Facebook, PayPal tie up ad payments

Rodney Gedda

Rodney Gedda is the former deputy editor of CIO and former editor of Techworld.

PayPal announced today an alliance with Facebook to allow Facebook ads and credits to be purchased via a PayPal account.

For small business advertisers this breaks down another wall between advertising and the ever-expanding Facebook membership.

PayPal's local media relations agency made the announcement so I'm confident it will be available outside the US. That may seem obvious, but even Google Checkout isn't available here yet.

From the media release:

"For businesses in areas where the payment process can be difficult and expensive, the option to pay with PayPal makes it even easier for advertisers, particularly small international companies, to run campaigns on Facebook."

Yup, it's all about advertising. Facebook now commands the attention of digital marketers due to the sheer volume of time people are spending on the site. Not to mention its increasing favour with corproate IT operations.

With this alliance PayPal also becomes an alternative payment gateway for Facebook.

What do people think of Facebook starting its own payment gateway to compete with PayPal and Google? Worse things could happen.