Facebook expanded the scope of its mobile ad network to include more developers and publishers across the world.

Announced in April, the Facebook Audience Network is aimed at helping third-party app developers better monetise their products by enabling them to use data from the social network to effectively target ads.

It now provides developers with access to the 1.5 million Facebook advertisers, after initially only being available to a small number of participants.

The Audience Network shows consumers the ads they are likely to be most interested in by extending Facebook’s targeting to third-party apps. Due to the better targeting, users are more likely to engage with the ads.

It supports native, banner and interstitial ads, meaning developers can use the ads that work best for their content. Native ads can be customised to fit with the flow of apps, with Le Monde, Deezer and IGN having successfully taken this approach.

In a post on the company’s developer blog, Facebook software engineer Tanya Chen said the company has been working to optimise its network over the past few months to improve performance.

The network has enabled developers to make millions of dollars from their apps already, including Glu Mobile, whose president Chris Akhaven said CPMs have doubled with the addition of the Audience Network compared to other ad networks.

“We end up being able to show our users fewer ads because with the Audience Network, we can show the right ads to the right people,” he noted.

Music recognition and sharing app maker Shazam reported that the Audience Network boosted its revenue from ad networks by 37 per cent.

“The Audience Network has delivered phenomenal performance for us. The targeting means the ads are more relevant to our users, and the diversity and quality of advertisers is top notch,” said Rhiannon White, director of product management at Shazam.