General Motors is back on Facebook, nearly one year after pulling its approximate $10 million advertising budget from the social media site. This time, the manufacturer is testing a mobile-only marketing campaign for its Chevrolet Sonic, which was launched today.
"Chevrolet is testing a number of mobile advertising solutions, including Facebook, as part of its ‘Find New Roads’ campaign,” Chris Perry, VP of U.S. Chevrolet Marketing, told Auto Dealer Monthly in an e-mailed statement. “Today, Chevrolet is launching an industry-first, mobile-only pilot campaign for the Chevrolet Sonic that utilizes newly available targeting and measurement capabilities on Facebook.”
The announcement comes shortly after eMarketer revised its 2013 projections for mobile ad spending. The New York-based research firm expects spending to rise to $7.29 billion this year. It also predicted that three in 10 of those mobile display dollars will go directly to Facebook this year, not surprising considering comScore recently reported about a quarter of all time on mobile apps is spent on the social network (23 percent on Facebook and 3 percent on Facebook-owned Instagram).
A spokesperson for GM could not disclose an expected advertising spend level, so it is unknown if GM intends to ramp up its Facebook ad spend to what it once was.
"We've had an ongoing dialogue with GM over the last twelve months and are pleased to have them back as an advertiser on Facebook,” a spokesperson for Facebook told Auto Dealer Monthly magazine. “We look forward to working even more closely with GM in the coming weeks and months."
— Stephanie Forshee
