Facebook going after Google with new ad platform

September 30th, 2014

Awake Goy

World Bulletin / News Desk

Facebook announced a new advertising platform late Sunday night that takes full advantage of the social media site’s deep mine of users’ personal data.

In releasing the long-rumored Atlas, Facebook is going after Google’s successful AdSense marketing network.

With 1.3 billion users, Facebook is already the second largest digital advertising network by selling ads targeted to individuals using the social media outlet.

The company is now taking on the rest of the Web, especially Google, which has long ruled digital advertising.

Rolling out Monday, marketers can use Atlas’ trove of Facebook’s user data to target ads at individuals over thousands of websites and mobile apps.

In a blog post Monday morning, Erik Johnson, the head of Atlas, explained the advertising possibilities of harvesting the rich fields of information from Facebook.

“Atlas delivers people-based marketing, helping marketers reach real people across devices, platforms and publishers. By doing this, marketers can easily solve the cross-device problem through targeting, serving and measuring across devices,” he said.

Facebook’s wealth of personal information is tantalizing to brands because of its specificity. Atlas can target a demographic, for example, limited to men aged 18-34 living in the northeastern United States who are fans of “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Most importantly, Johnson claims that Atlas can “connect online campaigns to actual offline sales, ultimately proving the real impact that digital campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales.”

A wristwatch brand, for instance, could use Atlas to target advertising towards a specific individual. That individual buys the watch and then opts to have the receipt sent via email. If that email is linked to a Facebook account, then Facebook can relay this information back to the brand.

Understandably, Facebook users are fidgety about the website using personal data for advertising but the soical media giant notes that all the information is anonymous – brands are offered some information (data, location, favorite music, etc.) but not actual identities.

Johnson notes that the first holding company to sign an agency-wide agreement with Atlas is Omnicom, which represents giant brands like PepsiCo and Intel.

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