A Facebook Ad Network? Not So Fast

Marketers will have to wait a little longer to advertise on Facebook's third-party ad network.

A company spokesperson confirmed to Mashable Wednesday that it is halting its mobile-ads test on third-party apps.

"While the results we have seen and the feedback from partners has been positive, our focus is on scaling ads in mobile news feed before ads off of Facebook. We have learned a lot from this test that will be useful in the future," the spokesperson said.

In September, Facebook began working with a number of ad exchanges to serve ads on third-party mobile apps. A mobile ad network -- what could be the social network's equivalent of Google's AdSense -- looked to help Facebook build up its mobile-ad inventory without flooding users of its mobile apps and website with more ads.

Network partners and advertisers have already been notified that testing has been paused.

We're told that the decision was driven by the need to reallocate resources to improving the ads that appear in Facebook's mobile news feed. Sources told AllThingsD that the "major problem for both Facebook and its potential partners ... is concern that Facebook isn’t ready to deliver ads on external sites that produce significant value for either the network or its partners."

Facebook will continue to run third-party ads on Zynga.com.

Source : mashable