As expected, Facebook announced the launch of the new Atlas at Advertising Week on Monday. The company bought the ad platform from Microsoft early last year, and rumors have been circulating in recent weeks that the company was preparing for an all-out “assault” on Google’s DoubleClick with a brand new Atlas. The day has finally come.
Atlas has been completely rebuilt on a new code base, and utilizes Facebook’s “people-based marketing” capabilities to offer them to the rest of the Internet.
“In an era where people spend more time on multiple mobile devices than ever before and where cookies are flawed as standalone measurement tools, Atlas enables marketers to reach real people across devices, platforms and publishers,” a spokesperson for Facebook tells us in an email. “Atlas advertisers can now take advantage of Facebook’s people-based targeting and measurement capabilities (based on real people vs. cookies) off of Facebook. It will also help to make the ads people see on other sites and in other apps more interesting and relevant to them.”
Even Facebook’s Instagram is enabled with Atlas to measure and verify ad impressions.
“If an advertiser runs campaigns across Facebook, Instagram and Atlas, the reporting will show results from all three platforms,” the spokesperson says.
Omnicom has already signed an agency-wide ad serving and measurement partnership with Atlas, which will mean more automated capabilities for its clients.
Facebook certainly has some incredible targeting capabilities based on all the data it knows about its users, and that should make this a very powerful platform. Google still has the all powerful search data, however, and search is still the typical action taken by consumers looking to buy.
There’s an Atlas product tour available here. Facebook’s Head of Atlas Erik Johnson discusses the offering in a blog post.
Image via Facebook