• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 13, 2012

Doing their part to fuel Facebook’s ad revenue, 39% of Facebook merchants report using Facebook Ads, according to new research from ecommerce platform Payvment.

“While a handful of large retailers have put their F-commerce efforts on hold, there are hundreds of thousands of small businesses that are successfully selling products on Facebook,” said Christian Taylor, founder and CEO of Payvment. Along with general Facebook marketing tactics, such as promotions and deals posted to their brand walls, nearly 70% of merchants say they plan to use Facebook Ads again, Payvment found.

Along with Facebook Ads, the data also showed that small sellers are using a wide variety of outside marketing channels to drive traffic to their Facebook storefronts, including Twitter, Google ads and email marketing. 

Across the board, sellers cited effectiveness in fan and customer acquisition as their top reason -- 68% -- for planning more Facebook Ad campaigns. 

Other reasons for continuing to use Facebook Ad programs included the ability to start and stop campaigns -- 60% -- Facebook’s targeting capabilities -- 60% -- and Facebook Ads’ ease of use -- 55%.

Yet, as Payvment finds, not all Facebook sellers have had success acquiring new fans and customers with Facebook Ads. 

Among some 30% of respondents who said they wouldn’t use Facebook Ads again, 68% reported that they did not acquire many new fans or customers through this channel. 

Lower-than-anticipated results may have been due to confusion about how to effectively use Facebook Ads, Payvment suggests, as one-quarter of respondents who hadn’t tried Facebook Ads said they didn’t understand how to use them. 

Cost was also cited as another reason for not using Facebook Ads again. In total, 65% said they wouldn’t continue using Facebook Ads because they are too expensive. 

That said, among those merchants not currently advertising on Facebook, only 32% say that Facebook Ads are too expensive to use, while the majority -- 63% -- cited a lack of budget as their primary deterrent.

According to Facebook, 88% of Internet Retailer's top 200 retail sites are integrated with the social network for good reason. A recent study from social tech provider Sociable Labs noted that a full 50% of visitors to ecommerce sites are concurrently logged into Facebook.

For its study, Payvment said it surveyed over 100,000 sellers on Facebook, the majority of which are small businesses with less than 500 Facebook fans.