What Facebook Should do to Improve Ad Revenue in India?

Facebook is already become a number one social networking site in India. Facebook has more than 150 million users in India. Facebook is become number second popular site in India after Google. Facebook has got second position in India just in 5 years. Facebook is not only popular in urban India but also in rural area where internet connection is still limited. They are planning to offer free internet in rural India by solar powered drones. Facebook will have a mass reach across rural India if solar powered drones work in rural area. It will ultimately boost the ad revenue in India as advertisers like FMCG, Finance, Education, Electronics etc. will get a chance show ads PAN India.

Let’s see how Facebook Advertising Support Works in India:

I recently called up Facebook support for setting up Remarketing campaign. A girl from their team picked up a call and said that she will forward the query to technical expert from Facebook team and will get back to me. I waited for four days asked for help but she said that she had already raised query to technical team. I was pissed off and I again asked for some technical help for showing ads to specific Facebook pages which we don’t own. She again said that she will ask technical person. I thought that someone will call me from their team but that didn’t happen. I was really frustrated by their technical support and I did research and setup the remarketing campaign. I never called Facebook India support team as they don’t technically expert people to deal with customers.

Why Google Adwords Support is Better than Facebook?

Google Adwords is been in this business from past 10 years. They have well qualified technical support team who serves their clients more effectively and efficiently. I always take their technical support when needed. They have hired third party agencies to serve their client worldwide. They provide thorough training to their technical experts. This is why Google is number advertising platform in the world. If they don’t resolve technical queries in India then they forward the same query to expert from US to tackle such queries. This is why I prefer Google Adwords than Facebook.

What Facebook Needed to Do Improve Ad Revenue?

• Facebook has a potential to compete with Google Adwords in India but to limited extent as Facebook doesn’t have display network. Facebook needs to do a hell lot of changes in their advertising platform. Facebook does help to those advertisers who are well known in market, who offers products. Facebook ads work poorly for small advertisers, service providers (IT, Technical, Financial etc.). Basically Ads works better for Brand Awareness than Google Adwords. I would recommend you do Facebook Ads if your motive is to reach mass audience for brand awareness.
• Facebook needs thousands of technical experts in India who can serve customers by providing toll free number as Indians prefer to call Toll Free number rather than a paid landline number.
• They should offer free coupon code initially for setting up the ad account which will take new advertisers on the board. Google offers free coupon of Rs. 2000 if you spend more than Rs. 2000 in your account.

• Facebook should create team of marketing and sales people who can visit big corporates in India and should teach them the benefits of Facebook Ads. Many corporates don’t do any ads on Facebook as they think that Facebook ads wouldn’t help them in terms of ROI.
• Facebook should provide invoice-based billings to agencies whose monthly spend is less than $10,000. They are currently providing invoice-based billing to Indian clients whose monthly spend is more than $10,000. They recently have done changes in the billing system where Facebook charges only at the end of the month. Earlier they used to charge everyday which used to make advertisers frustrated.
• They should conduct Seminars and Workshop every month to educate advertisers and agencies. They should ask agencies, advertisers to attend such seminars and workshops for sharing and improving knowledge. Thought sharing helps advertisers to improve advertising knowledge, ideas, and campaign targeting.
• They should provide advertising certification program which will help advertisers and agencies to showcase themselves as certified professionals and advertisers.
• Facebook needs to improve the reporting system which is worst reporting system I have ever seen. I ran Facebook ads for two clients and when I downloaded the report then it gave me a report for both clients together who pissed me off. I had to manually check the report and it took my few hours to raise a bill to client. They spend shown on report is quite confusing.

Let’s see an example below:

 

Conclusion: Facebook and Google Adwords both have unique and distinct advertising features. Both are necessary for online advertising and branding. The leads generated though Google Adwords are better in terms of quantity. Facebook needs to a lot of changes in their advertising program which will help advertisers to reach more relevant audience.