Facebook will reportedly roll out Atlas, the ad platform it purchased from Microsoft last year, to help companies and marketers track their ads’ effectiveness around the web, according to Re/code’s Peter Kafka.
In Atlas, ads are not bought through Facebook. Advertisers can purchase ad campaigns through Atlas, and they can choose whether or not to include it on Facebook, but "using Atlas is not predicated on having a Facebook campaign," according to a Facebook spokesperson.
Companies can purchase ads on websites and apps outside of Facebook. The company insists the ads won’t be "Facebook ads,” but by using Facebook’s targeting data, they’ll be “more effective than other big ad platforms,” according to the social network.
Facebook’s Atlas will reportedly involve several partners, but the social network has only announced two so far: Omnicom, the ad holding giant that already has deals with most of the biggest names on the internet including Google, Twitter, Facebook, and others; and Instagram, the photographic social network purchased by Facebook in early 2012.
As far as privacy’s concerned, Facebook insists its ads will be able to know “some basic facts about you,” but your actual identity will remain totally anonymous to publishers and advertisers.
Atlas will likely serve as a foil to Google’s DoubleClick display ad business, even though search ads still comprise the vast majority of revenue for Google.
The first details about Atlas leaked in August, when The Information described how Facebook was “pouring resources into Atlas in advance of a big new push with the product, expected to coincide with the Advertising Week trade show in late September.”
On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.
