Confirmed: Facebook is building an ad network

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg today confirmed reports that the social-networking company is building a mobile ad network for developers.

During Facebook’s Q1 2014 earnings call, Sandberg stated:

“We are in very early testing for a mobile ad network. We do see an opportunity here to improve the relevance of the ads people see on and off Facebook. It’s really the early days and we’re in the early testing stage.”

While Facebook has experimented with the idea for a while, this is the strongest statement yet from Facebook confirming its intentions to move forward with a mobile ad network.

This news follows similar reports from Re/code, which claimed that Facebook would announce an ad network at its upcoming developer conference, F8.

Alongside this news, Facebook shared that its mobile app install ads are doing incredibly well; Facebook claims the ads have driven 350M app downloads to date. The company’s current stats should tempt early adopters — if Facebook plans to deliver app install ads across its upcoming network.