Facebook provides marketers with web browsing history for better targeting

Facebook announced earlier today that it would allow advertisers to utilize the information that was once only privy to Facebook, to other advertisers working to reach specific audiences.

The multi-billion dollar company has access to this information by placing code on Facebook user’s desktops and laptops that collect the websites the user visits. On Facebook mobile, the app collects the same sort of information by determining which apps have been downloaded on the user’s phone.

Facebook once kept this information private for security reasons, but in spite of resistance from some Facebook users, the company proceeded with the new feature regardless.

This change will allow consumers to better control the way they are marketed to, and allows them to give feedback in the moment; the ads will now offer a right hand click down menu that will allow Facebook users to respond to the ad, suggesting if the ad was useful or not.

Although this is a new leap in social media advertising, Facebook did not just re-invent the wheel, and Facebook users should not worry. The social media network already allowed marketers to target users based off of their networks, geographic locations, interests, ages and genders. Although these filters allowed advertisers to better reach certain demographics, it was only allowed to target information based off of what was “liked” on Facebook, which can be rather limited, depending on the campaign.

Now, marketers are able to directly appeal to specific audiences based off of what they know the users will like to see, and consumers will have less time wasted viewing adds they are not interested in.

Velocity Agency will be using this new feature in their social media marketing, in order to better serve our clients.