If you’re one of those rare species, who still haven’t jumped on the Facebook bandwagon – the social networking platform as of today will be extending its mammoth of an Ad Network across the Web to non-users like you.
The 2.5 million marketers that are a part of Facebook’s Ad platform ‘Audience Network‘ will now have the freedom to show ads to all users who visit their websites or application. Previously, if you were logged out of Facebook or you were not a part of the social network, then the third-party ads weren’t visible to you, but the current expansion plan will make it show to each and everyone person visiting the platform.
Facebook is ready to leverage a large portion of their video and display ad platform to compete with the reigning Ad network champion of the Internet, Google. Andrew Bosworth, the vice president of Facebook’s Ad and business platform is positive to make their Ad network, the largest global digital-advertising platform offering a wide range of services and analytics to the marketers. He also adds that,
Publishers and app developers have some users who aren’t Facebook users. We think we can do a better job powering those ads. Our buttons and plugins send over basic information about users’ browsing sessions. For non-Facebook members, previously we didn’t use it. Now we’ll use it to better understand how to target those people.
What Bosworth wants to explain is that if a non-Facebook user will visit a cookie-enabled website then the company will use some underlying code to determine the users interests,(let’s say photography) and then show them ads based on the data they have gathered from those cookies. The user might see latest camera equipment or second-hand sale details on Facebook ad partner websites. This advertising technique is a common practice in today’s scenario where all e-commerce players are targeting your visit and displaying ad’s related to the product you were just viewing on their website.
In addition to cookie-tracking, Facebook will also use their buttons and other plugins to identify non-users on third party websites and then use patterns within its massive database to help them make better guess about the non-users behavior and preferences to show ads relevant to them. With a userbase of 1.65 billion people now using the social networking site each month, Facebook has amassed huge amounts of data to bolster its advertising business that helps marketers to embed a Pixel on their website, to know all the details of each and every user that visits their website.
Facebook believes that expanding its ad network in this domain will help improve both consumer and advertiser traffic and popularity. Bosworth later goes on to say that,
Because we have a core audience of over a billion people [on Facebook] who we do understand, we have a greater opportunity than other companies using the same type of mechanism.
He believes that if digital media personnel and publishers start using the feature on their platforms, then it could drive a larger portion of online ads, that will in-turn earn the company more revenue and cut down on poor quality advertising. It will also increase the competition among marketers leading to lower ad rates during the bidding process.
While more than a hundred companies already serve interest-based advertising on websites and apps today, we offer a better experience because we care about the integrity of Facebook ads.
says Boswoth in the official blogpost.
The social networking website wants to ensure a standard and respectful experience for the people with its ad network. So, the company is also working to remove deceptive and unsafe product ads from the network, and using its technology to determine when someone has clicked on the advertisement by mistake, so it won’t divert you to website or app you didn’t mean to visit.
This update to the ad network is handing the control back to users, who can now ‘opt-out’ of the Internet advertising from the social network. Facebook members will also be able to opt-out of seeing ads outside of the social platform based on their interests and preferences, while marketers will have a chance to focus their energy on users who truly are interested in engaging with your platform.
