In February, more than a third of all online-display ads in the U.S. appeared on Facebook, according to comScore Inc. That's more than three times as many as its closest rival, Yahoo Inc., had.
But Facebook doesn't come close to capturing a third of the online-ad budgets of major marketers, partly because its ad rates are relatively low, and also because of its hard-to-navigate in-house systems for buying ads.Enter a new set of specialized Facebook agencies that seek to offer an easier way to buy ads on the social-networking site. The emergence of more than a dozen firms, including Blinq Media LLC, Kenshoo Ltd. and Web-trends Inc., follows a move by Facebook in 2009 to start opening direct access to its internal ad systems to select outsiders.
The Facebook agencies sell marketers the ability to manage the buying of thousands of different versions of their ads, with varying text and images. They also make it easier for advertisers to buy ads targeted at niche groups of consumers, based on their ages, locations, interests and other factors. The agencies also offer tools that track the performance of an ad campaign, such as how many users click on the ads or become fans of the brand on Facebook.
