Facebook’s rumoured ‘AdSense’ style external ad network could be taking shape , according to the latest news reports.
GigaOM reports that Facebook is planning on using data it gathered about a user’s likes and dislikes to show ads from outside the social network.
“An external ad network is inevitable. Google proved this model with Adsense. With an already huge base of advertisers bidding on CPCs, it is impossible for most other ad networks to compete on publisher payouts. But Facebook’s traffic is so great now that an external ad network might increase their revenues by 2x or so,” it quoted Hunch founder Chris Dixon as saying.
Dixon was quoted in the GigaOM report as saying this could be an “embedded option” for Facebook investors, and can significantly enhance the company’s financial prospects if handled properly.
If using an external ad network could double Facebook’s revenues, that would mean nearly $10 billion a year from the present $5 billion.
The plans were first announced back in September And could see Facebook expand beyond its website to syndicating ads across the Web and on mobile apps, essentially offering a rival to Google’s AdSense ad network.
The move comes as the social network comes under increasing pressure from investors to make more money from mobile ads.
“We think that showing mobile ads outside of Facebook is another great way for people to see relevant ads and discover new apps,” Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta said in an emailed statement.
Instead of relying on tracking cookies, the new solution lets advertisers bid on certain demographics and uses existing networks such as iAds and AdMob to serve appropriate ads based on anonymous ID’s tied to Facebook accounts.
Facebook says its test is small and won’t say if it’s a precursor to an ad network. The same chatter bubbled up in June when Facebook began showing Facebook ads on Zynga.com.
GigaOM added getting 30 percent of Facebook users to vote means getting 300 million people, “which is more than twice as many as voted in the recent federal election in the United States.”