Facebook Exchange - That's the way the 'cookie' crumbles!

In the last article I wrote about Facebook, I talked about how Facebook is doing a lot to spruce up things at their end especially after the Facebook IPO crackdown… Even before the IPO was launched, facebook had made its intention clear about mobile platforms and of course advertising on mobile is something that they have started working on already. Its current shortfall in advertising revenue has prompted it to take further steps in that direction.

Facebook plans to introduce a new service called Facebook Exchange! It will give the option to its advertisers to bid in real time for ads on its platform.  The feature will allow advertisers to reach out and target specific types of Facebook users / potential customers based on their browsing histories. This will be based on cost per 1000 viewers.

Facebook Exchange will only be allowed for conventional Facebook sidebar ads and not sponsored stories or mobile.

How does it work?

1. Let’s say a potential customer visits a shopping site that has tied up with a Demand side platform (a third party technology partner that will be a mediator for Facebook Exchange)
2. A cookie is captured on that page when they have shown purchase intent.
3. If the customer doesn’t make the purchase and just goes away as a non-sale or if the advertiser wants to target that user again, then typically they can contact the demand site platform and get the users anonymous user id.
4. The advertiser sets up the creative to reach out to this kind of particular customer.
5. When the customer visits facebook, it’ll recognize the cookies captured by the demand site platform.
6. The DSP then is notified and allowed to make a real time bid to show the customer ads.
7. The highest bid reaches out to the customer, and depending on what he/she does they’d either be redirected or opt out of Facebook Exchange ads.

I’m sure many of us are already targeted users when it comes to Google banner ads/text ads.  I know I get that a lot with brands, for example, Cleartrip does that smartly and saves my cookies when I’ve searched a flight or a train before.

Certainly we’ve seen extended targeted ads on Google and certainly a lot of this is going to be used by Facebook too, considering it has more than 900 Million users and certainly a lot of them use Facebook more often than not, while simultaneously surfing other e-commerce sites or websites in general. While to the user this may be very intrusive, Facebook isn’t really worried about that aspect right now. What began as an evolving ecosystem is now certainly adopting the same tricks of the trade to ensure that its revenue gets a boost and we have to accept that fact, especially now that it’s listed.

Do you think this kind of marketing would be the appropriate way for advertisers and marketers to reach out to you? What would you say about Facebook Exchange Ads?

Chose or Lose?

Image: angel.a.acevedo