Facebook are trialling a 'buy' button and unleashing one of the great secrets of advertising - how much does it impact on sales?
What they're looking at is the direct correlation between ads on its network and actual purchase and importantly too, it combats fraud because bots can't buy products.
Equally too, it allows them to open a whole new media universe, selling advertising directly on the basis of return on investment. In other words, no need to buy media space as such but rather, buy sales.
Walmart 'back to school' Facebook advertising resulted in a 16 times return on that Ad spend.
That's a revolution.
Already in a trial with 20 retailers, they found that sales rose +2% via Facebook Ads and what's more important, an 8 times average return on the amount spent on advertising. Which makes Facebook advertising a no-brainer because if you were guaranteed that return on sales, you'd advertise more.
And of course, there's an element of those who see the Ads and don't buy online but buy in-store. Retail is a massive advertising segment about 11% of online advertising.
The Buy button also allows Facebook keep payment details so allowing customers easy, one click ecommerce.
It's getting there and this according to the excellent Financial Times so it's reliably informed.
If this works, it really will change things utterly.
Hard for other media to compete with guaranteed sales V advertising and hard, impossible, for advertisers to ignore.
It changes the face of advertising totally.
In effect, it's almost up there with the second secret of Fatima
