Driving revenue through advertising is one of the main ways in which a free service such as Facebook can hope to grow and stay afloat. But with ads starting to saturate the platform, how can Facebook ensure it continues to turn a profit?

At Facebook’s second-quarter Earnings call back in July, the company commented on its ad load in News Feed, stating that by mid-2017, it won’t necessarily be able to rely on further ads for boosting revenue. This is due to the fact that by that time, the site will have reached maximum capacity for the number of ads it can serve in News Feed, stagnating growth. Fears in ad growth slow down have already caused Facebook shares to trade around 40% lower, according to analysts. With this in mind, Facebook has had to think about how it can have its users see more ads, and this has resulted in the company turning to different outlets.

One of these is the platform’s Groups feature, which just this week started rolling out test ads on both mobile and desktop to some of its users in Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These ads are reported to be taking on the same look and format of those presented in News Feed, but also include targeting based on the topic discussed in that group, as well as the usual demographic-based targeting. The potential for precision is therefore huge, with advertisers able to reach very specific audiences- the beauty about Groups is that they are used by people who are particularly passionate about certain topics. Compare this with Pages for instance, which tend to attract a broader audience, and it’s clear what Facebook and its advertisers could stand to gain. Aside from interests, Groups are also used for buying and selling, with around 450 million people each month joining for this purpose.

This year, Facebook had already started ramping up the amount of ads it has been displaying in Instagram, revealing that over 500,000 brands now advertise on the platform, up from the 200,000 when advertising first started becoming available back in February. It has also upped the amount of ads sold through its Audience Network, a platform which lets app developers and brands house Facebook-style ads complete with the same insights, in their own apps. But the most noticeable rise within Facebook itself has been the number of ads displayed in News Feed videos. While this has been propelling revenue growth, the site can no longer continue to keep bombarding users with ads over organic content, due to fears this might trigger a “breaking point. This means that aside from Groups, Facebook will have to diversify further, likely in places such as live-video and by upping its ad bot technology on Messenger.

What do you think about Facebook’s new decision surrounding ad placement? Do you think showing ads in Groups will help the company monetize, or drive users away from a feature that makes the platform so unique? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.