Foster's Beer favours online advertising
Facebook Advertising Rates now over $10 CPM

Marketers on Facebook are now having to shell out a minimum of $50,000 for sponsorships.

A "Homepage Sponsored Story" on Facebook draws a click-through rate "10-20x higher than banners," according to the rate card obtained by Valleywag.

Buying into a "Facebook Sponsored Group" requires marketers to commit at least $150,000 over three months. That would bank Facebook roughly $90 million dollars a year in sponsorships alone.

In accordance with those numbers, Jim Breyer, managing partner of Facebook investor Accel Partners, recently told attendees of Fortune's iMeme conference that the social network would take in well over $100 million this year.

(Breyer, a Facebook board member as well, also said the company is profitable and will post a positive EBITDA this year, according to press reports.)

Existing Facebook sponsors include Victoria's Secret, Dave Matthews Band, Apple, eBay, MTV, and Red Bull.

Facebook has grown three times as fast as MySpace in the past year, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Seeing a massive influx of first-timers, Facebook U.S. visitor numbers reached 26.6 million in May--up a full 89% year-over-year and 3.6 million more
than in April, according to comScore.

Worldwide, comScore reported, Facebook reached 47.2 million visitors in May--8.4 million more than in April, and with an average of 20.6 visits per user.

Last August, Facebook did a deal with Microsoft to place all banner ads and paid links on the site, follows closely on the heels of a similar partnership struck between MySpace and Google.


According to major research companies, Facebook's fortunes will only improve as inventory on social sites switches from remnant ads provided by ad networks to more lucrative rich media and video ads.

"Today, inventory on social sites is fulfilled largely through ad networks and contextual advertising, but as they mature, they will begin to use tactics such as behavioral targeting that allow for better monetization of their inventory," Jupiter Media analyst Emily Riley said in a recent report.

Industrywide, eMarketer estimated earlier this year that social ad spending will reach $865 million this year, and grow to $2.2 billion in 2010.