Facebook who’s IPO is said to being filed this week, takes nearly 1/3 of all US display ads according to new data. The social network is gearing up for their public launch which, if the IPO is filed soon, we could see that happening just a few months from now with a summer launch very likely.

No matter how you use the site, we’re all in the same boat: We see ads. Lots of ads. Being that there’s almost 1 Billion users, that’s a lot of eyeballs and potentially, a lot of clicks. The revenue made from displaying these ads is in the Billions and only expected to go up and up from there.

Via Los Angeles Times:

“With the filing for its initial public offering expected any day now, Facebook Inc. is extending its lead in online display advertising, which makes up the bulk of its revenue. The social networking giant’s share of the U.S. online display advertising market grew to nearly 28% for 2011, up from 21% a year earlier, according to research firm ComScore Inc.”

“Facebook has stayed ahead of Yahoo Inc., which has 11% of the display ad market — and far ahead of Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.,  each of which has less than 5%, according to ComScore.”

This is also the first time since 2009 that the social network surpassed Yahoo in terms of US display ads. With that said, they’re quickly on their way to 1 Billion users. That’s going to be a huge milestone, the largest of any social network or even site in the history of the Internet, and that’s only going to contribute to the growth of their ad platform.

Do you ever click on any Facebook ads?

Facebook Takes Nearly 1/3 Of All US Display Ads is a post from: The Inquisitr

According to TBG Digital, a marketing agency, Facebook gave advertisers up to 45% off their typical cost per click rates during the fourth quarter of 2011, only if their ad/s directed users to other Facebook destinations such as a page or application.

This is quite the discount and goes to show the social network is very focused on further building up the site, as well as advertising which brings in the real money, and make them a premier choice to advertise on the web.

Being that hundreds of Millions of people log on every single day, it’s quite the popular place for both normal users and businesses and brands.

“Though one could suggest that Facebook is rewarding advertisers for keeping people in the Facebook environment, it also indicates that keeping ads within Facebook is more effective,” Patrick Toland, director of TBG’s North American operations, said in an interview.”

“Because only ads users click on make Facebook money in the cost-per-click market, it serves the network’s interest to facilitate advertisements with a higher success rate. And ads that integrate more smoothly with the Facebook experience have a set of built-in advantages, said Toland.”

The social network’s IPO is supposedly on the horizon and they need as much extra push as they can to make sure it’s a very good one. Having more people advertise and increasing that activity is crucial to moving forward.

Number of users and active users is great, but number of users and active users who click on the ads are even greater, at least in the realm of making money and running a financially successful social network.

Facebook Gave Advertisers Up To 45% Off, But With One Catch is a post from: The Inquisitr

Facebook ads are a constant source of humor and confusion for users, if my friends list is anything to go by.

Facebook users seem to be baffled and often insulted by the suggestions that pop up in the sidebars of pages on the site. “[Your age]-year-old single moms attend college free in your town!” So I’m undereducated, need a career switch and maybe a new boyfriend? And could stand to lose a few and lighten my teeth? (Targeted ads have come under fire in the past on Facebook for possibly outing closeted gay people.)

Your likes are a source of information for the specific ads shown to you, but now what you add as a status update could influence the offerings as well. While this could be inoffensive in the context of telling Facebook friends you could really go for a curry, it might be less so if you’re expressing sadness at the loss of a loved one. AdAge explains how the algorithm would work, and why it could be such a game changer for social media ad targeting:

A user may not have liked any soccer pages or indicated that soccer is an interest, but by sharing his trip to the pub for the World Cup, that user is now part of the Adidas target audience. The moment between a potential customer expressing a desire and deciding on how to fulfill that desire is an advertiser sweet spot, and the real-time ad model puts advertisers in front of a user at that very delicate, decisive moment.

The big difference is timing- capturing people when they’re more vulnerable to suggestion. (Which in and of itself isn’t much different from any kind of advertising at all.) Still, it circles back to the quintessential Facebook question of what happens to all the information you vomit onto the service, and whether a long-term dossier will result from an off-the-cuff remark you made at some point down the line, or if your emotional status updates are sitting on someone’s Excel spreadsheet, somewhere.

Does this development creep you out, or do you assume Facebook is already using your information in this way?

[AdAge via AllFacebook]

Facebook testing ads based on context from status updates is a post from: The Inquisitr

From the files of “I cannot believe this took so long,” Facebook is going to start using your “likes” and check-ins to display “Sponsored Stories” to your flist in their sidebar from time to time. Each double-foam skinny half caf Caramel Soy Macchiato, Iced you share with your friends could represent a money-making opportunity for the social networking behemoth, announcing your preferences in a kind of mini-endorsement way.

While the stories will be clearly marked as “sponsored,” they will also have a higher propensity to be repeated to friends than plain old status updates- a tidbit you should keep in mind when sharing info that tags or mentions a brand likely to participate in the campaigns. If you couldn’t turn down a nosy co-workers friend request and said co-worker continually sees an old update about you dilly-dallying at Chipotle, that might not be very professionally advantageous, for instance.

Still, as far as privacy concerns and Facebook go, this isn’t all that egregious. If you’re the type that shares and draws information from your peers on services like Facebook, it can also provide a point of interest or better awareness of brands and services the people you tend to connect to share an affinity for. Jim Squires of Facebook’s marketing team commented on the service’s value to businesses:

“Currently, marketers don’t have the ability to know or plan word-of-mouth endorsements as part of their campaigns,” Mr. Squires said. “This gives a way for marketers to increase the visibility of stories about their organization… “this is word-of-mouth marketing at scale.”

Also notable is that the “Sponsored Stories” don’t filter for less than glowing feedback. So if you moan about ice-cold fries at your local McDonald’s, that information could be continuously posted to friends’ sidebars. Among companies that have already tested the program are Coca-Cola, Unicef and Levi’s.

Do you think you’re more likely to purchase or utilize a brand or service based on Facebook chatter?

Facebook to cash in on your likes and check-ins is a post from: The Inquisitr

Facebook is older than it’s ever been, and now it’s even older.

iStrategy Labs- the folks responsible for the ads in your Facebook sidebar, pay close attention to demographic patterns on Facebook. And while the group found that less than a million users 55 or over were using Facebook back in January of 2009, more than 5.8 million users fell into that bracket as of July 4th- an increase of 514%.

To further old-ify Facebook, iStrategy Labs also noted that use by college and high school students had dropped 22% and 17% respectively. A long running pop-culture joke, iStrategy labs posited that perhaps younger users were genuinely abandoning the service due to shyness in the presence of older relatives.

However, it was unclear in the report whether events such as graduation or merely disassociating with a school in general were taken into account when tabulating the figures regarding students. If so, it may actually bode well if Facebook hopes to retain younger users, as it could indicate that the service has transcended academic boundaries and is just viewed as an all-purpose social network.

Age notwithstanding, there was one more demographic embracing Facebook in a surprisingly large number- growth in Atlanta, GA jumped 142%.

Grandma’s in ur Facebook, peepin’ ur drunk pics is a post from: The Inquisitr