This new user experience is being called “beyond the toolbar”. Not only do you not need to download a toolbar, but you actually don’t even need to be registered with StumbleUpon to stumble anymore. This is really a “new user” experience. Let’s check it out.

Home Page

Note: if you are logged in, the home page looks different unless you are part of the beta testing group.

I was trying to figure out a rhyme or reason as to how the recommended sites end up there. After clicking around and seeing the discovery origin of some of those sites, the only common factor I found was that they were all old. Most had been discovered in 2006.

Topic Navigation

The new home page now displays a category navigation bar at the top that displays hot sites within that particular topic. The sites listed on this page do move around a bit, but how to get your page on there is still not clear to me. I happen to know one of the bloggers with a site on there and he did say that he hasn’t seen any increase in traffic. Granted, I don’t think most people know about this yet.

Hover Stats

This is my favorite addition so far. You can simply hover over the avatars and see whether or not the user is an active stumbler (someone who’s stumbled a lot of pages). This will save time when trying to find users to friend and subscribe to.

The Non Toolbar

When you click on one of the sites from the home page or category pages, you’ll get a temporary toolbar. From there you can stumble through the category you were originally in or go back to StumbleUpon. And yes, you can only thumb up. If you click on the stars to review the site it will take you to the site’s review page which is where the fun stops. In order to review, you have to be registered.

Partner Sites

The other aspect of “beyond the toolbar” is partner sites. StumbleUpon has partnered with sites that display a voting button. Right now membership into the partner program is by invitation only and it’s likely that acceptance will have to do with how many URLs in your site have been submitted by SU members over the years. The more the better I’d imagine so the pages would already have lots of thumbs up. Today Huffington Post and How Stuff Works are the two partner sites listed.

At a glance this looks like one button. What is somewhat unclear is that you can vote from the top of the button, but if you click on the lower half you will begin stumbling through the same site. The SU logo on the left doesn’t do anything, so in my opinion, they need to work on this a little.

After you vote that you like it you get this and can begin stumbling through the site you are on.

New Profile Page

If you are in the beta testing group at StumbleUpon you will see the new profile page. It lists the user stats on the bottom right, but in general looks similar enough to the old one that I don’t mind the change. One thing I noticed that was missing right away was the online indicator. If you want more info on the beta testing group,  send a message to bookun via his profile.

There has been a lot of talk and speculation recently about eBay wanting to get rid of StumbleUpon, but until anything happens I am not going to stop using it. With over 6 million users contributing to over 350 million stumbles per month, it’ll be interesting to watch that number climb over the next few months. I really like the changes and I think overall it is a positive move on their part. As with any change there are usually varied opinions out there. I will leave you with some quotes on the new StumbleUpon from some notable internet marketers across the web.

• Brent Csutoras “I am actually very impressed with the change at StumbleUpon. They have finally decided to let users participate in the site without having to install the toolbar. I really like the organization of the categories (or tags) and the navigational bar makes it much easier to explore and use the site. They seem to have taken all the good changes other social media sites have made and put them to good use on what has to be one of the best relaunches of an existing service to date.”
• Chris Winfield “I think it will really help StumbleUpon gain more acceptance by the general public. A lot of people are either (1) not technical enough to install the toolbar & get the idea behind or (2) wary of toolbars with all of their spyware concerns. This should really help them gain more mainstream adoption.”
• Michael Gray “I like the on page stumble button that shows you the thumbs up count, but the stumble through lower portion of the button is confusing. The mini frame that sits on top of websites is clean and easy to use, but there needs to be a way to activate, if you don’t go through partner sites first. I also feel if they went with a Stumble through and thumbs up button similar to the way delicious buttons work they would make things easier for power users.”
• Brian Wallace “The site on first glance seems to be less about the power users now. This may feel like a shame for those that have put extensive effort into their SU profile, yet breathes new life into a social network that was starting lose ground to the likes of Propeller and Reddit.”

Advertising Guidelines

1. Landing Pages and Pop-Ups

Landing pages that generate a pop-up when the user enters are not allowed. I have two theories about this. First, if I’m paying for the ad and I’m dumb enough to want to have a pop-up, let me have my pop-up. The fact that 99% of my visitors will hit the back button (or possibly give me a thumbs done on StumbleUpon) is my problem. Second, if this is in the advertising guidelines then please, enforce it. Just today as I was looking for examples to add to this article, I clicked on an ad in the Ad Boards page that led me to this landing page with a pop-up that I couldn’t close at all.

(Just because it says close, doesn’t mean it’s gonna close.)

2. Ad Capitalization

Ads may not include unnecessary capitalization such as FREE. Why not? Maybe I want to emphasize that I’m giving something away for FREE. Maybe I want to use the terms SMX, SES, SEO all in my description. Will that work? Danny Sullivan said he tried an ad with SEO and PPC in it, and it was rejected as having too many capital letters. Personally, I am a fan of capitalizing the first letter in every word of my title and sometimes in a 2-4 word description. According to Facebook, that could be seen as unnecessary. As a marketer, I want that option when I’m creating my ads. If I want to test different options, some capital and some not, I’d like to be able to do that. If you use all caps (like I tried), chances are this is what you’ll get back from Facebook (like I did):

3. Provocative Images

Provocative images will not be accepted. So, users can upload provocative images to their profiles and albums, but advertisers cannot. My first question on this is to define provocative. Does that mean girls can’t show cleavage? Is there a limit to how much cleavage can be shown? Can an ad show cleavage as long as there are no visible head lights? I mean seriously, be more specific please or just say no nudity.

Many advertisers use provocative ads in their campaigns. It’s a proven marketing tactic. It works and, if done well, can show a very positive impact to your ROI. I guess it’s safe to say we won’t be seeing ads from Victoria Secret on Facebook as long as not accepting provocative images is in their ad guidelines. Aw, too bad angels.

4. Content Restrictions

Facebook has a list of things they restrict. Most of them I do agree with and I agree that Facebook needs to watch this, but I don’t agree with all the topics they have restricted. For example, if I have gambling as an activity, why not allow an online gaming company to advertise on my feed? Similarly, if I have alcohol as an interest, I wouldn’t mind seeing an ad for Corona or Grey Goose. If I’m a cell phone provider, Facebook users are my target audience, but I can’t advertise my free ringtones (bummer). These are mainstream ads that are seen on television and in magazines all the time, but they are restricted in Facebook’s advertising guidelines.

5. Account Management

Currently, you must build your ad campaign through your Facebook profile and be logged in to your profile in order to manage it. Now, here’s how this could be a problem. Say you are running a campaign for someone else and forget you are logged in. You’re surfing the web later and see something you’d like to ’share on Facebook’. You click your handy share button and submit. Little do you realize that you’ve shared it via the wrong profile. Yep, this does happen, trust me.

Is it too much to ask to give advertisers a separate log in to manage their ad campaigns?

6. Ad Editing

The ad title, image, or description can’t be edited once it’s running. This is really frustrating. If you notice a typo, you can’t edit it. You have to delete it and start over. If you uploaded an image, but want to test out a new ad using the same image, you have to upload it again. I would love for my images to be stored within my campaign account. This would be very helpful when traveling without access to the image on my laptop.

7. Geo Targeting

Facebook limits the target location to one country. I’d love to see an option to select multiple countries or all of them. The campaign I am currently running would be applicable to various countries. But the way things are set up now, I’d have to run a different campaign for each country. This would be fine if I wanted to track clicks and conversions per country, but say I didn’t. A global option would be fantastic.

8. Ad Placement

Choosing ‘Pay per Click’ doesn’t let you choose where the ad will be displayed (feed vs. ad space or both), but pay per view does give this option. I prefer to display my ads in the feed. In my opinion, they stand out more to me than the ad space on the left of the feed. Please give advertisers this option in both ‘Pay per Click’ and ‘Pay per View’, and please give me the option to edit this within my ad. If I need to bid higher to get the ad in the feed, just tell me that while I’m creating my ad.

9. Ad Scheduling

The lack of dayparting features is a big flaw in their system. Scheduling ads is very limited, you can only choose continuous or a start and end date. If you want your ad to run every weekend, the only way to do this is to remember to start it every Saturday morning and stop it every Sunday night. More scheduling options would be fantastic. Am I asking too much for them to please add a Mon-Fri Only and Weekends Only option along with a time period as a bonus?

10. American Express is Not an Option

Now this one is really perplexing. Why in the world does Facebook not accept AMEX? I just could not think of a good reason, so I sent them an email and this was the response.

Thank you for your inquiry. We are currently building a system which has better fraud prevention measures. Currently, we are unable to accept American Express cards because they cannot confirm all the information necessary for us to feel secure accepting their card. We will continue to work on our system and with AmEx, and we hope to be able to accept American Express cards in the future.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Ryann
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

I won’t even comment on that further because I am a die hard AMEX fan and there is no way you can tell me it’s not secure. This is a 10 on the LAME scale and such an easy fix. Just take the card–every other company I buy ad space on does.

As promised, I will end this on a good note. If we chatted at Pubcon or if you’ve read my blog, you may already know that (aside from what is listed above) I am a fan of Facebook ads (I really am) and often tell people to try it, and here’s why. It’s new. Yes, there are some negatives, but there is a lot of opportunity and I don’t think that Facebook users have created ‘banner blindness’ within their feed yet. I base that on my own personal experience. When the Facebook ads started popping up, I noticed them right away. It may not be the best choice for everyone but, if you can find a way to make it work for your client, I say go for it. My experience so far has shown that advertising on Facebook can be very inexpensive, and while the targeting does narrow down the number of users that will see your ad, it is still ‘very’ targeted.

Here’s a glimpse at a week’s worth of data for you to look at to see what the results can be.

$20 bucks or so a week for my brand to be displayed on people’s profiles with a targeted interest is not bad, if you ask me.

So, consider this before you use it: it is new, rudimentary, and can be somewhat frustrating for the advanced marketer, but if you are patient and can make it work for you, give it a shot. It does have potential and I’m willing to bet Facebook will accept your feedback on how to further improve their ad platform.