I log on to Facebook, and there’s an ad there … for Marmite.
I click over to my profile, and see three more ads. HSBC is trying to sell me a mortgage. The Royal Bank of Scotland is recruiting. And Virgin Media wants me to use their telephone and television services.
There is something wrong with this picture.
Just like everybody else, I pay for Facebook. Not in the traditional sense, but in the sense that using the service gives them information that they can then turn around and use to sell things to me and my friends. Facebook knows who I am connected to, and how those groups bunch — the fencing friends, the friends who like comic books and science fiction TV shows, and so on.
They also see degrees of interaction — they know what profiles I look at most often, and which ones I interact with most often. In addition to this, they know my location, where I went to school, and some of my interests. Other interests can be extrapolated on the basis of groups I’m a part of, and my Facebook connections. For the most part, if my friends like something I probably will as well.
In other words, they should know quite a bit about me. But their ads don’t show this.
A mortgage from a UK bank? OK, you know my age and location.
Virgin’s television service? Clearly my TV watching habits are overestimated. And they haven’t managed to pinpoint my exact location, or they would know that Virgin’s high speed internet is not actually available in my neighborhood.
Facebook knows more than that about me. And about you. They should be able to take that information, and post relevant ads.
I cannot figure out why there aren’t more ads from airlines when I arrive on Facebook. I interact rather heavily with people from all over the world, and log on from different locations on a regular basis. My country of residence is different from the one in which I attended school. I’m a good target for airline and hotel deals.
I cannot figure out why there aren’t more ads for geeky movies. A huge number of my friends are geeks. Our interests and interactions with each other and with groups and being “Fans” of things on Facebook must point heavily towards things like Watchmen, Star Trek or Tron. These are not advertised to me.
Facebook is sitting on a mountain of data about my interests — information based not on what I choose to write on my profile, but on my actual habits — but they are not leveraging it. They need to organize it, or (if it is already organized), give their advertisers the tools they need to leverage it properly.
The only thing that they have managed to do is upset users by including their faces in the advertisements they show their friends.
I should see an advertisement for something that interests me every time I log onto Facebook.
They know who they are targeting — we all log on.
They know what we are interested in, and where we are.
One would think the advertising would be relevant.
Tech and World
ads, advertisement, advertising, cost, facebook, privacy
