Shocker! Facebook has to make money, and of course they want to continue to make lots of it so they can make more $19b and $2b dollar acquisitions. Part of that making money is marketing Facebook users, of course that includes me and you.
Now I may be a little different I’m actually enjoying Facebook’s latest pivot in the ad space. I’ve found that, after tweaking my likes and interests and interacting with people I really know and like, they’re marketing me stuff I may actually use. I signed up for Boxed, a wholesale app like having my own personal Sam’s Club. I signed up and used Lyft, I’m playing What’s The Phrase on occasion and the groups Facebook have suggested were actually relevant. I’m not the normal user though, or am I?
So many people bitch and bitch about Facebooks ads but then most of the people I know, who aren’t in the tech space don’t even realize they looking at ads anymore, they too have clicked an app or offer without even thinking “fuck these stupid ads”.
That’s why Facebooks latest advertising experiment is being met in the tech blogs with great animosity when in actuality it may be great.
Facebook is selling a gigantic group of eyeballs that have said they like the World Cup. Adage.com reports that this is in some ways a test to see if Facebook and it’s users would benefit from direct marketing to a huge specialty audience around an event. In the scope that this is an experiment Facebook will of course look at conversion as a good sign if it’s high. At the same time they’ll look at pushback amongst actual users rather than whether the latest TechCrunch or PandoDaily snob says it’s horrible.
While no expert I expect that those in this group of sold eyeballs will see ads for apps to keep up with the World Cup and their favorite teams, ads to click on soccer or athletic merchandise and maybe even tourism ads for Brazil.
What we won’t see is a bunch of spamified ads for fake Viagra clone products, ads to make your private parts bigger or ads on how to make money.
And just to clue some in, when you agree to a Facebook account you agree to it’s marketing and under that umbrella no ads on Facebook are actually spam.
