Facebook ending Flyers, replacing with Ads

Facebook will officially phase out its old advertising program, called Facebook Flyers, on December 3rd, and replace it with its new advertising program, we’ve learned from a company’s email to us, below.

Called Facebook Ads, the new program includes Social Ads, which a service for advertisers to more precisely target Facebook users, and Facebook Pages, essentially user profiles for companies (more on those efforts here).

Social Ads are ads that Facebook targets within the site, based on age, gender, location, interests, and other Facebook user data. These ads direct users to click either to a third-party website or to an advertiser’s Facebook Page.

Pages are essentially a Facebook profile but for a company, where users can become its “fans” — a designation that appears on users’ profile pages. By being fans, users get updates about special offers or new product information.

Pages can impact non-fans too: Fans’ actions on a Page show up on their news feed as free advertising, potentially attracting more fans.

Check out Saturn’s Facebook page, for example (screenshot at bottom).

Flyers, on the other hand, were originally a way for college students to advertise to each other on Facebook on a cost per impression (CPM) basis, meaning advertisers pay for ad views. The way they worked, you simply upload an image and who you want to see the ad, based on profile information. Flyers have been paused or discontinued for several weeks, according to this post.

For Social Ads, advertisers only pay when users click through, called cost per click (CPC) advertising.

Here’s the email we got from Facebook, about their plans:

Dear Doug Sherrets,

We want you to know that the Facebook Flyers advertising program ends on December 3, 2007.

On November 6, 2007, we launched Facebook Ads, an ad system for businesses to connect with users and target advertising to the exact audiences they want. Through Facebook Ads, these users can now learn about new businesses, brands and products through the trusted referrals of their friends.

Facebook Ads launched with three parts: a way for businesses to build pages on Facebook to connect with their audiences; an ad system that facilitates the spread of brand messages virally through Facebook Social Ads; and an interface to gather insights into people’s activity on Facebook that marketers care about.

We encourage you to set up Facebook Ads to replace your Flyers. You can learn more here:
http://www.facebook.com/ads/?src=fpe1

All Flyers Pro ads in your account will automatically stop running on December 3, 2007. You can continue to access your Flyers Pro reports and invoices through December 17, 2007 here:
http://www.facebook.com/flyers/

If you have any questions you can contact us here:
http://www.facebook.com/cs_forms/fshelp.php?page=59

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

[Disclosure: Doug Sherrets owns a small number of Facebook shares].