5 Reasons Why 2013 Should be Facebook's Year
There´s been a lot of buzz as we all know since Facebook´s IPO went live in May, 2012. Many people has complained in the last months about what it looked like another high-tech inflated value.
There´s been a lot of buzz as we all know since Facebook´s IPO went live in May, 2012. Many people has complained in the last months about what it looked like another high-tech inflated value.
They certainly had their reasons in the first months after going public if we analyze the chart:
It´s easy to see that although the stock dropped steady on time since going live, there´s been a sustainable growing rate in the last couple of months. Recent moves from Facebook are reasonable good reasons to make it happen. Let´s go over them:
1 – Facebook Exchange as announced in September 2012, has been a big announcement for the online marketing & advertising agencies worldwide as it allows companies and websites to merge ecommerce and lead generation models with social fresh data from Facebook. Remarketing possibilities are endless here really as Facebook exchange makes it possible now to expand it´s advertising network beyond Facebook properties solely.
An ecommerce store selling all kind of products can now easily integrate their users navigational behaviour into Facebook Ads by simple remarketing, making expected ROI in traditional Facebook Ads higher. Though this is a relatively new feature related to Facebook Ads inventory, there are some services and agencies providing this service already.
2 – Facebook has acquired recently some really good products like Karma that can very well change the way the company has focused its advertising model in the past. Allowing more space and ad-inventory for Ecommerce models like this one, could bring in a bunch of new big-pocket companies looking for performance that could very well see this as an opportunity.
3 – The gambling industry which has been so far a big no-no within Facebook is expected to produce a new source of considerable income in the upcoming short term due to some important announcements. Well known Facebook players like Zynga have already shown interest on getting their pie with their regular set of games but also recent partnerships with Bwin could provide a nice stream of income for both. These are predictable moves that very well define the scope of the future we can expect on this vertical in the upcoming months. DoubleDowns, Slotomania, Jackpot Joy and other popular for-fun casino models have already proved their success within casino games enthusiasts.
If we think for a second what these kind of partnerships between traditional Facebook game providers (like Zynga) and seasoned online casino brands (like Bwin) mean for Facebook, no rocket-science is required to figure out there´s gonna be a lot of advertising budget allocated here. Not to mention again the additional benefits advertisers will get now due to remarketing options within the facebook exchange model. Easy cash for Facebook once all the legal aspects are balanced.
4 – Facebook revenue-share models (in the spirit of Adsense) have finally been tested with very specific partners. Though this option has only been experimented on limited cases, it certainly looks as one of the many required steps towards building Facebook´s Adnetwork and Affiliate Program. If you add to this equation all the different and new ways they can test to monetize via advertising Facebook Apps (Karma founders made Tapjoy before so they certainly know how to do this well), we have an interesting combo here.
5 – All in all, it seems quite clear that Facebook has finally decided to aggresively diversify their advertising options, verticals and monetization models. Stock evolution so far seems to be aligned with this perception so if you ask me I would certainly consider these stocks like an interesting asset to purchase. We certainly now have a couple of good reasons to believe the positive trend will continue 
Hope you enjoyed this post! I invite you to visit my website www.marketingshaker.com for more tips, insights and news in the online marketing industry.