FacebookAdvertising
Latest
Many Facebook users still don't understand how targeted ads work
Despite major scandals, Congressional hearings, and efforts to highlight user privacy controls, most Facebook users still don't know the social network shares their interests with advertisers, according to a new survey conducted by Pew Research Center. When they do find out, they usually aren't pleased to discover how Facebook categorizes them.
Facebook won't require political ad labels for news outlets
Earlier this year, Facebook announced and enacted a plan to require all political advertisements to carry a "Paid for by" label and be listed in an ad archive. Now the company is granting an exemption for those requirements to legitimate news publications. Promoted posts and ads run by approved news outlets will once again able to appear in the News Feed without undergoing Facebook's transparency protocol. The exemption will start in the UK (today also marks the start of ad transparency enforcement in the region) and will come to the US and other countries next year.
Facebook's new mobile ad network goes into beta, serves advertisements on third party sites and apps
Facebook already sports advertisements baked into its own website and mobile apps, and now it'll begin serving ads on other handset-optimized websites and smartphone applications. TechCrunch reports that the firm has begun testing a new ad network that leverages user data to display hyper-relevant ads on third party turf. Instead of relying on vanilla tracking cookies to gain insight into visitor interests, the platform accesses information including age, gender, likes, location, which apps friends have used and other data points when users are logged into a site or application with Facebook credentials. Zuckerberg and Co.'s solution lets advertisers bid on certain demographics and uses existing networks such as iAds and AdMob to serve appropriate ads based on anonymous ID's tied to Facebook accounts. For now, Menlo Park's new program is limited to the all-important mobile market, but don't be surprised if the service finds its way to the desktop.
