Facebook has announced plans to launch its Facebook Exchange feature that will allow advertisers to place specific ads on its website based on user preferences or “likes”. The feature is currently being tested and will be launched within a few weeks.
Facebook Exchange is basically what Google and Yahoo offer to their advertisers, which is to monitor the browsing history of their users and place advertisements that are related to the search history. However, Facebook will place the cookies on its users’ browsers, but make third parties responsible for future interaction with the users as it monitors their search histories.
Facebook will also price the Exchange feature on cost-per-thousand impressions or CPM while third-party partners will be empowered with selling the ad spots. The USP of this feature is the real-time bidding that will allow advertisers to monitor search preferences and instantly place their bids based on rising preferences.
This move will not only result in allowing advertisers to better target their target audience, but in addition will also result in enhanced ROI. At present several companies such as TheTradeDesk, MediaMath, DataXu, Turn, TellApart, AppNexus, AdRoll, and Triggit are Facebook DSP (Demand Side Platform) partners, and could benefit from the Exchange feature upon its launch.
The ads will be displayed on the right side on Facebook pages in text and image form. The potential of Facebook Exchange is indeed huge with around one billion users on an average utilizing Facebook each month. Facebook members that are worried about losing their privacy can easily opt out of this ad campaign by clicking on the link provided to the DSP partner’s site and instruct them to leave them alone.
Facebook has made a bold foray after its disappointing public listing and the coming weeks will tell if the company’s stock prices and revenues rise with this new real-time advertising feature.