Facebook Feels the Love, Gets Boost From Ad Platforms

Now out of beta, FBX has garnered stellar reviews from a host of marketing specialists. Retargeting platform AdRoll, which was one of the earliest companies on the Facebook Exchange, said that its advertisers saw an average 16x return on investment thanks to FBX. AdRoll has already used the technology to launch campaigns for 60 advertisers, including home furnishing company Room & Board, social media dashboard HootSuite and camera specialist GoPro.

TellApart, which has been serving ads through FBX for three months, said that its clients have seen a 10x to 20x ROI.

In a blog posting, Zach Coelius, CEO of retargeting specialist Triggit, said that FBX has a four-time higher return on advertising spending compared to exchanges such as Google's(GOOG) AdWords.

Clearly, this could be a big deal for Facebook.

IDC estimates that RTB will account for 27% of ad spending in the U.S. by 2015, up from 10% in 2011. Total spending on RTB in the U.S. will reach $5.1 billion, according to the tech research firm.

Investors may have been largely underwhelmed by Facebook during its short life as a public company, but have given the company some love recently.

Shares of the social networker closed up 6.49% at $23.29 on Wednesday, boosted by positive comments by Salesforce.com(CRM) CEO Marc Benioff about Facebook's impact on the marketing community.

Speaking during Salesforce.com's Dreamforce event in San Francisco, Benioff said that Facebook's influence will change the way companies develop and market their technologies, according to Direct Marketing News.

Another positive catalyst for Facebook is Apple's(AAPL) latest mobile operating system, iOS 6, which offers tighter integration with the social networker.

"Our recent management meetings further reiterated the company's bullish long-term vision in mobile, especially with the deep integration with the Apple iOS 6," said Herman Leung, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group, in a recent note. "Deeper engagement with Facebook can lead to users sharing more content and deepen the user's identity profile on Facebook."