Remember Atlas from like 10 years ago?
Well Microsoft sold it to Facebook. They sat on it for a while, but are now going to shake up the adserving/network space, striking fear into the hearts of competitors like Google, AOL, Adobe and more.
What’s unique about the offering ?
Facebook will not force you to buy Facebook ads as part of using Atlas. Rather, they will let you facilitate display buys on websites across the web, and layer in Facebook related data to get better ROI and reach more relevant audiences. It also keeps Google on their toes. Despite most revenue still being attributed to Adwords, Google will have to continue to focus on innovation for the full suite of Double Click Display products, to keep Atlas at bay. It’s already being revealed Altas’ reach will be just as good as competing products. What’s more, it also decreases reliance on the traditional cookie. A users Facebook login, when logged in across devices, can be used to identify when and where they are active and attribute sales back to a particular click.
Privacy Concerns
Consumers are more or less used to (or oblivious) to being marketed or remarketed to based on websites they have visited. Layering in Facebook usage patterns will take behavioural targeting across the web to a whole new level, particularly in markets outside of China where Facebook penetration exceeds 70% in most cases. Facebook insists that this data will be anonymised when passed on to publishers and advertisers. At the end of the day, the use of Facebook data is no more invasive than Google’s push over the last few years to put everyone on a single profile across YouTube, Gmail and every other property, and then use that data to serve ads e.g. serving you Google Display Network ads alongside Gmail based on who your email is from, not from, or keywords within it.
