• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, May 11, 2015

Facebook keeps cranking out new services and features at a pace that can only be described as frenetic. The latest new offering from the social media giant is “deep linking” for mobile app install advertising, which will allow developers and advertisers to send users who download an app to a specific place within the app when it opens, rather than just sending everyone to the app home page.

The new deep linking capability means, for example, that a retail app developer can send the user to a page for a product that was featured in the original install ad, since this is a likely what the consumer was interested in in the first place, eliminating the need for the consumer to search through the app “by hand” for the original offer (increasing the chances they will abandon their search).

Deep linking was previously only available for engagement ads intended to drive activity on apps that have already been downloaded. App developers can use the new capability through App Links, or simply by using a new field for deep links in the ad creation tool. Facebook has also introduced a deep link verifier within its app ads helper service, which allows developers to preview links before running app ads.

As noted, the mobile deep linking capability is just one in a series of new products from Facebook. Yesterday it unveiled new native ad tools for its Audience Network, including new native ad templates that allow app publishers to customize native ad elements like font, ad height, background color, and borders, among others, in order to match their apps’ appearance more closely.

And earlier this week it announced a new partnership with IBM, integrating Facebook ad-targeting capabilities, including Custom Audiences, with IBM Commerce’s offerings for marketing cloud clients, including IBM’s Journey Designer and Journey Analytics.