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| What experts are saying about Facebook’s Atlas |
n an effort to better compete with Google, the Web’s premier ad server, Facebook re-launched Atlas yesterday. It’s expected to be a game-changer for the social network, keeping in step with the company’s cross-platform goals.
Several industry experts have recently weighed in on Atlas and what it means for social advertising moving forward.
David Serfaty, Director of Social Advertising, Matomy Media Group:
The relaunch of Atlas as Facebook’s new ad platform represents an important shift in Facebook’s advertising model. The ability to provide advertisers with audience-based targeting and cross-device measurement capabilities shows that Facebook is taking the lead on solving the industry-wide problem of how to accurately measure and attribute users’ long and winding path toward conversion.
As a performance-based marketing company, we at Matomy are happy to see Facebook continue to make improvements like those it has made with Atlas to its ad solution. Advertisers are increasingly seeking more advanced targeting options, as well as the ability to target consumers across devices and from offline to online (and vice versa). What Facebook has done with the relaunch of Atlas is an important step towards this goal and should provide advertisers with greater transparency and control over engaging, acquiring and retaining the right consumers across the right devices via Facebook ads.
3Q Digital COO Dave Yoo:
Atlas’ “people-first” marketing approach stays aligned with Facebook’s “audience-first” driven advertising platform, which can be seen as a subtle yet significant paradigm shift in how digital marketing is executed. Even Google is moving away from the keyword and pushing more audience-driven channels.
Matt Ackley, Senior Vice President of Product and CMO of Marin Software (an Atlas partner):
Facebook’s relaunch of Atlas underscores the shift in digital marketing to targeting specific audiences as opposed to blanket campaigns. By 2017 there will be 5 connected devices for every Internet user according to a study by Cisco; so, being able to track consumers as they move across devices is highly valuable to advertisers. Campaigns must “follow” users, and by Atlas linking to consumers’ Facebook accounts the ad network takes a significant step forward in solving the cross-device targeting. Something to keep in mind, though, is it’s not only a cross-device world but also a cross-channel world. Consumers move between social networks, websites and search, and as audience targeting gains steam advertisers are finding themselves in need of a system where they can stitch all their campaigns together as they target consumers across different channels and devices.
Blog post from SHIFT CEO James Borow (an Atlas partner):
Atlas’ cross network data provides advertisers with a better understanding of performance across advertising campaigns via cross-channel and conversion reporting. Advertisers can then leverage reporting for multi-touch attribution, which provides a comparison of performance of all campaigns using Atlas technology. Atlas’ “people-based” metrics will also help marketers better reach the people they want across devices, platforms and publishers.
SHIFT’s platform complements Atlas by giving advertisers access to proprietary marketing solutions and measurement tools that help marketers save time and maximize revenue across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. As advertisers create, launch and manage Facebook advertising campaigns using SHIFT’s programmatic ads solutions, all campaign details will automatically be reflected in the Atlas platform, ensuring a more seamless user experience. Advertisers will also have access to SHIFT’s own campaign reporting, which provides insights specific to social and mobile performance.
Dan Virgillito, Senior Writer at Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer AdEspresso:
The company has been working hard to improve Atlas since last year and has included offline sales tracking and cross-device targeting to its list of features. The social giant says cookies “are flawed” because they do not work for mobile devices and are not accurate enough when it comes to demographic targeting or measuring the purchase funnel on various devices and browsers.
So instead, Facebook’s Atlas has come up with a new strategy to track users, termed “People-based marketing”, featuring “an entirely new code base,” with built-in measuring and targeting that will be more accurate and make sure the right ads are served to the right audience at the right time.