Finding where to place your ads within the Facebook marketplace can be overwhelming. Where and when an ad is served on Facebook can be crucial to the success of your campaign. So, how do you determine which placements to buy?

Most of us start by testing link ads, but shy away from ever checking the Facebook Audience Network placement. While Facebook’s Audience Network extends the reach of campaigns by serving ads through other mobile apps and sites, it is still unclear whether the cheaper traffic is qualified.

One of the biggest flaws we come across while using Audience Network is that we do not have visibility to which apps our ads are running on. Essentially, marketers are in the dark when it comes to where their ads are appearing outside of the native platform. The only real power we have is to block individual publishers or block certain content categories. Many have strayed away from using Audience Network to serve their ads because of the lack of transparency and brand safety.

Facebook has recently announced that it plans to provide a list of which publishers are included within the Audience Network inventory. Although this is not an ideal solution, as we still will not know exactly where the ad will appear, it will be a positive change from the black box that exists today.

Although there is a tradeoff between extending your reach and not knowing exactly where your ads are being served, Audience Network is still worth testing to better understand which placements are effective for your overall campaign.