Facebook to streamline ad units

Menlo Park, Calif.—Facebook Inc. announced it will simplify its ad offerings, reducing the number of advertising products from 27 to fewer than half that number in the next six months.

The company will eliminate its Sponsored Stories ad units, which inform users if their Facebook friends have engaged with a brand. To replace sponsored stories, Facebook will automatically add social context when marketers create a “Page post photo ad,” the company said in a statement.

Facebook will also remove the Questions product for Pages, saying that marketers can ask a question in a post and get answers in comments. Also to be axed is the online Offers product, “because marketers have found that using a Page post link ad is a more effective way to drive people to deals on their websites,” the company said.