As more users access Facebook from their mobile phone, it’s not always a smartphone. Now Facebook has made it easier for companies to target ads to people using feature phones. Sister site Inside Facebook noted that the Power Editor and Ads Application Programming Interface (API) includes better options for targeting ads at feature phone users only.
Lisa Raphael (left), the social media producer at Katie Couric's daytime talk show Katie, is one of our featured speakers in Mediabistro's upcoming Social Media Marketing Boot Camp, an online event and workshop starting June 6, 2013. Lisa will share a case study on how the hit show uses Twitter to build interest and buzz around upcoming segments. Learn more about our our twelve event speakers and register here. 
Facebook announced Wednesday that advertisers that want to grow their fan bases can now pay based on a cost-per-action basis. For instance, if brands want to gain more likes and are willing to pay $2 per new fan, they can simply bid $2 CPA and pay no more than that when users like the page through ads. This is only available in the ads application-programming interface — not yet in Power Editor or Ads Manager — but Facebook may make it available on those platforms in the future.
Facebook’s ad-targeting capabilities took a giant step forward with Wednesday’s launch of partner categories, which allow brands on the social network to show ads to users based not only on their Facebook activity, but their activity across the Web, via both desktop and mobile, and even their offline purchases and tendencies.
Facebook continues to provide advertisers with more options to secure precious real estate on its News Feed, with sister blog Inside Facebook reporting that unpublished posts, also referred to as dark posts, were added to News Feed last week.
Facebook introduced another way for advertisers on the social network to keep tabs on actions performed by users who interact with their ad campaigns: tracking specs.
We got a sneak peek at the Adobe Marketing Cloud user interface that is launching Wednesday. In short, it’s a Pinterest-like feed sourced from what others in users’ organizations are sharing. Adobe Marketing Cloud integrated content creation and community management into its dashboards, allowing users to post to Facebook, moderate through queues, and examine the performance of their posts.
Ending weeks of speculation, Facebook Thursday confirmed its acquisition of the Atlas Solutions ad-serving business from Microsoft.
We call it MAA (not MMA or AMA) — and it stands for Metrics > Analysis > Action. The idea is this: Sort to find the top performers, ignoring the rest. Don’t mass-multiply; spend a few minutes per day, not three hours once per month. Amplify what’s working by using different forms of social retargeting via sponsored stories, sponsored results, and custom audience targeting. Don’t waste time making reports, unless you’re in that type of company — focus on insights and actions. Software is nice, but expert action is better. Software can’t mask missing competency. Repeat these cycles quickly — you can get them down to minutes and multiple cycles per day.
Through custom audiences, Facebook pages can launch highly targeted marketing campaigns. Sister site Inside Facebook reported Monday that Facebook has launched lookalike audiences, allowing advertisers to target users who are similar to those in the custom audience database. Currently, this is in beta for U.S. users.
Facebook recently launched a new conversion metric, making it easier for businesses to tell if users made purchases based on advertisements on the social network. Social media expert Jon Loomer illustrated how businesses can use this new practice to create offsite pixels, which signal events that happened while users browsed websites.
