Why Facebook Advertising Mattered Before Its Ad Platform
In early 2007 Facebook advertising meant Microsoft-sold banner inventory, not sophisticated targeting, but the growth curve was reason enough to pay attention.
It’s worth being upfront about where things stand: Facebook does not yet have a self-serve advertising platform built around its social graph. What exists today is a banner-ad arrangement with Microsoft, in place since 2006, under which Microsoft sells display inventory across Facebook much like it would on any other web property. If you’re expecting to read about detailed interest targeting or ads that reference a user’s friends, that’s not what’s available yet. The case for paying attention has nothing to do with sophistication and everything to do with where the audience is heading.
The audience curve is the whole argument
Facebook opened its doors beyond college and high school networks to the general public in September 2006, and the growth since has been steep. A platform that started as a campus directory is now attracting a broad, engaged user base that logs in repeatedly, not just once. For a business trying to reach a younger, digitally native audience, that combination, rapid growth plus high engagement, is rare, and it’s usually cheapest to buy into a growing audience early rather than after competitors have already bid up the price of attention there.
What “advertising” means on Facebook right now
Today, a business interested in reaching Facebook’s audience is buying standard banner placements through Microsoft’s ad sales relationship, the same kind of display buy you’d make on any large content site. There’s no discounted early-adopter targeting advantage baked into the product itself yet. What the early opportunity looks like is cost: inventory on a fast-growing but not-yet-fully-monetized platform tends to be underpriced relative to where its audience size will eventually put it, simply because demand from advertisers hasn’t caught up to supply.
Why this still belongs on a bottom-line conversation
The honest pitch for testing Facebook advertising in its current form isn’t “this will outperform your search campaigns today.” It’s a smaller, more disciplined case: a modest test budget buys you visibility with a growing audience at a price that’s likely to rise, plus early operational familiarity with a platform that’s clearly investing in its own advertising infrastructure. Facebook has been public about wanting to build more sophisticated tools for advertisers, and a business with even a small amount of prior experience running campaigns there will be better positioned to move quickly once those tools arrive than one starting from zero.
What to do with a small test budget
Treat any spend here the same way you’d treat an early bet: cap the budget, set a specific and modest goal, such as brand awareness or newsletter signups rather than a hard sales target, and measure whatever you can with the tracking available today. Don’t restructure a marketing plan around a platform that’s still building its core advertising product. Do carve out room to learn how this particular audience responds to your message, because that knowledge compounds, and it’s considerably cheaper to build now than it will be once Facebook’s ad platform matures and every competitor in your category is bidding for the same attention.
Keep exploring: browse more Paid Advertising guides, see everything we published in 2007 or check out the Digital Business Marketing Awards.
