Facebook to test TV ads delivered via its ad network to apps on devices like Apple TV and Roku
Facebook is moving another step closer to getting its hands on TV ad budgets. — Facebook has wanted to get its hands on TV ad budgets for years. Now it's taking another step closer, by selling ads that will actually appear on TVs.
Context & Ripple Effects
This test is the next move in a campaign Facebook has been running since at least September 2015, when it rolled out new ad products explicitly aimed at TV budgets. What changes now is placement: instead of competing with television only for advertiser dollars, Facebook's ad network will put ads on the TV screen itself, inside apps on Apple TV and Roku devices.
The follow-on coverage shows why the screen matters — within weeks Facebook was reportedly linking Facebook profiles to IP addresses so it could target people streaming specific shows on those same devices, and by early 2017 it was building its own video app for set-top boxes.
First-order effects
- Advertisers gain a way to buy TV-screen inventory through Facebook's existing ad network rather than through network upfronts or device-maker sales teams, putting Facebook in direct competition with traditional TV sellers for the same budgets.
- App publishers on Apple TV and Roku get a new monetization source, while Roku and Apple cede some control over which ads appear inside their app ecosystems.
Second-order effects
- The IP-address matching reported weeks later turns the test into a targeting product: Facebook can promise advertisers reach against its social-graph profiles on connected TVs, pressuring Roku and Apple TV to build comparable cross-device identity of their own.
- TV networks and pay-TV distributors face a rival whose pitch is measurable, profile-based targeting on the biggest screen in the house, forcing them to accelerate their own addressable-advertising offerings.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Facebook evolves from a feed-based ad platform into a living-room distribution layer — the trajectory runs from this ad test through its own set-top video app to the later talks with HBO, Showtime, and Starz about selling their streaming services on its platform.
- TV advertising structurally shifts toward audience-based buying keyed to platform identity graphs rather than program schedules, with the device makers' willingness to host third-party ad networks determining who controls the viewer relationship.
The trend: Facebook is methodically converting its social-graph targeting stack into connected-TV inventory, turning the living room into an extension of its ad network rather than a separate market.