Facebook has revealed a series of tools for advertisers in the hopes of expanding its reach in high-growth emerging markets, looking to local trends to develop tailor-made solutions.

According to a blog post by Facebooks Business team, 66 per cent of people in Facebook users in India, 71 per cent in Indonesia and 68 per cent in South Africa access the social network through a feature phone.

Facebook introduced the ability to place and target ads on feature phones last year, and since then has improved ad delivery by optimising for low-bandwidth connections, enabling advertisers to reach millions of people on any device in any country, some for the very first time.

With its latest additions, Facebook looked to local habit for inspiration. It found that in India many people dial a number and hang up before connecting to signal friends or family members, in order to save voice minutes – and Facebook is testing an ad unit that builds on this behaviour.

When a person sees an ad on Facebook, they can place a missed call by clicking on an ad from their mobile device. They then receive a return call with valuable content, such as news, music, sports scores or celebrity messages, alongside a brand message from the advertiser, all without using airtime or data. Early tests have seen positive results and Facebook plans to scale this product in the coming months.

In addition, Facebook has introduced more extensive targeting options, enabling advertisers to target people by state or multiple states within India, and is working on additional targeting enhancements in Nigeria, Turkey, South Africa, Indonesia and across Latin America. It is also expanding life-stage targeting, which advertisers in the US and UK can already take advantage of, enabling the targeting of specific demographics like new parents, retirees and people with new jobs.

Finally, Facebook has partnered with Nielsen to serve polls to people on feature phones. This new measurement solution will provide advertisers with greater tools to measure brand sentiment, purchase intent and ad recall via mobile as well as desktop, which has traditionally been a challenge in high-growth countries.