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Facebook was once a darling of investors, then a turnoff. Now, a year after going public, the social network seems to have settled into a more stable relationship with Wall Street. But the company has still been taking pains to prove that it can make more money from its base of more than a billion users, especially from those using Facebook on mobile devices.

Quick Take Facebook will release its Q1 2013 earnings on May 1. We expect healthy advertising revenue growth driven by improved mobile monetization and a growing user base. Margins will shrink due to higher headcount related costs and infrastructure investments. We’ll also look for any color on the success of Graph Search, which could be one of the key features of Facebook going forward. Facebook will report its Q1 2013 earnings on May 1. We expect to see mobile advertising results improve driven by the company’s efforts to integrate ads into its mobile platform.

Seattle-based Atlas is a digital media measurement platform; it provides measurement, analytical and management tools for ad campaigns and marketing agencies.

Facebook lost $59 million in the third quarter, but the newly publicly traded social networking site saw its shares soar on Wall Street early Wednesday. Facebook shares gained $4.35, or 22%, to $23.85 in early trading, after the company reported gains from mobile advertising.

...There’s also the issue that these mobile ads are completely new. Users don’t know any better and happen to click on them. However, over time (and probably pretty quickly), they will learn to avoid these new ads. When banner ads began in the 1990s, CTRs over 5% were common. They are currently 0.2 – 0.3%.

A commerce site called Limited Run, in announcing that it was deleting its Facebook page, claimed that 80 percent of its ad-clicks on Facebook came from "bots" or automated accounts, and only a fifth from genuine users.

Facebook’s results illustrated a reality for social media: It’s a soft sell medium in which advertising may not be that interesting or relevant to consumers. This is important because it means the revenue potential for social media companies such as Facebook may not be as high as many people assumed.

On most days, Twitter is now generating the majority of its revenue from ads shown to its users on mobile gadgets, rather than from ads on Twitter.com, company executives said. One key reason: People who see a Twitter ad on their phones are more likely to click or interact with it in some way, which is how Twitter gets paid for advertisements.

Coca-Cola's marketing chief, Joe Tripodi, said that advertising with Facebook probably helps drive sales. The comment marks a powerful endorsement at a time when some advertisers, such as GM, have expressed doubt about putting ad dollars into Facebook.