Facebook reveals four ad products for reaching across borders

Last year Facebook introduced cross-border solutions to help businesses more easily reach new customers through Facebook to provide a bridge to the new global mobile economy. They also withdrew 17 ad formats that were underperforming.

Similar to the products rolled out in Google's Go Global initiative, the latest cross-border products on Facebook are meant to make it easier for all businesses to grow nationally, regionally and globally.

The four new tools are:

1. Dynamic Language Optimization: Allows advertisers to place multiple languages within a singular advertising set, with Facebook matching the right language to the right user.

According to Dan Neary, the VP of Asia Pacific, advertisers can select up to six languages in each ad. “Translations are provided by the advertisers and with dynamic language optimization, we match the right language with the right people making it easier create a campaign in multiple languages.” he said.

While the new system can recognize dozens of languages, the onus is on the advertiser to select the languages they are providing for their campaign. The change will not affect the 20% text rule that applies to creative assets such as images and videos, as the update only refers to copy updates within an ad. The system determines the best language fit in several ways, notably based on languages the person has used or interacted with and also the default language of the advertiser.

2. FBIQ Cross-Border Business Insights Finder : Allows advertisers to unlock new growth opportunities by providing comparative country data based on previous campaign performance across Facebook platforms.

Similar to Google’s Consumer Barometer, the FBIQ update by Facebook is meant to make it easier for all businesses to grow nationally, regionally and globally, while relying on campaign performance data from Facebook platforms., Instagram and Audience Network platforms.

3. Multi-city Targeting: Allows advertisers to reach people in multiple cities based on population size. For a business owner, this refers to the target addressable market per city combined with information on demand planning and fulfillment capacity.

4. Multi-Country Lookalikes: Allows advertisers to find the next best customers in a combination of countries of their choosing.

For every country being targeted advertisers on Facebook would create individual lookalike audiences. This new tool offers them the chance to seed in the data of their best users across countries and allows Facebook to provide them with suggestions for the best audience to target.

“For example, a Malaysian SMB that was expanding to Europe would have had to create a Lookalike audience for every country,” Neary says. “However, it would likely only pick a few countries to focus on within Europe given time constraints. With a European Lookalike, we'd find the best-suited customers in Europe for them that are similar to their Malaysian audience, rather than having them decide.”