Report: Facebook Audience Network Testing Expansion Into Mobile Web Advertising

Facebook is running a test to expand the Facebook Audience Networks’ reach to mobile web advertising, according to an AdExchanger report.

The social network confirmed to AdExchanger that the test, which apparently started about a month ago, is running and acknowledged that Diply is among the small set of publishers participating. The move to the mobile web is another sign of Facebook’s encroachment into a space dominated by Google’s AdSense publisher network.

Facebook Audience Network (FAN) launched in 2014 as an in-app advertising network for mobile app publishers — and competitor to Google’s AdMob, Twitter’s MoPub and other app ad networks. FAN offers advertisers the ability to harness Facebook data and buy ads in apps outside of the social network while still using the Facebook ad interface.

Like Google, which enables advertisers to buy in-app ad and mobile web ads through the AdWords interface, the FAN expansion would provide another one-stop shop for buying in-app and mobile web advertising. Which leaves open the question of whether Facebook will eventually expand FAN to include desktop advertising, as well.

Facebook announced that FAN, which supports native ads and video, in addition to mobile banners and interstitials, hit $1 billion annual run rate as of the fourth quarter last year.