Facebook, always looking for ways to boost revenues from advertising these days, is set to roll out a brand new product in the next couple of weeks, according to sources.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that this new ad product will allow advertisers to target users based on the apps that they commonly use. The advertising option will be for mobile, and will allow the ads to pop up directly in the users’ News Feed.
For instance, if a users plays a lot of Zynga games like Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends, they may see a targeted ad for a different Zynga property like Hanging with Friends in their mobile feeds. The users wouldn’t have to have even “liked” Zynga on the network in order to receive this type of targeted ad.
The way that Facebook will be able to monitor app usage and target users with ads for similar apps is, of course, through Facebook Connect.
No word on whether or not the new types of targeted ads will come in the form of Sponsored Stories, which are currently the only types of mobile advertisements that Facebook users see.
The WSJ got this from anonymous sources who also said that their is some concern about backlash from some top brass:
But some Facebook executives are concerned about a potential backlash over the new mobile ads from privacy advocates, since the product allows Facebook to know which apps users have downloaded on their phones and then target ads based on that information. Facebook is also figuring out ways to track what people do when inside the apps, and target ads based on that behavior.
Of course, monetizing their mobiel platform is a big concern for Facebook, and is one of the main areas that Facebook haters choose to point out as the reason for their lack of confidence. Last month, Facebook debuted new ad packages that allowed marketers to target their efforts specifically to mobile.
And though some reports show that things may be looking up for Facebook on the ad revenue front, other reports show a decline in confidence among advertisers regarding the necessity of Facebook in their comprehensive marketing strategy.