Facebook kills off Questions and Offers as it streamlines its ad products

Ever thought there were just too many ads on Facebook? The social network agrees — but not in the way you think. The company has announced its plans to cull the number of ad versions it offers, in a bid to narrow its focus and avoid unnecessarily complicating the process of placing an ad.

Facebook’s product manager for advertising Fidji Simo explained that the team has been gathering feedback from brands that use its 27 different advertising products, and decided to streamline the process after they reported there were just too many products which often achieved the same effect. Facebook has decided to reduce the options by killing off products like Questions (which allows brands to post quick polls to their pages) and Offers (a tool to give fans a special reward which can be claimed straight from Timeline) in favour of focusing on end-goals like in-store sales, online conversions and app installs.

“When we work with a marketer, we always start with their business goals, and we are going to do the same thing with our ad products,” said Simo. “Our vision is that over time, an advertiser can come to Facebook and tell us what they are trying to achieve, and our ads tools will automatically suggest the right combination of products to help them achieve it.”

Simo said that tools like Questions and Offers were redundant, as marketers could simply post a status update to poll their fans or post a link to a reward on their own website. In the future, brands will not have to purchase separate sponsored stories in addition to ads on the platform — the two options will be combined as ads will include more social elements, like insight about which of a customer’s friends likes the page. Facebook says theses changes will start rolling out over the next few months, with Offers retiring in July.

The new ad designs will also increase the level of consistency found between ads on the desktop version of the site and its mobile apps, with very little differentiation between ads to buy products, like a page or install an app. Facebook hopes the changes to how its ads display across platforms will encourage and aid marketers to run campaigns over web and mobile, as well as provide a better experience for its users. The move is also in line with continuing changes the company is making to how users see Facebook on desktop and on the go, with its new design for News Feed continuing to roll out internationally.