Facebook Rolls Out New Ad Platform To Track Users Across Web, Mobile And Apps

Facebook has already positioned itself as the second largest digital advertising platform by utilizing the massive quantities of data that it holds on each of its 1.3 billion users to sell individually targeted ads on its network. Now, Facebook is mounting its most direct challenge to Google yet with the announcement that the social media giant will be taking those targeted ads to the rest of the Internet.

Facebook is rolling out a rebuilt ad platform called Atlas this week, which will provide marketers with the ability to use its detailed knowledge of its users to direct ads to those same people on literally thousands of other websites and mobile apps. Advertisers will now be able to target Facebook users in a new way across a multitude of platforms and websites, and this could mean big changes for aggressive digital marketers who want to target those who are interested in a product in a more constant and immersive manner.

“We are bringing all of the people-based marketing functions that marketers are used to doing on Facebook and allowing them to do that across the web,” said David Jakubowski, the company’s head of advertising technology.

Such cross-platform advertising could create an exciting alternative for marketers if it proves to be successful, thereby developing a new revenue stream for Facebook and challenging other ad networks that are run by Google, Yahoo, Apple and others. With Facebook’s new ad platform, if a company wants to reach a certain demographic who have indicated an interest in a specific product, they can use Atlas to display ads to these users on game apps, video sites and other relevant places. Additionally, Atlas will provide these marketers with further information to indicate which ads were the most effective in reaching each audience. The possibilities are massive, and marketers are taking note.

“Facebook has deep, deep data on its users. You can slice and dice markets, like women 25 to 35 who live in the Southeast and are fans of ‘Breaking Bad'”, explained Rebecca Lieb, a digital advertising and media analyst at the Altimeter Group, a research firm. “The new Atlas platform can track people across devices, weave together online and offline.”

As is often the case with expanding user data usage, privacy concerns are likely to arise. While Facebook promises that it doesn’t disclose the actual identity of individuals to marketers, and instead matches users to brands on a “blind basis”, many users are already expressing concerns over whether or not this is always the case. Consumer concerns about privacy on social media sites is one of the reasons that alternative social networks are receiving a good deal of attention lately, such as the start-up Ello that promises not to use customer information for advertising purposes.

It will be very interesting to see how Facebook’s new ad platform performs over the next little while, including whether or not there will be a significant user backlash and how many advertising companies will get involved. One of the largest advertising companies in the world, the Omnicom Group, will be the first to sign up to use Atlas. “Mobile has been a very hard thing for us to do,” said Jonathan Nelson, chief executive of Omnicom Digital. “This Atlas solution is a huge step forward in making mobile marketing more effective.”