According to Facebook’s advertising latest rate card, homepage advertisement rates are down 50 percent from last year. Last October I wrote about Facebook’s advertising rates. At the time Facebook homepage advertisements attracted a $10 CPM and required a $50,000 minimum investment. Since then it appears that Facebook’s ad rates have dropped significantly and the minimum ad spend has also dropped to $10,000.

This is clearly a sign that Facebook is seeing downward pressure and it would confirm data published by Alley Insider earlier this week which suggests social networks will have 3 percent quarterly CPM decrease. Considering that Facebook’s self-serve advertisements attract $0.15 to $0.40 CPMs, it’s not surprising to see Facebook’s homepage ad rates decrease from last year’s $10 CPM.

While homepage advertisements on Facebook most definitely deserve a premium over sidebar advertisements on subpages, it’s debatable as to how much of a premium a homepage ad should attract. The company is also actively testing out a number of new ads including Facebook event ads which I wrote about last month. There is no word on how much those ads cost but Facebook’s exact words in an email responding to a Facebook ad inquiry by Sam Goldfarb of Tradimax stated “new home page products of which have a CPM of $5 USD net and monthly minimum’s of $10K USD net/month.”

Facebook’s latest ad product specs guide that we’ve seen only promotes standard image ads and video ads (both pictured below from Facebook’s ad deck). That suggests Facebook’s other forms of homepage advertising are currently in the experimental phase. If you have an extra $10,000 to test out advertising on Facebook’s homepage we definitely think it’s worth a shot but given Facebook’s low CPMs and ability to pay on a CPC basis for self-serve ads, we’re not sure this provides the best value.

The self- serve route is definitely a great alternative. Unfortunately self-serve advertisements are currently limited on maximum daily ad spend and in order to increase your ad spend you need to build a history with Facebook. Facebook is still trying to optimize their advertising offerings and it’s clear that they are experimenting with new types of advertisements regularly.

The real question is: how long will this downward trend continue? Have you tested out Facebook’s advertising? What has your experience been?