Facebook’s soaring advertising fees bode well for its $5bn float
FACEBOOK enjoyed a pre-float lift yesterday after a report claimed its advertising rates have jumped by 41 per cent in the last year.
TBG Digital, a Facebook media specialist, said advertisers have been asked to pay 15 per cent more per thousand views in the last quarter alone.
Facebook, which is expected to raise $5bn in a US float next month, has hiked its cost per click fees by 23 per cent over the last three months, although performance was patchy over 2011 and was broadly flat in the UK on a year ago, according to the research.
Users became slightly less likely to interact with adverts, however, as click-through rates fell by eight per cent in the five countries singled out by TBG in its quarterly report on Facebook.
“This drop comes after Facebook has increased the number of ads on a page, sometimes showing up to seven at a time, which could also be a contributing factor to this change,” TBG added.
While the exact figures are confidential, TBG said the UK has overtaken Canada to become the second most lucrative “major territory” for the social network in terms of advertising, behind the US.
Facebook’s additional features to encourage the sharing of news stories appear to have paid off, with TBG reporting a 196 per cent increase in news ad click-throughs in the last quarter alone.
The cost for businesses looking to build an online fanbase has surged 43 per cent over the last quarter, TBG said.
TBG Digital, which had Cambridge University verify its stats, based its research on 235 clients across 190 countries.