Understanding Facebook's New Ad System Atlas

Facebook has been collecting data about us for years. This is no surprise. Now it has unveiled the endgame behind that idea: Atlas. Atlas is actually a revamped ad platform Facebook bought from Microsoft last year. But the new version is masterful. It will allow companies to follow you around the web, based on information provided by Facebook. Now that's how you do advertising.

According to Facebook, Atlas is "people-based marketing." In a post explaining the new ad system, the company notes that Atlas will allow companies to follow consumers wherever they should go. The issue with some types of ads is that they don't work well because of cookies, which track your movement across the web. But cookies don't work on your phone. Atlas solves that issue for advertisers.

"Atlas delivers people-based marketing, helping marketers reach real people across devices, platforms and publishers," reported Facebook. "By doing this, marketers can easily solve the cross-device problem through targeting, serving and measuring across devices. And, Atlas can now connect online campaigns to actual offline sales, ultimately proving the real impact that digital campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales."

Here's how ingenious Atlas is. Say you've liked Nutella on Facebook. Nutella then pays Facebook for information — a heaping ton of it — on users who have liked Nutella. Presto, Nutella can now send ads for its new product wherever those people go. “Facebook has deep, deep data on its users," Rebecca Lieb, a media analyst, told The New York Times. "You can slice and dice markets, like women 25 to 35 who live in the Southeast and are fans of ‘Breaking Bad.' [Atlas] can track people across devices, [and] weave together online and offline."

Facebook is hoping that Atlas will allow it to take a big chunk out of a little company you might have heard of before. "The move, if successful, could help Facebook expand its reach and take on Google as the top dog of Internet advertising, an industry estimated to reach more than $140 billion this year," writes CNet's Ian Sherr's. "Google lorded over nearly 32 percent of online ad spending last year, according to eMarketer, and was only expected to see that dip slightly this year. Facebook, by comparison was a distant second at 5.8 percent last year. This year, it's expected to hit 7.8 percent, still far higher than third-ranked Microsoft and fourth-place Yahoo."

For those of you who are now considering that perhaps Atlas sounds a bit creepy, well, it is. But there's really nothing you can do about it. If you want, you could leave Facebook. But guess what? Companies all over the web track you so that they can send you ads. The only difference is that Facebook's Atlas just might be the best at it.

[Image via Flickr - Maria Elena]