Facebook ad targeting examples

Facebook advertising has changed significantly over the past year.  Seems to me that ads used to look like flyers you'd find stapled to a campus kiosk, with messages like "futon for sale" or "a capella concert this Friday night."  Now, ad serving on Facebook has gotten mainstream, which means...it's terrible. 

Granted, it only breaks one of the three deadly sins of advertising - irrelevance.  Speaking of which, check out three flavors that I captured via screenshot on the site:

1. Behavioral.  Reading my cookies, eh Facebook?  The one on the left shows a display ad for the Bellagio.  True, I was looking for a Las Vegas hotel for CES last week at work.  But right now I'm updating my status, cyberstalking, etc.  You know, the usual.
2. Geotargeting.  The one in the middle shows an ad for a Dutch discount travel site.  Although I was sitting at home outside of Boston, Massachusetts, I was connected to my corporate VPN through Amsterdam (because for some reason my computer can't connect using the Cambridge VPN - go figure).
3. Contextual?  Owen Mack sent me an invite to add a PUMA app.  But look at the text ads - for high blood pressure, insomnia, and asthma.  Hmm...I don't have any of the three nor have I been searching for those terms.  Honestly.  Maybe working at PUMA feels like that?

Maybe remove poke is a pretty good idea...

(BTW the other two deadly sins of advertising?  Interruption and clutter, some would claim social ads hit both marks.)

Comments

[Dave Ambrose]

hey peter,

interesting stuff. you may want to take a look at this post and the corresponding video to get an idea of fb's cross network targeting:

http://www.allfacebook.com/2007/11/is-microsoft-using-your-facebook-data-to-target-ads-across-the-net/

[Peter Kim]

Hi Dave - nice video. Like you mention with Under Armor, I didn't notice the ads until I got the weird Dutch travel one. I'm not seeing a correlation in ads across sites (yet), but maybe my profile's just too boring. Will keep an eye out though.