Facebook's Mobile Adverts - Real Stats

Facebook has been getting a lot of criticism for its lack of mobile revenue. A fact it tried to hide from its IPO. Much ink has been spilled, but is it really necessary for Facebook to worry? Here's a quick case study.

Facebook has, in its infinite wisdom, decided that I would be interested in adverts for cancer. Or, perhaps, AXA have decided that 30 something males are a prime market.

The creator of the advert was Equator's Fiona Dow who, judging from her bitly profile just loves posting about cancer.

As I have mentioned several times before, bitly links are a great way to (unintentionally) share your stats. If we look at the clickthrough stats for this advert, we can find some interesting nuggets.

Here's the biggie - referrers shows where people where when they clicked on the link:

In total, nearly half of all clicks came from the mobile site.

Perhaps this is why Facebook hasn't jumped into bed with any dedicated mobile advertiser? It would seem that users are equally willing to click on Facebook's "Sponsored Stories" on mobile as well as web.

(This assumes that AXA targetted both platforms equally).

The only fly in the ointment is, you guessed it, AXA don't have a mobile friendly site.

I've been banging on about mobile-friendly advertising for years - and still advertisers don't get it! Not everyone has an iPhone. Not everyone who has an iPhone is on WiFi or 3G. Not every one want to have to pinch and zoom. If the first impression you're giving your customers is that you don't care about their needs - don't expect them to stick around too long.

So based on this datum, Facebook users are willing to click on mobile ads - all it now requires is Facebook to show them at appropriate times and advertisers to create mobile-dedicated campaigns.