Facebook to deliver personalized ads, wants to predict future
Posted by Admin @ August 24th, 2007 in Social Marketing
Facebook is reported (WSJ) to be preparing a system for personalized ads. The advertisements would be based on users’ profiles. This move has been expected for a long time, and the real news lies in the announcement that Facebook will start trying to predict the type of products that its users will need in the near future, and adjust the advertisements they will see accordingly.
This ad generation process is different from Google’s in that it tries to figure out for itself what type of product the user would need, without her actively searching for anything; a bit like the automatically generated ads on Gmail that are based on the content of emails. And like Gmail, the system will encounter resistance from privacy-concerned customers.
We think that, when predicting needs, it will be hard to get the ads right on subject. It is probably a good option for Facebook clients that use the social network intensively. For these people, preferences will be easier to predict due to their extensive profile. Also, people willing to share a lot of their personal information will probably object less to being targeted by personal marketing campaigns. For the average user, it might be better for Facebook to stick with regular context advertisements.
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Hi Peter, thanks for your comment. It’s quite useful for those who are always on...