Yesterday’s relaunch of Atlas by Facebook, confirms what marketers have seen on the wall for a while; Cookies have met their match. For months now, ones privacy over the Internet has raised concerns for consumers. Many are not a fan of “cookies”, which are tiny bits of data that work as a tagging mechanism to identify your computer and your online activity on a particular browser.
How Cookies Work
According to TechTerms.com, a cookie is a “small amount of data generated by a website and saved by your web browser. Its purpose is to remember information about you, similar to a preference file created by a software application”. They’re created when you use your browser to visit a website. The cookies are then embedded onto your computer to keep track of your movements within the site, help you resume where you left off, remember your registered login, theme selection, preferences, and other customization functions.
The Problem
Due to the little amount of information a cookie contains, it usually cannot be used to reveal your identity or personal information. Cookies only track web browsing patterns and in result can give inaccurate information about a consumer.
For example, a person that reads daily articles on WSJ and checks out articles on fracking in the United States may be inferred as a male business executive in the natural gas industry. However, this information could be misinterpreted and the actual identity of the person may be a college student writing a report on the negative affects of fracking for natural gas in America (I did in fact write a report on this!)
The Solution: Social Data
Using social data allows you to have a more accurate picture of who your user may be that goes beyond browsing patterns on the Internet. Social data goes into behavioral patterns, interests, and many more demographical characteristics.
For example, take a look at someone’s Facebook or Twitter profile for 5 minutes and from there you probably have a pretty good idea about who this person is (Yes that is a scary thought, yet you choose to release that info!). By looking at the posts he/she likes on Facebook, what photos they post, or what they’re tweeting about on a weekly basis, you can tell you that person X, Y, or Z may be a college student who loves the outdoors or is a business exec who loves spending time with their kids at the water park. Really, it’s that simple.
From a marketer’s standpoint, you now have the ability to create accurate advertisements based on the social data you have discovered on the person. Using tools like the Facebook Insights is extremely helpful in gathering up social data on the type of audience you are trying to target. Twitter also has their tailored audiences, which will allow marketers to outline specific groups and connect with them on Twitter.
The rise of social data will allow companies to mine out rich data that is valuable to their business. From there, not only are they helping themselves out, but consumers will also benefit from this data due to that marketers can deliver highly relevant ads to meet the consumer’s needs.
So What is Atlas?
Atlas is Facebook’s attempt to move beyond just targeting ads based on social data within Facebook. It will give marketers the ability to market to people across the web and cross platform.
Atlas delivers people-based marketing, helping marketers reach real people across devices, platforms and publishers. By doing this, marketers can easily solve the cross-device problem through targeting, serving and measuring across devices. And, Atlas can now connect online campaigns to actual offline sales, ultimately proving the real impact that digital campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales.
So What’s Next?
While Atlas may be the next step in unlocking social data, it certainly won’t be the last. Google, Yahoo , AOL and other all have a major stake in the future of advertising on the web. They will not be willing to take a back seat to Facebook, so look for more new ad products to launch in the next year!