Facebook to Target Ads Based on App Usage
Facebook Inc. is launching a new type of mobile advertising that targets consumers based on the apps they use, pushing the limits of how companies track what people do on their phones. — The social network is tracking the apps that people use through …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is Facebook's second big mobile-targeting move in three weeks: Bloomberg reported in mid-June that it was readying a location-based mobile ad product, and this launch extends tracking from where users are to which apps they run. The playbook has a longer lineage — the WSJ flagged Facebook's personalized ad-targeting ambitions back in 2007, when similar plans collapsed under user backlash.
The pickup is unusually broad for a product announcement: CNET, The Verge, Mashable, GigaOM, Marketing Land, WebProNews, Adotas and Business Insider all carried the story on the same day, reflecting how much weight the market puts on Facebook's post-IPO need to prove mobile can be monetized.
First-order effects
- Advertisers buying Facebook's mobile inventory gain a new behavioral signal — installed and used apps — letting them reach users by what they do on their phones rather than just who they are on the social graph.
- Users' app activity becomes an input to ad targeting without a change most will notice, reviving the privacy objections that greeted Facebook's earlier targeting pushes.
Second-order effects
- Rival platforms and app publishers face pressure to match or block this kind of cross-app data use, since whoever holds richer device-level behavior can charge more per impression.
- Privacy advocates and regulators get a concrete new example of phone tracking exceeding web-era norms, sharpening the case for mobile-specific disclosure rules.
Third-order effects
- If app-usage targeting proves out, mobile advertising consolidates around companies with both scale and first-party identity data, squeezing smaller networks that lack either.
- The pattern points toward cross-app tracking becoming the default assumption of mobile marketing — and toward the regulatory fights that assumption eventually invites.
The trend: Mobile advertising is shifting from contextual placement to behavioral targeting built on platform-scale identity data, with Facebook setting the pace its rivals must answer.