How Facebook Choose the Ads They Display on Your Profile?

Understanding retargeting

If you ever wondered about how social medias as Facebook know exactly which kind of ad to show you? If you even had the impression that the ads on your Facebook profile were coming from those exactly web sites you were visiting before? Here I will try to explain you simply and clear how and why it happens.

Cookies

Firstly I need to explain, in a very simple way, the concept of Cookies. Actually they are the reason why the ads know exactly what you were searching for in your computer. For example you searched for a black umbrella on Ebay or for a new phone on Amazon, the same items you searched before, will appear on your Facebook advertisement space.

Cookies are information kept in your computer that tracks every action you undergo in a website. Let’s say that you have visited a customizable t-shirt web store, bought to items and clicked in a third one; the cookies activated in your computer will retain this information to “improve” your experience on the internet. Then every time Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Instagram and so on try to decide on the right content to show you, they will use your cookies to determine which sites to display for you in search engines or which ad is the most interesting for you.

It means that if you go on Amazon to buy a new cellphone and don’t buy it, the cookies activated in your computer will tell the internet that you have searched for an cell phone on Amazon and didn’t buy it -the cookies can even know if you bought or not the product, and as you didn’t converted the sell, the web store will triggers Retargeting campaigns, based in your cookies, to show you exactly the item you clicked on the store but didn’t buy by any reason. And then ads of the product you didn’t buy will be showcased for you again and again until you finish the sale or erase the cookies in your computer or start getting interested in another items.

If on one hand, cookies will keep the internet showing you things related with what you have visited in the past –could be good if you used to search for similar items on the internet always- on the other hand, they will show you products your contents that you aren’t interested with any more. To finish with the problem of seeing the same thing again and again check on the internet how to erase cookies in your computer using you navigator system (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Explorer etc..) it is quite simple don’t worry.

Retargeting

Know that you understand the idea behind the cookies is the right time to explain what retargeting is inside Marketing campaigns.

Retargeting is the activity of gathering the cookies in your computer to show you ads that could be interesting for you, increasing the chances of the brands to sell their product.

This strategy is effective as it is going to display the right product to the right client located in the right place. So it will avoid the internet to show you products that you are not interested with at all.

To set a retargeting campaign website administrators have to activate it, generally adding a snippet tag in the body of their website’s HTML. It will allow the site to start producing a list with the cookies of the users. As easy as it.

The result you already know, is you having that crazy impression that someone knows exactly what you were doing on the internet, don’t be afraid, no one is hacking your computer and monitoring you, actually they are behind of any information that can lead you to buy a product and the best way is to knowing your preferences through the sites you used surf on.

Retargeting based on ads auctions and your cookies

If you worked with Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Youtube Ads or any other channel to promote your site you probably know that when you create an ad and want to publicize them you have to create a “high quality” ad to win the auction and have your ad showcased to the customers.

But if you never advertised on the internet before maybe you aren’t familiar with the term auction for this context. Here goes a briefly explanation.

When you pay to have your product advertised on the internet you have to set the kind of payment do you want to do and also set the audience you are intending to target. Once you have done it you have to choose where you will advertise, or better where you want to see your ad. Let’s say that you want to see it on the Google search engine, ok good, but a thousand of other brands will also try to advertise there. Here is when the auction comes to the game. Your ad have to compete with the other ads. Just the a number of limited winners will appear in the first page of the Google search.

But which Google takes into account to decide which ad to show in the first pages (this is what auction stands for)? the amount of payment you are willing to do is on factor that contributes to have you add displayed on the first page of Google Adwords and the other is the quality of the ads.

But what Google means by “quality”? simple your ad will have a different “quality” for each people on the internet. What happens is that Google will use the cookies from your computer to determine which ad is more relevant to you. Then if you run an advertisement of customized t-shirts, used in the example in the beginning of the post, it will appear more likely in the first pages of the users who have searched for customized t-shirts in the past, especially those who already visited your website page. Simple like that, the cookies are the key for Online Marketing.

So if you have any contribution to add or any question, leave a comment below. I will be happy to exchange knowledge or answer anything.