Facebook Partner Categories, a new advertising model for businesses, has been launched. Facebook Partner Categories aim to target users based on more than just their activity inside Facebook.
The social network announced the new feature on April 10, 2013 in a post on the Facebook Studio Blog.
Facebook is using about 500 “unique groups” called Partner Categories that will target its more than one billion users by organizing them based on their locations, browsing histories and purchasing histories. The leading social network site is using data from Datalogix, Epsilon and Acxiom to manage the unique groups.
Now, would-be advertisers will be able to target which specific “unique groups” of users they’d like to reach with their ads by selecting a Partner Category (pictured above). While these new groups provide a broader array of users to advertisers, they’ll still be able to hone that reach even more by using the services already offered by Facebook for businesses choosing to advertise on the site.
An example of a Partner Category would be a generic group of consumers such as “cereal buyers” from which an advertiser could choose to whittle down to include just buyers of “children’s cereals” or “hot cereals.”
In the official announcement, the company stated, “No personal information is shared between Facebook, third parties or advertisers. Partner categories work the same way all targeting on Facebook works. The advertiser only knows the size of the audience and can’t access any information about individuals included in a category.”
More details on the way Facebook treats user data when collecting data for advertising partners can be found in the company’s “Facebook and Privacy Notes” under the topic of advertisers and third-party partners.
TechCrunch reports the new Facebook Partner Categories service is a big progression beyond Facebook’s existing advertising services because it utilizes additional user data to aid advertisers in targeting specific customers.
Facebook Partner Categories are now available to advertisers in the U.S. in Power Editor and through API.
This is awesome!