In May last year, General Motors decided to pull the plug on its Facebook advertisements because the second-largest U.S. marketer determined that their paid ads on the website had little impact on consumers. It’s worth noting that it did so only three days before the world’s most popular social network made its first public offering.
Now, just shy of a year later, General Motors confirmed to Adage that it’s returning to Facebook ads, albeit, without really explaining why. The only significant change that seems to have taken place during this period is the July, 2012 dismissal of former CMO Joel Ewanick, who was said to have been “instrumental” in GM’s decision to abandon Facebook advertisements.
“Chevrolet is testing a number of mobile-advertising solutions, including Facebook, as part of its ‘Find New Roads’ campaign,” Chris Perry, U.S. Vice President of Chevrolet marketing told the news site. “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.”
GM did not reveal its new budget for Facebook, though, in 2011, it spent around $10 million to advertise on the social network out of the $3.1 billion it spent domestically in the same year, according to data from Adage.
“We’ve had an ongoing dialogue with GM over the last 12 months and are pleased to have them back as an advertiser on Facebook. We look forward to working even more closely with GM in the coming weeks and months,” Facebook said in a statement.
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