Facebook has stated that more than 1.2 billion people on their platform are connected to a small business in another country from where they are currently based. As more people around the world come online, businesses have an opportunity to connect with new customers, many of whom live in different cities, regions or countries. Using the Facebook platform we are able to capitalise on their cross-border functionalities for our clients to ensure that if they have business locations around the world we can run the entire global account under one hub. Facebook has introduced four new cross-border solutions to enable businesses to grow from one hub.

1. Dynamic language optimisation: As businesses expand to new countries or regions, it’s important to reach the right customers in their preferred language. With dynamic language optimisation, businesses can include multiple languages in one campaign, and Facebook will match the right language to the right person at the right time. This solution also makes budgeting across different languages easier, as Facebook will optimise for the best performance based on your total budget and campaign objective.

2. Multi-country lookalike audiences: Before, advertisers could create international lookalike audiences to find their best potential customers in a new country. Now, businesses can also use multi-country lookalike audiences to find their next best customers in any combination of countries or regions. International and multi-country lookalike audiences can help businesses, both big and small, to find the people from around the world that will engage with their business.

3. Multi-city targeting: When expanding into unfamiliar markets, businesses can spend a lot of time and money researching where to invest their ad spend. Now, with multi-city targeting, businesses can target all cities above a certain population size without having to do research or add the cities individually.

4. Cross-border business insights finder: Businesses can also decide how and where to expand their business across borders based on actionable insights. Facebook IQ cross-border insights finder helps advertisers discover untapped markets for their business by providing comparative country data based on past campaign performance across Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network.

All Response Media Viewpoint

This new addition to the Facebook platform comes 14 days after Google launched its own cross-border product. The race between which one is better begins – or can they work together to create a very strong cross-border opportunity for advertisers across both of the giants’ platforms? In regards to the Facebook platform specifically; many advertisers capitalise on the vast reach Facebook is able to provide and this addition just gives it an extra boost.

Being able to run a single advertiser’s account across one campaign becomes incredibly powerful and a far more effective way of working. Being able to optimise directly to the right person no matter where they are around the world is something that all global clients should be getting on board with. We expect that click-through rates and conversion rates will be elevated once this has been switched on. For any advertisers who have international branches to their business, we would love to help expand their reach.