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SEMPO L.A. Panel Explores Facebook Retargeting

Bulls-Eye--Arrow-AFacebook opened Exchange in September. Why is there so much buzz? Search marketers at a SEMPO L.A. panel discussion focused on retargeting user behavior, cost and ability to quickly scale.

Pointing to Nielsen numbers from November, Christina Park, SR director at Triggit, said the time that members spend on Facebook is about three times the amount spent on all news sites combined. "When people are literally hanging out there six hours per day, we see them taking the time to read the ads," she said. The first two days are the most important time to do retargeting because they see the ad, it's fresh in their mind, and they convert twice as fast."

Magnetic CEO James Green likened the six hours logged into Facebook as having the AOL messenger screen up on the desktop with the ad flashing at the top.

Park cited Triggit's data, saying during the last earnings call that ads on the site convert about 30% better, and there are only approximately 1,300 brands advertising on Facebook. Calling it a "land rush opportunity," Park said if you think about it globally, it's like an economic boom because the massive inventory delivers cost per acquisition (CPA) at about one-fifth to one-third of the price compared with anywhere else. "It's like Google AdWords from 2002," she said. "You also can find 80% of a person's cookie pool on Facebook relatively quickly."

Dave Roth, VP of performance and social marketing at realtor.com, a Move company, has begun testing retargeting Facebook campaigns focusing on verbs, such as a consumer might listen to a song. He thinks that because it's behaviorally driven there is promise.

While the data pool is not open to take outside the network, Park and others on the panel hope it's just a matter of time. In fact, she would be really surprised if they didn't open the data pool to brand advertisers to solve the problem of passing the cookie from mobile to the desktop Web site.

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