#facebook platform changes

By Jeremy Leon (@jeremymleon), Director of Strategy @247LS

For Zuck and Facey, challenging Google’s video dominance just ain't enough. Facebook is about to take on Google’s entire online ad flourish. Launching this week, Atlas will allow advertisers to use Facebook's treasure-trove of world-class data to target and track ads across the entire internet -- not just on Facebook. This is a big deal for Facebook’s bottom line, as well as agencies that create and distribute the digital ads.

Atlas is so compelling because it will use Facebook UID, which is becoming the universal “ID card” for the internet. This means advertisers know not just who they're reaching... but when that person moves between their phone, tablet and desktop (and soon their watch). Attribution remains the biggest challenge in advertising, our overlords in Menlo Park seem to be on the verge of deploying a solution with Atlas, Facebook UIDs and deep links properly tracking the customer journey from exposure to conversion.

On the agency side, the impact of Atlas should be similarly huge. It has become clear that data -- especially social data and true ID -- is the key to ad performance. Agencies with expertise in leveraging social data are critical now more than ever. Moreover, with Atlas Facebook is providing agencies with one portal to buy and extend social campaigns to all digital/mobile inventory, instead of just on social channels. In addition to being the content creators and social ads experts, we’ll now be further empowered as the hub of media buying, with nearly limitless paid reach potential. Which is the way it should be:

Don't think of Atlas as buying ads on Facebook and the greater web. Just focus on buying audiences, wherever those people go.

As they’ve been doing since ads were introduced on the platform, Facebook continues to democratize digital advertising. Traditional paid media agencies no longer hold the keys to the kingdom. Everyone has more or less the same thing, and quality of your content determines how low you can get your CPM or CPV. Agencies that excel in data-driven social content creation and distribution -- much like Buzzfeed has done for publishing -- will provide the best value to their clients.

By @RossSheingold, Chief Strategy Officer @247LS

Today, Facebook announced custom audience ads based on web visits and app use, allowing marketers to reengage customers and provide customized content like never before:

These new features expand the capabilities of custom audiences to allow marketers to deliver targeted ads to people who visited their website or used their mobile app. For instance, a bike retailer could reach people who started designing bikes on its website but didn’t make a purchase. Through custom audiences, the company can reach these people via desktop News Feed and encourage them to finish customizing online. Or, a mobile travel app can deliver ads to people who have downloaded their app but haven’t used it in a while and encourage them to book getaways within the app.

Described by Facebook as "complementary" to FBX (which allows marketers to programmatically retarget website visitors with ads on Facebook), this is actually so much more. Why so humble, Facey? 

Today, we ensure that custom creative for Laundry Service clients reach the most relevant and highly targeted audience by leveraging interest targeting (through FB campaign manager), custom audience targeting (through FB power editor) and FBX retargeting (through third-party FB PMDs). The introduction of custom audiences based on web visitors and app users, provides us with the most powerful tool yet. Consider this scenario: 

A potential customer visits Johnvarvatos.com, looking for a new pair of shoes

The customer visits multiple product pages (clearly showing an interest in purchasing), but doesn't buy. 

The customer checks Facebook on their mobile device or desktop computer

With the current marketing tools in place, it is likely that this customer will be served a somewhat generic FBX retargeting ad on their desktop sidebar, or possibly within their desktop newsfeed (FBX is not available on mobile). The ad will be native (includes Facebook's core page post functionality), but since it is being produced and distributed in a silo, some of the context of the individual customer journey will be lost: 

In the above examples, the potential customer being retargeted immediately realizes that they're being retargeted based on their browsing history. But do those ads actually provide VALUE to the potential customer? 

Let's revisit the John Varvatos example above, considering Facebook's new ad tool. Upon checking Facebook on a desktop computer or mobile device, the potential customer isn't greeted by a generic "COME BACK AND VISIT US AGAIN" message. Instead, an organic image from an organic page post (along with authentic customer feedback) might be waiting: 

THAT offers VALUE to the viewer of the ad. They visited an e-comm site and likely saw generic product images. They probably visited other websites around the web and were retargeted with display ads, reminding them of the product they viewed. They continued their customer journey on Facebook and were greeted with an organic image, native to the platform, offering a different and more authentic look at the product they considered purchasing. 

At Laundry Service, we've been waiting for this day to come and will leverage the new Facebook ad tool as soon as possible. We're obsessed with creating content that is entertaining, nice to look at and valuable for customers of the brands and companies we work with. It's ROI and branding at the same time.

By @RossSheingold, Chief Strategy Officer @247LS

  Update 2: Turns out our Facebook rep was mistaken. PTAT is alive and well once again. Weird stuff. 

Update: We have received a response from our Facebook rep. Looks like PTAT is a goner:

This is not a bug, PTAT is currently in the process of being removed from all pages.

Team Laundry Service woke up this morning to find a subtle, but meaningful change to the information displayed on Facebook brand pages.

For the past year and a half, pages have been adorned with an important metric that lives next to the long-heralded fan count - "People Talking About This" (PTAT). Today it is gone. 

For those wondering, here is the definition of PTAT from Facebook's official help documentation:

"People Talking About This" is defined as "the number of people who have created a story from your Page post (Stories include: sharing, liking or commenting on your post, answering a question, responding to an event and claiming an offer). 

Put simply, PTAT is an extremely valuable metric for analysis and competitive research because it represents actions by the community on a brand page. A stark contrast to the static, vanity metric that likes has become over the years. 

Believe it or not, many business leaders and decision makers still don't fully understand Facebook marketing and have no idea that Facebook Page Likes aren't much more than a vanity metric. Using the now-disappeared PTAT number, savvy Facebook marketers were able to benchmark and showcase the vast difference between a page's fan count, and the number of people actually engaging with the page. In fact, our data shows that Facebook page posts only reach 3-7% of the fan base organically - a result of Facebook's infamous "Edge Rank" algorithm that plays gatekeeper to your newsfeed. Edge rank ensures the most relevant content is being delivered to fans of pages and underscores the importance of brands executing a converged media program (incorporating owned, earned and paid media).