How come Facebook is able to show me ads for something I was searching on Google?
What you are seeing is known as Remarketing/Retargeting. This has been made possible on Facebook due to a service started by the company back in 2012 called Facebook Exchange (FBX)
What is Facebook Exchange?
It is an ad exchange started by Facebook in 2012. The platform allows advertisers to target users with highly relevant ads based on their browsing habits. From Business Insider:
FBX is a real-time bidding ad exchange in which advertisers drop tracking cookies on users' browsers as they surf the web -- shopping, for instance -- and then retarget those users with ads once they enter Facebook, perhaps to remind them to come back to the sites they were shopping on.
How does this apply to your case?
Some ads you see on Facebook are posted using this Exchange platform. Let's use a scenario to understand this:
You are planning to buy a new laptop. You go on Apple's website and sift through their catalog. The website would place a cookie on your device. Advertisers can just specify on Facebook Exchange that users with a cookie from Apple's website be shown an ad from Apple.
So, when you log into Facebook, you would be shown an ad from Apple. It does not matter that you were logged out of Facebook when you visited Apple's website. The ad will be shown based on your browsing habits outside of Facebook. In a sense, Facebook might not even know that you visited Apple's website, as the ads are created using your data (using tracking cookies) compiled by the advertisers. In addition, you might see the same ad on other websites, too (not just on Facebook), as the same advertisers engage with different ad exchanges.
Here's an infographic about how this works on Facebook:
This is just a simplistic view of the process. In actuality, there is lot of other stuff that goes on:
A typical transaction begins with a user visiting a website. This triggers a bid request that can include various pieces of data such as the user’s demographic information, browsing history, location, and the page being loaded. The request goes from the publisher to an ad exchange, which submits it and the accompanying data to multiple advertisers who automatically submit bids in real time to place their ads. Advertisers bid on each ad impression as it is served. The impression goes to the highest bidder and their ad is served on the page. This process is repeated for every ad slot on the page. Real time bidding transactions typically happen within 100 milliseconds from the moment the ad exchange received the request.The bidding happens autonomously and advertisers set maximum bids and budgets for an advertising campaign. The criteria for bidding on particular types of consumers can be very complex, taking into account everything from very detailed behavioural profiles to conversion data.
This also involves Demand-side Platforms (DSPs), which further makes things easier for advertisers by allowing them to manage multiple ad exchange platforms through a single interface. I have posted a link below, if you are interested in knowing a little more about them.
What can you do?
If the ads bother you so much, you can use AdBlock. Or, if you want to see who's tracking you online, you can even try
Ghostery sees the "invisible" web, detecting trackers, web bugs, pixels, and beacons placed on web pages by Facebook, Google, and thousands of other companies interested in your activity.
Just know that, it's not just Facebook that does this. The entire online advertisement business is based on Remarketing/Retargeting.
No comments