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Facebook launching real-time ad platform

June 15, 2012 | Online Marketing

Reports have surfaced indicating that Facebook is on the brink of launching a real-time ad exchange dubbed Facebook Exchange. The big question is just how effective those ads will be, as thus far, paid ads on Facebook have a terrible reputation. Adding new ways to purchase them won't necessarily change that.

According to TechCrunch's Josh Constine, Facebook Exchange "a real-time bidding ad system where visitors to third-party websites are marked with a cookie, and can then be shown real-time bid ads related to their web browsing when they return to Facebook." Constine says that Facebook is currently testing Facebook Exchange, or FBX as it's referred to internally, with eight DSPs, AdRoll, AppNexus, DataXu, MediaMath, TellApart, TheTradeDesk, Triggit and Turn.

Facebook's goal here is obvious: enable advertisers to deliver more relevant, time-sensitive ads. Bloomberg's Douglas MacMillan and Jonathan Erlichman note that "if a sports-apparel company wanted to reach fans on Facebook in the moments after the last game of the NBA Finals, they could prepare ads that highlight the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder and choose which one to run depending on the outcome of the game."

But it's the retargeting aspect of Facebook Exchange that suggests Facebook is finally waking up to the fact that it's really little more than a display ad company.

Get the full story at Econsultancy

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