Le perdite di Mark Zuckerberg per il Metaverso hanno superato 40 miliardi di dollari e le proiezioni non sono migliori. Ma questo sforzo economico sta diventando sempre più accettabile per il mercato.

Nonostante le perdite, Mark Zuckerberg sta tenendo fermo il punto: “Questa è la direzione giusta verso la quale si sta muovendo il mondo”.

Perdite accettabili per Wall Street

E improvvisamente il sentiment di Wall Street è più benevolo rispetto a questa scommessa. La Borsa sta cominciando ad accettare l’enorme quantità di soldi che Zuckerberg continua a versare nel metaverso.

Le perdite sono enormi. I risultati del secondo trimestre 2023 dicono che le perdite complessive di Reality Labs, la divsione dedidcata al metaverso di Meta, hanno superato i 40 miliardi di dollari e in futuro il trend non è visto in miglioramento. Ciò nonostante, mercoledì scorso in occasione della trimestrale, il titolo di Meta è aumentato del 7% dopo le spiegazioni di Zuckerberg sul perché continui a spendere così pesantemente in un’area ancora largamente inesplorata.

Scommessa a lunghissimo termine

“Questa è una scommessa a lunghissimo termine”, ha detto Zuckerberg in call con gli analisti. “Non posso garantire al 100% di avere ragione in questa scommessa. Credo che questa sia la direzione giusta in cui si muoverà il mondo”. All’orizzonte secondo Zuckerberg c’è una versione più immersiva di Internet.

“Ci sono più di due miliardi di persone che portano gli occhiali oggi. Penso che in futuro tutti porteranno degli occhiali intelligenti (smart glasses) e così ogni volta che guarderanno la Tv e il computer vedranno qualcosa di più immersivo e più simile alla realtà virtuale (VR)”, ha detto Zuckerberg.  

“Ciò a cui stiamo assistendo sono forme di comunicazione sempre più ricche per le persone anche attraverso app mobili che vanno dai testi alle foto ai video, segnati tutti da un trend costante di maggior immersività. Tutto ciò mi spinge a credere che stiamo seguendo la strada giusta e siamo i primi a farlo”.

Cala il pressing su Zuckerberg

Questa volta, gli analisti hanno pressato Zuckerberg molto meno sulla spesa del metaverso rispetto ai trimestri precedenti. La differenza: l’anno scorso, Meta ha registrato un rallentamento o una crescita dei ricavi negativa. Ora, gran parte dell’attenzione durante la call con gli analisti si è focalizzata sui progetti AI di Meta e sulla sorprendente crescita e il successo di Threads.

L’accettazione da parte di Wall Street della spesa del metaverso è probabilmente correlata al miglioramento delle prestazioni aziendali complessive di Meta. I ricavi sono aumentati nel secondo trimestre e dovrebbero aumentare ancora nel prossimo. Meta ha effettuato enormi licenziamenti e tagliato le spese in altri modi.

Ciò significa che Zuckerberg si sta allineando per mantenere la sua promessa dell’anno scorso che avrebbe aumentato le entrate e i profitti da Facebook, Instagram e WhatsApp abbastanza da coprire i costi continui del metaverso.

Durante il secondo trimestre, i profitti di questa famiglia di app sono aumentati di 2 miliardi di dollari, mentre le perdite di Reality Labs sono state pari a 3,7 miliardi di dollari. Quindi poco più della metà.

https://www.key4biz.it/meta-il-rosso-per-il-metaverso-supera-40-miliardi-ma-per-il-mercato-non-e-piu-un-problema/455717/

Over the last several years, there have been growing concerns about the influence of social media on fostering political polarization in the US, with critical implications for democracy. But it’s unclear whether our online “echo chambers” are the driving factor behind that polarization or whether social media merely reflects (and arguably amplifies) divisions that already exist. Several intervention strategies have been proposed to reduce polarization and the spread of misinformation on social media, but it’s equally unclear how effective they would be at addressing the problem.

The US 2020 Facebook and Instagram Election Study is a joint collaboration between a group of independent external academics from several institutions and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The project is designed to explore these and other relevant questions about the role of social media in democracy within the context of the 2020 US election. It’s also a first in terms of the degree of transparency and independence that Meta has granted to academic researchers. Now we have the first results from this unusual collaboration, detailed in four separate papers—the first round of over a dozen studies stemming from the project.

Three of the papers were published in a special issue of the journal Science. The first paper investigated how exposure to political news content on Facebook was segregated ideologically. The second paper delved into the effects of a reverse chronological feed as opposed to an algorithmic one. The third paper examined the effects of exposure to reshared content on Facebook. And the fourth paper, published in Nature, explored the extent to which social media “echo chambers” contribute to increased polarization and hostility.

“We find that algorithms are extremely influential in people’s on-platform experiences, and there is significant ideological segregation in political news exposure,” Natalie Jomini Stroud of the University of Texas at Austin—co-academic research lead for the project, along with New York University’s Joshua Tucker—said during a press briefing. “We also find that popular proposals to change social media algorithms did not sway political attitudes.”

Ideological segregation

Let’s start with the question of whether or not Facebook enables more ideological segregation in users’ consumption of political news. Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon of the University of Pennsylvania and her co-authors looked at the behavior of 208 million Facebook users between September 2020 and February 2021. For privacy reasons, they did not look at individual-level data, per Gonzalez-Bailon, focusing only on aggregated measures of audience behavior and audience composition. So the URLs they analyzed had been posted by users more than 100 times.

The results: Conservatives and liberals do indeed see and engage with different sets of political news—strong ideological separation. That segregation is even more pronounced when political news is posted by pages or groups as opposed to individuals. “In other words, pages and groups contribute much more to segregation than users,” said Gonzalez-Bailon. Furthermore, politically conservative users are much more segregated on Facebook than liberal users; there were far more political news URLs seen exclusively by conservatives compared to those seen exclusively by liberals.

Finally, the vast majority of political news that Meta’s third-party fact-checker program rated as false was viewed by conservatives, compared to liberals. That said, those false ratings amounted to a mere 0.2 percent, on average, of the full volume of content on Facebook. And political news in general accounts for just 3 percent of all posts shared on Facebook, so it’s not even remotely the most popular type of content. “This segregation is the result of a complex interaction between algorithmic forms of curation and social forms of curation, and these feedback loops are very difficult to disentangle with observational data,” said Gonzalez-Bailon of the study’s findings.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1956517

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Nicola Agius is Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land after joining in 2023. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media and more. Prior to this, she was SEO Director at Jungle Creations (2020-2023), overseeing the company’s editorial strategy for multiple websites. She has over 15 years of experience in journalism and has previously worked at OK! Magazine (2010-2014), Mail Online (2014-2015), Mirror (2015-2017), Digital Spy (2017-2018) and The Sun (2018-2020). She also previously teamed up with SEO agency Blue Array to co-author Amazon bestselling book ‘Mastering In-House SEO’.

https://searchengineland.com/meta-updates-to-enhance-facebook-video-experience-429549

The European Commission today decided it is safe for personal data to be transferred from the European Union to US-based companies, handing a victory to firms like Facebook and Google despite protests from privacy advocates who worry about US government surveillance.

The commission announced that it “adopted its adequacy decision for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework,” concluding “that the United States ensures an adequate level of protection—comparable to that of the European Union—for personal data transferred from the EU to US companies under the new framework. On the basis of the new adequacy decision, personal data can flow safely from the EU to US companies participating in the Framework, without having to put in place additional data protection safeguards.”

In May, Facebook-owner Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with transfers of personal data to the United States and was ordered to stop storing European Union user data in the US within six months. But Meta said at the time that if the pending data-transfer pact “comes into effect before the implementation deadlines expire, our services can continue as they do today without any disruption or impact on users.”

The data-transfer deal “is expected to face a legal challenge from European privacy advocates, who have long said that the US needs to make substantial changes to surveillance laws,” a Wall Street Journal report said today. “Transfers of data from Europe to the US have been in question since an EU court ruled in 2020 that a previous deal allowing trans-Atlantic data flows was illegal because the US didn’t give EU individuals an effective way to challenge surveillance of their data by the US government.”

US to monitor compliance

The EC’s announcement said the new framework has “binding safeguards to address all the concerns raised by the European Court of Justice, including limiting access to EU data by US intelligence services to what is necessary and proportionate, and establishing a Data Protection Review Court (DPRC), to which EU individuals will have access.” The new court “will be able to order the deletion” of data that is found to have been collected in violation of the new rules.

The framework will be administered and monitored by the US Department of Commerce and the “US Federal Trade Commission will enforce US companies’ compliance,” the EC announcement said. EU residents who challenge data collection will have free access to “independent dispute resolution mechanisms and an arbitration panel.”

The US and EC agreed on the data privacy framework in March 2022, and the US announced last week that it has fulfilled its commitments for implementing the deal.

Google supported the agreement, writing last year that the “US government has now committed to systems that will enable independent and meaningful redress for people in the EU, strengthen the guardrails and proportionality of US intelligence collection, and ensure effective oversight of these new privacy and civil liberties standards in ways that address the concerns articulated by the Court of Justice of the European Union.” Google also said the agreement provides “a reliable and durable foundation for the future of Internet services on both sides of the Atlantic.”

US companies can join the EU-US framework “by committing to comply with a detailed set of privacy obligations, for instance the requirement to delete personal data when it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, and to ensure continuity of protection when personal data is shared with third parties,” the European Commission said.

Privacy activist plans appeal

Previous data agreements known as Safe Harbor and Privacy Shield were struck down by European courts, the WSJ noted. “Max Schrems, an Austrian lawyer and privacy activist who led the legal challenges to the earlier agreements, said he plans to challenge the latest deal, too,” the report said.

“We would need changes in US surveillance law to make this work and we simply don’t have it,” Schrems was quoted as saying.

European Parliament member Birgit Sippel, who is in Germany’s Social Democratic Party, said the “framework does not provide any meaningful safeguards against indiscriminate surveillance conducted by US intelligence agencies,” according to The New York Times.

The EC approval of the deal was lauded by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents Amazon, Apple, eBay, Google, Meta, Twitter, and other tech companies. “Today’s decision means that EU and US businesses will soon have full legal certainty again to transfer personal data across the Atlantic… Data flows are vital to transatlantic trade and the EU-US economic relationship, which is worth €5.5 trillion per year. Nevertheless, the two economies had been left without guidelines for data transfers after an EU Court ruling invalidated the previous framework back in 2020,” the group said.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1952570

Meta has officially launched its surprisingly popular Twitter alternative, Threads—shocking even Mark Zuckerberg as sign-ups hit 30 million within the first 24 hours. Though a separate app, Threads is built as a convenient extension of Instagram, requiring an Instagram account to join and allowing users to port their entire Instagram following over in one click. That has clearly made Threads appealing to a huge chunk of Instagram users.

“We didn’t expect tens of millions of people to sign up in one day, but supporting that is a champagne problem,” Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said in a cheery update on Thursday.

With its well-timed launch coming just after Twitter announced unpopular rate limits on tweets, Threads has quickly surpassed ChatGPT as the fastest-growing consumer app, TechCrunch reported. But as sign-ups explode, Threads is also experiencing immediate backlash from critics who have complained about how Threads was designed and about the app’s seemingly ample privacy issues.

The most annoying thing about Threads might be that you cannot delete an account without deleting the linked Instagram account.

“You may deactivate your Threads profile at any time, but your Threads profile can only be deleted by deleting your Instagram account,” the Threads Supplemental Privacy Policy says. For more details, a Meta spokesperson linked Ars to Mosseri’s Threads post, which said:

I’ve been getting some questions about deleting your account. To clarify, you can deactivate your Threads account, which hides your Threads profile and content, you can set your profile to private, and you can delete individual Threads posts – all without deleting your Instagram account. Threads is powered by Instagram, so right now it’s just one account, but we’re looking into a way to delete your Threads account separately.

Another big complaint is that there is no dedicated feed to see only content from accounts that users actually follow. Some users have complained that their feeds are flooded with content from accounts they never followed, seemingly outnumbering posts from friends.

In a blog post, Meta touted this default feed as a feature, saying, “Your feed on Threads includes threads posted by people you follow and recommended content from new creators you haven’t discovered yet.”

Since then, Mosseri and Zuckerberg have both indicated on social media that Meta could update the app in the future to provide a dedicated feed of material from accounts that users follow.

Other features that could be coming soon include “support for editing posts, a translation option for different languages, and options to switch between different Threads accounts,” The Verge reported. Most notably, Threads will soon be compatible with ActivityPub, which would make Threads interoperable with other apps. That would allow users to engage cross-app with others or even leave Threads and port their content and followers to other platforms. Meta’s blog, describing this decentralized approach to building an app, said:

We’re committed to giving you more control over your audience on Threads—our plan is to work with ActivityPub to provide you the option to stop using Threads and transfer your content to another service. Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks.

For now, users can control what they see by restricting who can reply to their Threads posts or mention them in replies. As on Instagram, users agree to follow the same community guidelines and can hide certain words to filter out undesirable replies. And one benefit of logging in with the same Instagram account is that Threads will ensure that any account blocked on Instagram is also blocked on Threads.

While Threads is considered part of an Instagram account, any content moderation actions that Meta takes against a Threads user will not impact their Instagram account, The Verge reported, based on a review of internal documents from Meta. However, exceptions could be made in extreme cases, like for users sharing child exploitation materials.

Privacy concerns, potential FTC scrutiny

Meta plans to keep updating the app and appears to be closely monitoring user feedback during its rollout. So far, that feedback includes privacy complaints that set Threads apart from Twitter in a seemingly less desirable way.

“All your Threads are belong to us,” Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tweeted, along with a screenshot showing all the sensitive data that Threads collects. Twitter owner Elon Musk amplified the tweet by responding simply, “Yeah.”

Threads collects so much sensitive data that Meta paused the app’s launch in the European Union. The company recently lost a legal fight with EU regulators, who decided that Meta can no longer claim it has a “legitimate interest” to process wide swaths of user data for advertising. Calli Schroeder, senior counsel and global privacy counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), told Ars that Threads gathers “a good amount” of data that “is not necessary for the app to function.”

Data collected by Threads can include users’ sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, biometric data, trade union membership, pregnancy status, politics, and religious beliefs. Threads can also collect data on users’ employment, as well as health and fitness. Beyond that, the app also can collect data monitoring users’ location and other web activity.

“Health and financial data, precise location, search history, browsing history, and more are not needed for a user to be on the app and are instead used to create a more hyper-personalized and targeted experience on the app or shared with and sold to advertisers,” Schroeder told Ars.

All of these privacy concerns are red flags in the EU, where users must give consent before sensitive data can be collected, Quartz reported. Schroeder said that the concerns could also be considered red flags by users anywhere who are aware of Meta’s “history of concerning privacy practices” and who might otherwise choose to opt out of such extensive data collection. Because of these concerns, it’s possible that Threads will never be offered in the EU, TechCrunch reported.

“Incoming EU regulations entirely bar using sensitive data for ads,” Schroeder told Ars, in reference to the Digital Markets Act.

Meta may run into trouble with Threads in the US, too, Schroeder said. Meta is currently under a consent decree from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), under which it’s possible that Meta’s decision to link Threads accounts to Instagram accounts could be considered a violation or an “unfair or deceptive” practice because it potentially obscures what steps a user must take to control their data.

“It looks like Threads automatically links with a user’s Instagram account and a user can’t delete Threads without also deleting the Instagram,” Schroeder told Ars. “This may violate Meta’s consent order with the FTC, which bars Meta from misrepresenting the privacy or security of covered data, including the extent to which a consumer can control the privacy of the information and the steps they have to take to maintain control.”

Of all the Twitter alternatives popping up, Schroeder cautioned that Threads may have the most privacy concerns.

“Threads is one of the most privacy-invasive options we’ve seen,” Schroeder told Ars. “Users wanting to ditch Twitter can absolutely still do so but may have to pick a better alternative than Threads (and consider whether they want to trust Elon or Zuckerberg with their personal data).”

In a Threads post, Zuckerberg took a light jab at Twitter while optimistically predicting that Threads could become the first online public square that attracts a billion users—which was Musk’s target for Twitter to hit by 2024.

“I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it,” Zuckerberg posted on Threads. “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1951976

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About the author

Nicola Agius is Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land after joining in 2023. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media and more. Prior to this, she was SEO Director at Jungle Creations (2020-2023), overseeing the company’s editorial strategy for multiple websites. She has over 15 years of experience in journalism and has previously worked at OK! Magazine (2010-2014), Mail Online (2014-2015), Mirror (2015-2017), Digital Spy (2017-2018) and The Sun (2018-2020). She also previously teamed up with SEO agency Blue Array to co-author Amazon bestselling book ‘Mastering In-House SEO’.

https://searchengineland.com/how-facebook-ranks-content-2023-feed-stories-reels-428837

Yesterday, Canada passed its Online News Act, which requires tech companies to negotiate content deals with news publishers and pay news outlets for links shared on their platforms. As Meta threatened back in March, it promptly announced yesterday that it will be quickly ending news access on Facebook and Instagram in response to the law, Reuters reported.

“Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act taking effect,” Meta’s statement said.

According to The New York Times, it’s still unclear when Canada’s law will take effect, but Meta’s statement makes it sound like Meta plans to cut off news as quickly as it can. Meta claims that news has no value to either the tech giant or to users who do not go to Facebook and Instagram to consume news.

That claim doesn’t match up with what surveys say about news consumption on Meta platforms, though.

In 2021, Pew Research Center reported results of a US survey finding that “when it comes to where Americans regularly get news on social media, Facebook outpaces all other social media sites.” For Canadians in 2022, Facebook was still the most popular social media platform for weekly news, according to Statista, which ran a survey finding that 21 percent of Canadians check Facebook for news weekly. That survey did record a drop in popularity for Instagram as a news source among Canadians, although Instagram still slightly outpaced Twitter as a weekly news source.

A Meta spokesperson linked Ars to an updated blog with some details on what Facebook and Instagram users can expect moving forward.

“Content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” the blog said.

Currently, Meta is conducting ongoing “product tests to help us build an effective product solution to end news availability.” A “small percentage” of Canadian users on Instagram and Facebook are being impacted by these product tests and losing access to news already.

While Meta works to end news access for all Canadian users, the company has said that Facebook and Instagram will otherwise be unchanged. It also notes that Meta plans to continue building its global fact-checking network to combat misinformation on its platforms.

“Fact-checking will continue with respect to content that remains available in Canada,” Meta’s blog said.

The decision to drop news from Meta platforms was expected, as Meta spokespersons had made it clear for months that Canada’s law compelling platforms to pay for links to news content was “neither sustainable nor workable.”

Canada passed the law to require online ad revenue-sharing between news publishers and platforms and help reverse a decade-long collapse in news publisher revenue. In March, Meta estimated that links to news articles make up less than 3 percent of news feeds on its platforms and claimed it was an insignificant revenue source.

Meta isn’t the only one unhappy with Canada’s law, which yesterday received royal assent from Canada’s governor-general and will soon take effect. A Google spokesperson told Reuters that the law is still “unworkable” and that Google still hopes to find an alternative “path forward.”

Google did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment. [Update: Google’s spokesperson, Jenn Crider, told Ars that none of Google’s concerns have been addressed. She said that because the law “remains unworkable,” Google is “urgently” seeking to work with the Canadian government to “avoid an outcome that no one wants”—which Google previously described as “existing support to Canadian news publishers” slowing down or stopping “while Google and others seek the clarity.”

Crider said that Google has “proposed thoughtful and pragmatic solutions that would have improved” the law (described here) and “cleared the path” for Google to increase its “already significant investments in the Canadian news ecosystem.”]

Canada Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, who introduced the Online News Act, said yesterday that there will be an implementation process before the law takes effect, Reuters reported. Rodriguez celebrated the law-passing by championing lawmakers in a statement, saying, “If the government can’t stand up for Canadians against tech giants, who will?”

Canada’s law was modeled after an Australian law passed in 2021 that requires companies like Meta and Google to negotiate deals with news publishers to link to content. When that Australia law passed, Meta similarly protested by ending news access before reaching an agreement, securing amendments to Australia’s law and striking content deals with several news publishers. It’s possible that Meta still has an opportunity to provide feedback on Canada’s law and reach a similar agreement there.

Both Meta and Google have met with the Canadian government this week, and a government spokesperson said that Canada looks forward to having more talks with tech companies, Reuters reported.

In a news release, the Canadian government said that draft regulations will next be published in the Canada Gazette, specifying how the law should be applied and providing guidance on exemptions.

“Everyone will have an opportunity to consult and provide feedback through this Canada Gazette process,” the news release said.

From there, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission will oversee “bargaining, negotiation and external final-offer arbitration processes between platforms and news businesses.” The commission will also create a code of conduct to ensure fairness and transparency in bargaining.

“A free and independent press is fundamental to our democracy,” Rodriguez is quoted saying in the news release. “Thanks to the Online News Act, newsrooms across the country will now be able to negotiate fairly for compensation when their work appears on the biggest digital platforms. It levels the playing field by putting the power of big tech in check and ensuring that even our smallest news business can benefit through this regime and receive fair compensation for their work.”

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1949649

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About the author

Nicola Agius is Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land after joining in 2023. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media and more. Prior to this, she was SEO Director at Jungle Creations (2020-2023), overseeing the company’s editorial strategy for multiple websites. She has over 15 years of experience in journalism and has previously worked at OK! Magazine (2010-2014), Mail Online (2014-2015), Mirror (2015-2017), Digital Spy (2017-2018) and The Sun (2018-2020). She also previously teamed up with SEO agency Blue Array to co-author Amazon bestselling book ‘Mastering In-House SEO’.

https://searchengineland.com/instagram-ads-reels-markete-428489

Are you looking to get more leads for your business on Facebook?

While the Meta ad platform is one of the best ways to get highly targeted leads, it can be a little confusing to set up the right optimization in your campaign.

This article tackles the difference between instant forms and website conversions, when to use each option, and how to set up Facebook lead generation ads.

Instant forms vs. website conversions in Facebook ads

Your first step in setting up lead gen ads is understanding which type of campaign you want to run. There are two main types within the “Leads” campaign objective in the Meta platform:

• Instant forms.
• Conversions.

(In my opinion, the Messenger or Calls conversion options are not quite as effective at the time of this writing.) 

The biggest difference is that instant forms happen all on Facebook. This ad will look just like any ad but you will see the Form on Facebook designation on the ad. 

When you click the Sign up button (or the call to action you used), you will get a popup box that allows you to add your name, email, and whatever fields the advertiser has requested.

A nice feature of the instant form is that the name, email, and phone number fields are pre-filled with the person’s information from Facebook, so the user doesn’t have to type that information in. 

This can lead to better leads since it doesn’t require typing on a mobile phone, and you know you are getting the correct phone number and email address. The user can edit that information before submitting it if needed.

With a conversions ad, you send the traffic off Facebook and to your website, which has your Facebook Pixel installed. 

You must install your Facebook pixel to make the conversion ad track properly.

You also need to have a “thank you” page where you can install the lead pixel standard event code.  

Facebook will track a conversion from an ad any time someone clicks on your ad (or views your ad if you have the View attribution also selected) and then lands on the “thank you” page.

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When to use instant forms vs. website conversions

If you don’t have a landing page but want to collect leads, the lead generation ad is a perfect solution. 

You can redirect to a website or even have a Call now button after someone has completed the form.

One downside to the instant forms is that you must manually download the leads from the lead ad forms section of your Facebook Page in the Business Suite area.

You can pay for a tool like Zapier to automate the process and send the leads to your email or CRM as they arrive.

If you have a website – or a “landing page” or “squeeze page” – that you want the traffic to go to, then you need to select the conversion ad as long as you can install the Facebook pixel.

If you can’t redirect to the “thank you” page after someone submits their information, you may be able to install the pixel on a button click but you will have to either check with your web developer or know how to install that on your own.

You may also want to test an instant form ad and a website conversion ad to see which gives you better results. 

Typically, I find that the instant form ads can give you cheaper leads but the website conversion ads can give you higher quality leads because of higher intent.

How to set up Facebook lead generation ads

Creating lead generation ads is similar for both instant forms and website conversion ads but there are a few key differences that I will outline for each.

Steps for instant forms:

• Create the lead form (under Instant forms) in the Business Suite area of the Facebook Page. You can also create this within the Ads Manager as you create the ad but I think it’s a little easier to do it ahead of time.
• Connect the lead form to Zapier if desired for automation.
• Create the leads ad and select that lead form.

Steps for website conversion ads:

• Add the main base Facebook pixel code to your landing page.
• Add both the base pixel and the standard event codes to your “thank you” page (typically, people choose Lead as the standard event).
• Create the leads ad and send the traffic to your landing page, optimizing around the lead pixel.

I will show you the flow of creating a lead generation ad and highlight the differences along the way.

Creating the instant form

Below are the steps for creating an instant form in the Business Suite. (The steps are similar if you do it within the Ads Manager)

Step 1: Go to the Business Suite and select Lead Ads forms from the menu

You can access it directly here.  

Step 2: Select Create form

You will see a popup asking if you want to create a new form or duplicate an existing one. Select New form and then Next.

Step 3: Add information for your form

First, name your form. Use a clear name for what you are offering to easily choose it when you create the ad. 

For example, use a descriptive name for a special lead magnet, free call, coupon, or other special freebie.

You will need to expand each section to:

• Add the headline and text for the popup (Intro).
• Select what information you want to get from the user (Questions).
• Set your privacy policy and what you want to happen after completing the form (i.e., stay on Facebook, go to your website, or call now).

Step 4: Select Publish

Once your instant form looks the way you want in the preview section, you can publish the form. 

You cannot edit it after it publishes, so save it as a draft if you want to make changes. But it must be published to use in ads.

Creating the Facebook ad

Step 1: Go to the Facebook Ads Manager and select Create then Leads

You can access the Ads Manager directly here.

When you select Continue, you will see the campaign, ad set, and ad structure.  

You may be prompted to do a “Streamlined” setup but choose Manual so that you can select the options you want.

Step 2: Name your campaign

Give your campaign a meaningful name so it’s easy to read your reports, then select Continue. 

I like to also add the type of optimization in my campaign name so it’s clear to me. Then select Next.

Step 3: Choose website conversions or instant forms at the ad set level

At the ad set level, you will choose whether you want to send people to the website for website conversion ads or if you have created an instant form, you’ll select the instant form conversion location.

If you have chosen the website option, you must choose the Pixel and Conversion Event at this stage.

Step 4: Set up your targeting, budgeting, and placement

For the scope of this article, I won’t go into all the steps of your ad targeting, budget and placement.

But you will complete those steps at the ad set level and then select the Next button to create your ad.

Step 5: Create your Facebook ad

The ad text, images and headline will be exactly the same in each case.

Step 6: Make sure you’ve selected the correct instant form or pixel

If you have selected the instant form option, the default will typically be the most recent one you’ve created.  

Website conversion ads will have the website address as the destination and you should also ensure you’ve selected the right Facebook pixel.

You can see in these two examples that the ad itself can look exactly the same.

Step 7: Click ‘Publish’

Once you are done setting up the ad, you can click Publish and your ad will go into the Review process.

Both types of ads have pluses and minuses. What is important is to test what works for your business and balance the lead volume vs. quality. 

Facebook is an amazing tool for lead generation. Both options can generate high-quality leads for your business.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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About the author

Andrea Vahl is a Facebook and Instagram Ads Expert and is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies. Her newest book is Facebook Ads Made Simple. She speaks and trains all over the world and has managed over $6M in ad spend for her clients. She is also a stand up comedian. Learn more at www.andreavahl.com.

https://searchengineland.com/facebook-lead-gen-ads-instant-forms-vs-website-conversions-428405

Meta da al via all’ultimo round di licenziamenti iniziati a partire dallo scorso anno. Secondo quanto riporta Reuters, l’azienda farà un ulteriore taglio in questi giorni di 6.000 posti di lavoro, con il totale salito a 21.0000 licenziamenti, ritornando ad un organico simile a quello che aveva nel 2021.

Il primo grande taglio è arrivato a novembre e aveva coinvolto 11.000 posizioni, seguito da uno successivo di altri 4.000 posti di lavoro a marzo.

Nel complesso i tagli hanno colpito più pesantemente i ruoli non ingegneristici, rafforzando il primato di coloro che scrivono il codice in Meta. Zuckerberg si è impegnato a marzo a ristrutturare i team aziendali “sostanzialmente” e tornare a “un rapporto più ottimale tra ingegneri e altri ruoli”. Anche tra i tagli mirati specificamente ai team tecnologici, l’azienda ha eliminato più severamente ruoli non ingegneristici come la progettazione dei contenuti e la ricerca sull’esperienza utente, secondo i dirigenti che hanno parlato in seguito in un municipio aziendale.

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I licenziamenti di Meta sono seguiti a mesi di calo della crescita dei ricavi a causa dell’elevata inflazione e del ritiro degli annunci digitali dal boom dell’e-commerce pandemico. Queste le spiegazioni della società di Zuckerberg. Senza però dimenticare che lo stesso fondatore ha preteso di investire miliardi di dollari nella unità Reality Labs orientata al metaverso. In numeri: Reality Labs ha perso 13,7 miliardi di dollari solo nel 2022 ed è un buco nero che ingloba centinaia di migliaia di dollari all’ora. Questo è uno dei motivi dei tagli. E ora l’investimento da compiere è sulla IA, così Meta si fa i muscoli tagliando i costi.

Anche Lenovo e Soundcloud tagliano posti di lavoro

Nel frattempo anche Lenovo, attualmente il più grande produttore di PC in quanto a volumi globali, ha dichiarato di aver ridotto il suo organico di circa il 5% durante il trimestre gennaio – marzo 2023.

Stando al 5% diramato dal presidente della società, Yang Yuanqing, i licenziamenti sarebbero circa 4.000, ma se prendiamo a riferimento quelli riportati da VP, la cifra sale a circa 7.000. Entrambi si sono rifiutati di fornire cifre precise per i tagli.

SoundCloud ridurrà il personale di un ulteriore 8%, con l’obiettivo di garantire la salute di SoundCloud e riportarla alla redditività entro l’anno in corso. L’azienda aveva già ridotto la sua forza lavoro del 20%, nell’agosto del 2022, citando “il difficile clima economico” per motivare i licenziamenti.

Dal gennaio 2021 ad oggi, secondo il sito Layoff.fyi, i licenziamenti nel settore tecnologico sono stati in totale 364.006.

https://www.key4biz.it/meta-al-via-lultimo-round-di-licenziamenti-previste-6mila-uscite/447484/