Facebook Enhances Mobile Ads With New Canvas Features

With a focus on customer acquisition, awareness and product sales, Facebook is connecting two of its newer mobile ad formats: Canvas and collection.

Brands can supplement their campaigns with a Canvas full-screen “experience,” which will open instantly when users click on a collection.

As with many ad evolutions, the change was inspired by brands using existing products in new and unintended ways.

“Canvas was created with awareness and branding in mind, but we are now seeing it being used for customer acquisition and Web site conversion objectives,” a Facebook spokeswoman said.

Facebook first debuted Canvas last year to offer richer and more responsive mobile ad formats.

This week, the social giant is rolling out three new Canvas templates. Each is tied to a specific business objective, including the promise of acquiring new customers, selling products and showcasing various businesses.

Brand partners testing the new templates include BarkBox, Michael Kors and Dollar Shave Club.

In recent years, Facebook has developed a number of solutions to help brands create mobile-optimized experiences, including Canvas, Pages and various in-app browsing capabilities.

Ensuring brands are happy with their mobile efforts is critical to Facebook’s success, now that mobile represents the company’s main source of revenue. During the first quarter, mobile ads made up about 85% of Facebook’s total ad revenue -- up from about 82%, year-over-year.

To date, the ads don’t appear to be turning off a critical mass of consumers. On the contrary, Facebook saw average daily active users (DAUs) grow 18% (year-over-year) to 1.28 billion in March. Meanwhile, monthly active users (MAUs) increased 17% to 1.94 billion, year-over-year. 

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