Is It Too Late for Facebook to Offer Ads to Non-Facebook Users?
There's an article I read in the Wall Street Journal about Facebook's plan to play Google's advertising game on the full-scale. This isn't a new nor a particularly brilliant idea. Who doesn't want to walk in Google's advertising shoes, at least for a moment? Yet, challenging Google ads machinery is much easier said than done. So, here's my question. Why now?
Here are some simple and very indicative numbers. Facebook has 1.6 billion users. There are 3.2 or 3.3 billion people using the Internet on a global scale, give it or take. So, one in two people who used the World Wide Web is a Facebook user. So, this guy who still hasn't registered on Facebook has to know his friend who is a Facebook veteran. In theory, the whole world is one giant Facebook user, more or less, directly or indirectly. Something is wrong. I used to think that's enough to sell ads to Facebook users in order to rule the advertising world. If that was the case, then Google wouldn't be a mean ad machine. Right?
Listen to the cyber vox populi
I read some comments associated with this news, and I couldn't find a single positive one. Most people agree that Google has had plenty of time to develop and improve mind blowing advertising algorithms. In the Google advertising puzzle, every single piece finds its right place and most importantly its right target. I'm not particularly good with numbers, but I also read somewhere that Google is controlling 70% of the market. Then, when Yahoo collapses (inevitably), Google will hit 90%. Maybe, Facebook wants its rightful ads share. But, when I talked to my friends and colleagues, I heard that there's a huge disappointment, when it comes to Facebook campaigns. It turns out that you get likes instead sales.
With all due respect toward the impressive and an unparalleled number of users, advertising isn't supposed to be so simple. Oh, look at me, I have a billion of users, let me sell some ads.
So, what's the master plan?
I've managed to figure out two Facebook's strategies. The first one will use like buttons and similar codes planted all over the Net. When you combine these with cookies, you get more or less the usual online targeting and advertising stuff. Yet, there's this second strategy, which makes my lovely eyebrows go sky-high. There's something called the "lookalike targeting." In a nutshell, this means that Facebook can play a successful guessing game. How? Well, if you know what one-half of the entire Web population wants and does, you can predict certain patterns of behavior very precisely for the other half (read: Non-Facebook users). So, there's no way for me to escape Facebook, is it? One serious rumor has it that the FBI facial recognition system is no match to the state-of-the-art solution Facebook uses right now.
What a lovely brave new world of Facebook ads this is going to be. Before you know it, there were some Facebook voices doing their very to assure that we will always have an option to "avoid" these FBads. Whenever I hear a formulation "you'll be provided with an option" combined with ads, I know my stomach is going to suffer.
Here are some simple and very indicative numbers. Facebook has 1.6 billion users. There are 3.2 or 3.3 billion people using the Internet on a global scale, give it or take. So, one in two people who used the World Wide Web is a Facebook user. So, this guy who still hasn't registered on Facebook has to know his friend who is a Facebook veteran. In theory, the whole world is one giant Facebook user, more or less, directly or indirectly. Something is wrong. I used to think that's enough to sell ads to Facebook users in order to rule the advertising world. If that was the case, then Google wouldn't be a mean ad machine. Right?
Listen to the cyber vox populi
I read some comments associated with this news, and I couldn't find a single positive one. Most people agree that Google has had plenty of time to develop and improve mind blowing advertising algorithms. In the Google advertising puzzle, every single piece finds its right place and most importantly its right target. I'm not particularly good with numbers, but I also read somewhere that Google is controlling 70% of the market. Then, when Yahoo collapses (inevitably), Google will hit 90%. Maybe, Facebook wants its rightful ads share. But, when I talked to my friends and colleagues, I heard that there's a huge disappointment, when it comes to Facebook campaigns. It turns out that you get likes instead sales.
With all due respect toward the impressive and an unparalleled number of users, advertising isn't supposed to be so simple. Oh, look at me, I have a billion of users, let me sell some ads.
So, what's the master plan?
I've managed to figure out two Facebook's strategies. The first one will use like buttons and similar codes planted all over the Net. When you combine these with cookies, you get more or less the usual online targeting and advertising stuff. Yet, there's this second strategy, which makes my lovely eyebrows go sky-high. There's something called the "lookalike targeting." In a nutshell, this means that Facebook can play a successful guessing game. How? Well, if you know what one-half of the entire Web population wants and does, you can predict certain patterns of behavior very precisely for the other half (read: Non-Facebook users). So, there's no way for me to escape Facebook, is it? One serious rumor has it that the FBI facial recognition system is no match to the state-of-the-art solution Facebook uses right now.
What a lovely brave new world of Facebook ads this is going to be. Before you know it, there were some Facebook voices doing their very to assure that we will always have an option to "avoid" these FBads. Whenever I hear a formulation "you'll be provided with an option" combined with ads, I know my stomach is going to suffer.