Will Facebook’s Ex Google Exec Help ROI?

Nydia Davis - June 16, 2009

Facebook has recruited yet another Google AdWords executive after recently receiving a $200 million subsidy at a $10 billion valuation. It’s been speculated that the social media champion could hit $400-500 million in revenue this year as sited by The Business Insider.

Facebook hired ex-Google Adwords executive Grady Burnett to help beef up their self-service advertising unit. What can he bring to the table? Optimistically, Grady’s experience from both DoubleClick and Google will aid him to develop an improved self-service advertising platform for Facebook. Facebook has been steadily pulling in higher amounts of advertising revenue.

Facebook has said that their advertisers are beginning to see an increasing return on their investment. On the contrary, advertisers have been discussing how social media sites like Facebook and Myspace have not been generating conversions. Expectantly, advertisers need to see the return in capital in order to spread the word about how well demographic targeting deliveries results. Generating converting traffic is a goal that Grady can hopefully help his new Facebook team achieve.    

There is no doubt that Facebook has the audience. They have advertisers ready and willing to allocate funds toward their network because of their highly targeted demographic. But, now its time for Facebook to determine what is going to help advertisers get conversions. Once Facebook overcomes this challenge, it will help obtain new advertisers as well as retain current ones in their network. Some advice from a Google mogul may help; now they have it.