App Links is Beneficial for Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB)

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By Lisa Bradley on November 10, 2014 Company

The Audience Network program, by Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), gives an opportunity to advertisers as well as Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) itself to reach millions and millions of mobile applications. However, the company informed the press that their App Link technology is continuously being used and adopted by advertisers. This technology allows linking of mobile apps with ads. Such ads are very important when it comes to reaching more users because they encourage the users of one app to install more apps. This is very similar to the Mobile-app install ads program of Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR).

As per the management of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), hundreds of apps use App Links. These include apps for iOS, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s platform; Android, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s platform; and Windows, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s platform. Just in the previous six months, about 3 billion ad links were created in the apps for these platforms.

Brand marketers, as well as developers use App Links. Burger King Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ:BKW) also used app links for advertisement of its app. The app gives its users the menu of Burger King restaurants, gift cards and mobile coupons.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB)’s app is the most commonly used app on mobile devices. According to a report, the number of unique users of the Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) app was 115 million in the month of June of this year. This was followed by a number of different applications from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) which were YouTube, Google Maps, Google Search, Gmail and Google Play (but not in that order). Pandora Media Inc. (NASDAQ:P)’s app, Pandora Radio, is the only one that appears somewhere among the cluster of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s applications. After this cluster comes Instagram. Then finally, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Apple Maps comes with 42 million unique visitors, and Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s Yahoo Finance app, also with 42 million unique visitors.

Despite the fact that it is the most popular and commonly used mobile app around, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB)’s app can only accommodate a certain number of ads. The two tools, App Links and Audience Network, helps the company increase coverage so that they can reach millions of different apps all across the mobile world. If, hypothetically speaking, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) could accommodate an infinite number of ads, then these two tools will become a source of serious business for the company.

In the beginning of this year, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) redesigned their right column ads so that they will accommodate larger and fewer ads. The average price per ad for the company increased in the last quarter. Now, the ad engagement has reduced as well.

According to another report, in 2013, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB)’s share of the display advertisement market in the U.S. was 18%. Meanwhile, the shares of Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) totaled to 17% approximately. This was a huge surprise. Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) generates a majority of its advertisement revenue not from display ads but from search advertising. Other players in the market include Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).