Possible Huge Step Forward For Social Commerce – Facebook Coupons

Everybody knows that social commerce is going to be the next big frontier online, but for all the hype, there have actually been precious few tools for brands and businesses out there to use. The few social commerce efforts that have been created on Facebook have been hacked together on tabs by brands themselves, but it looks like Facebook are about to make a big move.

In the last couple of days, people are spotting new Facebook coupon ad formats popping up on the site. It is interesting to see Facebook moving into this space – after the daily and local deal efforts crashed and burned recently - but they are well known for trying lots of different things before they find a format that actually works. The ads are appearing in the sidebar and a button asking users to “click here for coupon” takes them through to an online Facebook coupon that looks like this one below.

Although this is only being tested at the moment, you can see how this would work incredibly well and add a new commercial value to adverts. Coupons have always been huge in the USA (offline) and recently sites like Groupon have shown there is a wider appetite for them around the world. With brands and businesses starting to wonder why they are spending so much money on Facebook for so little financial return, these coupons could be the perfect solution. No news on this going live just yet, but we are delighted to see Facebook testing this new ad format. What do you think?