Category: Facebook

Microsoft’s Behavioral Targeting includes Web, Mobile and Xbox

As the debate in Congress, the FTC, the European Commission heats up about behavioral targeting and online privacy–and as regulators examine the Microsoft/Yahoo data deal–here is how Microsoft plans to extend it’s use of behavioral targeting [from MediaPost, excerpt]:

 Microsoft last week began offering behavioral targeting for ads running on its mobile network. But while the service offers a range of online targeted categories — about 100 –to advertisers buying mobile display inventory, the launch really means so much more.

Jamie Wells, Microsoft’s global director of trade marketing, mobile advertising solutions, says the targeting cuts across the Web, mobile and Xbox platforms when consumers sign into their Windows Live account. It allows media buyers to purchase consumer profiles demonstrating interest in specific categories, as well as specific times in a purchase funnel.

The technology doesn’t rely on cookies, but rather the user’s Windows Live ID. Cookies present a challenge on the Web, but even more so on mobile. Sometimes telecommunication carriers either strip out cookies or don’t accept them from third-party companies. So, rather than use cookies, Microsoft relies on behavioral profiles associated with Hotmail email and Xbox accounts through Windows Live ID. When a person on a mobile phone uses that same ID, Microsoft can link the behavior on the Web with behavior on their mobile phone and Xbox.

Although tight-lipped on Microsoft’s strategy, Wells admits “this is just the beginning.” Microsoft plans to expand its approach to tie together the Web, mobile and Xbox, drawing on the power of the entire Microsoft network. The strategy will integrate the audience, he says.

“The mobile application addresses one of the biggest challenges, which is targeting,” Wells says. “This is a way to circumvent the cookie problem and use online profiles. Also, some folks would argue that there’s a much higher bar for ad relevancy on mobile, and BT speaks right to that.”

Microsoft’s “Sweeping Vision” for Online Ads: “unlocking the Holy Grail of marketing” by “mining user intent”

The digital data collection arms race is unleashing powerful forces focused on data collection and consumer targeting across much of the online world.  As advertisers meet to discuss and celebrate their accomplishment and plans, as part of Advertising Week, Microsoft is playing a leading role.  As you read about their plans from this excerpt in Adweek, keep in mind that they hope to bundle their search marketing platform with Yahoo!

Microsoft is heading into Advertising Week looking to capture the ad industry’s attention by laying out a sweeping vision for the online advertising market and the integral part it plans to play in its the future…At the heart of that undertaking is the plan to build a product that can determine exactly what ads Web users want to see and when. “At the core, the most important thing to us is mining user intent,” Howe [Scott Howe, corporate vp, Microsoft’s advertiser and publisher solutions group], said. “What does a user really want to see in the way of advertising.”

That’s easy in search. But intent is not so clear on content sites or social networks. “If Bing is step one [for Microsoft Advertising], step two is extending that engine to power the ads that someone sees across all display ad formats and multiple devices,” Howe said.

…”When people talk about behavioral targeting, often they’re talking about flat display formats on a PC — and we’re talking about across all digital devices,” he said. “And so, by having this engine power all the different things holistically, we’re actually in some respects unlocking the Holy Grail of marketing.”

Our new Journal of Adolescent Health article on the Youth Obesity Epidemic and Digital Marketing

Prof. Kathryn Montgomery and I just published an article in the Journal of Adolescent Health [JAH] on the the role interactive marketing plays in the current youth obesity epidemic.  It is part of a special JAH issue focused on the obesity issue.  It’s a very good introduction to the current digital marketing landscape, and is one of a series of reports we have done on the issue.

Facebook’s “Targeting Factors” for Advertising

To keep up with Facebook, it’s important to read the social media marketing publications and reports.  All Facebook is one such very useful online source.  Here are two recent excerpts from July 2009 posts on Facebook’s targeted advertising system:

 “Facebook provides 11 targeting factors for advertisers (with three new factors announced yesterday). Below is an outline of each of those factors:

1. Location – Facebook enables advertisers to target by country, state/provice, city, and metropolitan areas. All advertisements are required to have a location selected. This should be pretty straight-forward as to which location you’d like to select.
2. Age – Age is a standard demographic factor. Most marketers that have a well defined target-market will be able to select their age.
3. Birthday – This is one of Facebook’s latest advertising targeting filters. It should be pretty obvious what types of ads should be presented to people who’s birthday it is. Try wishin [sic] the user a happy birthday and offer them a gift for higher conversion rates.
4. Sex – Gender is another typical targeting filter for Facebook.
5. Keywords – Keywords will are based on a user’s profile information including Activities, Favorite Books, TV Shows, Movies, and more. I believe job titles are included in this field and I typically spend the most time trying to brainstorm effective keywords. What types of products do your customers like? What’s their job position within an organization? Spend time on this field and you’ll be rewarded.
6. Education – While you can target based on their level of education, this is most effective for targeting ads based on the schools that people went to. Want to announce a reunion for the University of Illinois class of 1996? This is a great way to promote it.
7. Workplaces – This is another great targeting filter. Often times you will know the companies that your target market works at. If you are looking to get new clients or looking to spread awareness within specific organizations, this filter can be priceless.
8. Relationship – Want to target people that are about to get married? This is a great tool for that. If you are a bar or club, you most likely want to go after those people that are single. While this filter can be useful, you also need to keep in mind that selecting any of these settings will remove all users that haven’t selected a relationship status in their profile.
9. Interested In – This factor is useful if a user’s sexual preferences are relevant to whatever you are advertising. I tend to skip this field for most of my ads.
10. Languages – If your ad is in English but the user speaks Chinese, it’s probably not a good idea to be displaying ads to them.
11. Connections – The connections fields were launched yesterday by Facebook and they enable you to include and exclude users based on pages, events, and applications that the users have joined and you happen to be the administrator of. If you’ve created a Page and don’t want the ads to display to people who have already joined, this is a great way to avoid duplicate clicks.

If you aren’t taking advantage of the numerous targeting factors then you aren’t using Facebook advertising effectively. In order to have an increased conversion rate on your advertisements, increase the targeting in order to make the advertisement more relevant for the users. Relevance will get people to respond to your ad.”

*****

Over the past couple weeks I’ve been writing about hints of new targeting features for Facebook Ads. As of today, those features have gone live. This evening Facebook posted a note on the Facebook Ads page about three new filters: Connections, Locations, and Birthdays. We already posted about the multi-country advertisements but not about the additional two filters: connections and birthdays.

Connections enable advertisers to target members of groups, pages, or events that they own or target those users that are not already members. This avoids having ads show up for people that have already joined. Facebook is also now enabling advertisers to target those individuals who’s birthdays it is. These are extremely powerful targeting features that I’m sure advertisers will welcome.

Currently there are no advertising platforms (that I’m aware of) that provide this level of targeting capabilities. With these new features, Facebook will be able to increase revenue while increasing the effectiveness of ads. One thing that has been challenging for Facebook is to receive high conversion levels but with these new targeting features, creative advertisers will be able to increase their conversion levels.

One group that can also benefit from this new ad platform is application developers. Want to get new users that aren’t yet using your application? Now you can exclude all users of your existing application and only target those that haven’t installed it. This is something that as far as I know, no cost-per-install networks are able to provide yet. Facebook has been heavily focused on improving their advertising offerings over the past few weeks and with this latest announcement, it’s clear that Facebook is looking to provide powerful tools for all advertisers.

Google to EU: Protecting Privacy and Regulating Behavioral Targeting Could Threaten the Economy [Annals of Hypocrisy and Digital Chicken Licken Scare Tactics]

It’s both silly and disingenuous when companies tell policymakers, as they regularly do, that if they act to protect consumers it would undermine a country’s economic status.   Both that’s what Google’s chief privacy official appears to have told top European Union officials responsible for privacy and consumer protection last month.  At the Interactive Advertising Bureau/EU annual conference, Peter Fleisher, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel [my bold], “underlined the economic importance of web 2.0. Targeted advertising does not only affect online platforms but also advertisers themselves and the broader economic ecosystem. He urged the Commission to consider the wider economic repercussions before imposing any regulation on behavioural advertising.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft continued its digital doublespeak efforts, telling some it supported privacy legislation while it also simultaneously worked on ineffective self-regulatory schemes.   At the IAB EU event, Peter Cullen, Chief Privacy Strategist at Microsoft “explained [to EU officials] the many benefits consumers get from online advertising as it finances a variety of free services available to them. Mr Cullen warned that policy initiatives must not exacerbate the problem and that a balance of self regulation, policy making and industry unity was required.”

The failure to regulate the economy has brought havoc and suffering for many millions of people throughout the world.  Google and Microsoft, as digital leaders, should be acting responsibly and support meaningful legislation that protects and empowers citizens and consumers.  The economy (and civil society) will be even healthier when it is governed by policies that ensure individuals comprehend and control the digital data collection and targeting system that is now unleashed throughout the world.

Online Consumers Require Real Privacy Safeguards, Not the Digital Fox [AAAA, ANA, BBB, DMA & IAB] in Charge of the Data Hen House

The self-regulatory proposals released today [2 July 2009]  by five marketing industry trade and lobby groups are way too little and far too late. This move by the online ad industry is an attempt, of course, to quell the growing bi-partisan calls in Congress to enact meaningful digital privacy and consumer protection laws. It’s also designed to assuage a reawakened Federal Trade Commission–whose new chair, Jon Leibowitz, recently appointed one the country’s most distinguished consumer advocates and legal scholars to direct its Bureau of Consumer Protection (David Vladeck). The principles are inadequate, even beyond their self-regulatory approach that condones, in effect, the “corporate fox guarding the digital data henhouse.” Effective government regulation is required to protect consumers. We should have learned a painful lesson by now with the failure of the financial industry to oversee itself. The reckless activities of the financial sector—made possible by a deregulatory, hands-off government policy–directly led to the current financial catastrophe. As more of our transactions and daily activities are conducted online, including those involving financial and health issues–through PCs, mobile phones, social networks, and the like–it is critical that the first principle be to ensure the basic protection of consumer privacy. Self-dealing “principles” concocted by online marketers simply won’t provide the level of protection consumers really require.

The industry appears to have embraced a definition of behavioral targeting and profiling that is at odds with how the practice actually works. Before any data is collected from consumers, they need to be candidly informed about the process–such as the creation and evolution of their profile; how tracking and data gathering occurs site to site; what data can be added to their profile from outside databases; the role that data targeting plays on so-called first-party websites, etc. In addition, the highest possible consumer safeguards are necessary when financial and health data are involved. Under the loosey-goosey trade industry principles, however, only “certain health and financial data” are to be treated as a “sensitive” category. This would permit widespread data collection involving personal information regarding our health and financial concerns. The new principles, moreover, fail to protect the privacy of teenagers; nor do they seriously address children’s privacy. (I was one of the two people that led the campaign to enact the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act).

The failure to develop adequate safeguards for sensitive consumer information illustrates, I believe, the inability of the ad marketing groups to seriously address online privacy. The so-called “notice and choice” approach embraced by the industry has failed. More links to better-written privacy statements don’t address the central problem: the collection of more and more user data for profiling and targeting purposes. There needs to be quick Congressional action placing limits on the collection, use and retention of consumer data; opt-in control over profile information; and the creation of a meaningful sensitive data category. Consumer and privacy groups intend to work with Congress to ensure that individuals don’t face additional losses due to unfair online marketing practices.

[press statement by the Center for Digital Democracy]

CDD Asks Facebook to Address Digital Marketing & Data Mining in Principles–including for outside developers

We have significant questions about the proposed Principles and Statement and how they will affect individual privacy.  CDD has submitted comments.  Here’s an excerpt:  “Ultimately, users must have full knowledge of and control over any and all user data collected by Facebook or by any third party using Facebook’s platform. Facebook must change its Principles and Statement to give users this knowledge and control. 

We urge Facebook to use this wording:

2. Ownership and Control of Information

People own their information. They have the freedom to share it with anyone they want and take it with them anywhere they want, including removing it from the Facebook Service. People have the freedom to decide with whom they will share their information, and to set privacy controls to protect those choices. As part of user control of their data, every Facebook user has the right to know and fully control if and how data is collected from them, especially if the data is to be used in advertising. Facebook will be transparent in how it collects and analyzes data for advertising, including profiling and targeting of users. Facebook also will detail to users what particular data collecting and mining will be done for advertising purposes. Facebook will ensure that every company that works with it, via third-party applications or otherwise, also details to users if their data is collected or mined, how this data will be collected or mined and for what the data that is collected or mined will be used. Those controls, however, are not capable of limiting how those who have received information may use it, particularly outside the Facebook Service…

Users need to know how third-party developers use the data accessed or collected, including how the data is used for advertising and marketing. For example, if games and widgets and other third-party applications base their business model on capturing user data for lead generation, the users must be clearly told the details of this data capture and lead generation, and users must give their explicit approval first.  Users have the right to control third-party use, access to, collection or sharing of user data, and Facebook needs to make this clear in its Principles.”

Facebook Connect: “über-targeting” for marketers [Annals of Social Media Marketing]

excerpt from online marketing blog [our bold]:

The Benefits of Facebook Connect

For marketers:

First, it facilitates getting mentioned in Facebook users’s news feeds, which has been the holy grail for marketers because it raises awareness of your business and delivers an implied endorsement.

Second, it provides a treasure trove of user data, allowing über-targeting. You can literally customize the content of your page based on the visitor’s Facebook data, such as his age, gender, location, likes, dislikes, relationship status, even networks, groups, and pages he’s joined – or “fanned.” As a simple example, if you know a visitor is a fan of the band U2, you can highlight your U2-theme stationery, T-shirts, dog bones.

Facebook, Advertising, Third-Party $Apps, Terms of Service, Data Collection & Privacy

The role that third party developers play accessing user data on social networks such as Facebook has long been a privacy concern for us.  The business practices, including data collection, profiling and targeting that form the basis of social networking “monetization” strategies are hidden from public view.  My CDD and USPIRG, in our various privacy complaints to the FTC, asked the agency to examine this area.  Maybe the new Obama FTC will do so.  But for now, here’s some excerpts from Facebook’s advice “on common business models” to application developers, as well as from its list of “third party developers” involved in social media marketing:

“As you think about building your app on Facebook, we want to help by highlighting some keys ways of thinking about your app as a business… Apps that are meaningful, trustworthy and well designed have real staying – and monetizing – power… we host a Platform with instant access to more than 175 million active users… Once you’ve created a sustainable, engaging social application, there are many different ways to help monetize it… Advertising: We at Facebook have had success serving targeted advertisements to our users based on information we know about them. By leveraging the data we give you access to (as detailed in our Developer Terms of Service) and data users share with you directly as a part of your application experience, you can serve highly relevant ads… Virtual Credits / Virtual Goods:… instead of accepting payments directly from users for subscriptions or virtual goods, some applications instead allow users to complete affiliate offers by filling out surveys or agreeing to try new products. There are a number of providers who consolidate these types of offers…
Third Party Providers to Help You Monetize:
Advertising:
AdParlor:  “Over 500 Million users worldwide are on a social networking site. These users are comfortable sharing their age, gender, and location, and can be reached through targeted advertising.”…
Shopitmedia: “you can target based on:
1. Location
2. Gender
3. Age
4. Application Category”…
Affiliate marketing…
Analytics…

Payments

Why CDD Was Prepared to Go to FTC with EPIC on Facebook’s Terms of Service Digital `Bait & Switch’

Yesterday, my group worked closely with the Electronic Privacy Information Center to prepare a complaint on Facebook’s new Terms of Service agreement.  We have been tracking Facebook’s new “engagement” ad targeting efforts, including its “polling” product.  As Adweek recently reported, “The polling ad is part of Facebook’s second effort to integrate advertisers into the fabric of the site beyond standard banner units.”  As explained by eMarketer, “Facebook’s Engagement Ad polling feature may be a precursor to a more full-blown market research program—one that Facebook isn’t quite ready to talk about yet,” said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson. “Social network profiles are a treasure trove of information about consumer preferences, and people talk about brands and products frequently.”

Facebook also recently “announced the release of several new Facebook Platform APIs, all of which enable application developers to access and share more real-time information about their users and their friends.” As InsideFacebook reported, the “release of several new Facebook Platform APIs, all of which enable application developers to access and share more real-time information about their users and their friends…While Facebook apps have been able to set Facebook users’ status updates for a long time, this is the first time developers will be able to access current and recent updates for app users and their friends.”

This latest Facebook flap underscores our call for policy safeguards.