Behavioral targeting goes social

The Wall Street Journal popped a nice piece on Facebook today.  Facebook has been trying to figure out how to turn the 30.6 million unique monthly visitors they get into cold hard cash.  Up 'til now, unless you had a labor intensive custom sponsorship, they've had a pretty barebones targeting system for ads - allowing advertisers to hit 'Facebookers' based on age, gender and geographic location ("geotargeting").

The new plan is to convert all the juicy tidbits Facebook users post about themselves on their pages into data they can use to target more 'relevant' ads, and charge (...our clients up the wazoo) higher CPM's for the privilege.  All those little apps you download to your page, the ones that ask you if they can mine all your deepest personal info, and won't work unless you say yes?  Think of them like little digital doubleagents - using your input as flags for advertisers.

"Most users of Facebook treat it as a sort of online scrapbook for their lives -- posting everything from basic information about themselves to photos to calendars of events they plan to attend."

The article quotes a source saying that the ads aren't going to be the standard banners and buttons around the content, but embedded in the 'news feed' function on users home pages.  Not a bad plan.  Because everyone scans the feed - its the place you see what your friends are up to, what posts have been made, new content featured, etc. - sort of a....well..news feed.

From the WSJ:

"Facebook's plan, if it works, could be potentially powerful for advertisers. While Google's keyword-targeted ads aim at "demand fulfillment" -- that is, they are triggered by Internet searches conducted by people who are actively looking for something that they want -- Facebook's new ad plan could help advertisers address an area called "demand generation." This involves using available information -- not just from a user but also the activities and interests of his "friends" on the site -- to figure out what people might want before they've specifically mentioned it."