," Krishnan said during a Wednesday press briefing in New York. "We want to help people across the app's life cycle."
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