Bing, Yahoo, and other PPC advertising platforms have tried to court advertisers–but advertisers want to be where the traffic is. Currently, Google has at least 67 percent of search traffic. Facebook has had some success with PPC advertising but it hasn’t been a big challenger to Adwords.
Facebook Has “Atlas”
No doubt, Google is paying close attention to Atlas, Facebook’s ad service that is poised to break down barriers to ad targeting and tracking. Because it doesn’t rely on cookies to track consumers, Atlas is able to track users as they jump from iPhone to laptop to tablet to whatever… allowing Facebook to track end to end performance of the ads. Atlas claims it can “connect online campaigns to actual offline sales, ultimately proving the real impact that digital campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales.” Advertisers will love that! According to The Wall Street Journal, “Atlas is aiming squarely at Google’s DoubleClick, the dominant ad-serving, management and tracking tool for advertisers and agencies.” Facebook purchased Atlas from Microsoft last year for $100 million; Zuckerberg and friends are certainly anxious to find out if that was a wise investment.
Let the Best PPC Outfit Win
In 2013, Google’s Eric Schmidt admitted, “The biggest mistake that I made was not anticipating the rise of the social networking phenomenon.” Google lost that one to Facebook. It would be quite a coup for Facebook to rise up as a big PPC competitor, the area in which Google excels. Atlas gives Facebook ads stronger footing, especially with the added ability to track the activity of and optimize feeds for a growing mobile audience. That alone could serve to boost marketers’ confidence in the service, and drive Facebook revenue as a result. Image credit: fotolia.com. Used under license.
