META Meta Platforms Inc

By Nathalie Tadena 

Brands want to be where consumers are, but when it comes to mobile, marketers are still treading lightly.

Facebook touted the power of mobile advertising -- which made up 76% of the social network's advertising revenue in the second quarter -- during a two-part Advertising Week presentation Tuesday titled "Connecting in a Mobile World." The session highlighted mobile's ability to reach mass audiences and deliver targeted messaging.

"We have a Super Bowl on mobile every day," Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said.

Mobile represents the fastest adoption of communications technology ever and fundamentally changes marketing because it allows brands to push out very personalized ads to users, Ms. Sandberg said. Still, the mobile shift hasn't quite happened for marketers, she said, noting that brands still spend nine times more on print than they do on mobile right now.

And while TV advertising remains an important medium for brands, the days of relying on 30-second spots to reach audiences are long gone.

"TV and Facebook and video really go together," Ms. Sandberg said. "It's not that one is going to fully replace the other, it's that Facebook is going to enhance the reach."

One in five minutes of time users spend on their smartphones in the U.S. is spent on Facebook or photo-sharing app Instagram, which Facebook purchased in in 2012. Facebook boasts 4 billion video views a day while Instagram recently unveiled it has hit 400 million users. To attract more advertisers, Facebook is working on third-party verification and offers different ways to buy inventory, Ms. Sandberg said. The company is also looking to improve the creative of ads served to consumers, with products such as Custom Audiences and improved targeting.

"The number one complaint we get from consumers is, 'Why aren't the ads better?" Ms. Sandberg said. "We are working hard on this."

Consumers are attached to their phones to do everything from checking email to mapping directions to shopping online. And while mobile advertising spending is on the rise, there remains a discrepancy between the percentage of marketers' ad budgets allocated for mobile and consumers' time spent on these devices.

Clients are starting to see the value in mobile investments, said Kasha Cacy, media buying agency UM's U.S. president during a panel hosted by Facebook. Many clients are simply repurposing their TV spots for Facebook or Instagram with an experience that is slightly different than what happens online but the real value for platforms like Facebook or Instagram on mobile is the opportunity to push the right message to the right consumer at the right time, Ms. Cacy said.

"If I think about where mobile is right now, it feels a little like we're in kindergarten and still have a lot to learn," Ms. Cacy said. "It's not a knock on the industry, we're still playing around with it."

Write to Nathalie Tadena at nathalie.tadena@wsj.com

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 29, 2015 16:20 ET (20:20 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.