Thursday, 28 February 2013

Facebook ads will soon target based on your offline shopping habits

As a result of some key partnerships that Facebook announced on Wednesday of this week, they will soon be able to target their ads based on a person's offline shopping habits. 

Data mining firms such as Datalogix, Acxiom and Epsilon have signed a deal with the social media giant which will see them sharing their records about customer's offline purchases to Facebook's Custom Audiences product. In addition, Facebook is also working with BlueKai "as a marketing data platform to bring a brand's first party site data to use for targeting on Facebook". Facebook Custom Audiences saw a release in August 2012 and lets advertisers identify users by their Facebook ID, phone number or email address (for example, Pizza Hut online customers could be found and targeted).

While Facebook advertising continues to blur the lines between being a monetary source for the company and removing the privacy of their users, Facebook were quick to elaborate that only pre-defined targeting categories will be available such as “soda drinkers” or “auto-intenders”.

“For example, an auto dealer may want to customize an offer to people who are looking to buy a new car. To do this today, many businesses work with third parties to better understand how to identity and reach that audience. With today's updates businesses can now do this same thing by showing ads to people on Facebook who may be in the market for a new car.”

Facebook also stated that they will not be sharing personal information about users with marketers and the option is always there, as with all other Facebook ads, to opt out at any time.    

- Luke

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