Once Facebook projected contextual ads onto your newsfeed, now they're moving into the realm of third party apps and websites.
Consumers in Ireland are developing a serious online shopping habit. New data reveals we are spending significantly more money – and significantly more time – on the web. Online consumer spending, for example, is up by a staggering 51% in Q2 2014 when compared with the same period last year. Digital Marketing, once little more than a buzz word in a niche market, has utterly changed business’ marketing landscape.
However, the digital marketing scene can change drastically. Tech firms release new advertising features and algorithm updates weekly, and those who stay on the right side of our age’s innovations can be rewarded with astonishing returns. Well things have changed and once again the digital marketing world has a new kid-on-the-block and its name is Atlas, Facebook’s Atlas.
According to eMarketer, Google is the leader with a 32% market share of the total online ad spending as of last year ($140 billion) while Facebook trailed behind in second place at 5.8%. So what’s the big deal? The introduction of Atlas is Facebook’s attempt to control a larger piece of Google digital marketing revenues.
Atlas will allow digital marketing professionals to target specific individuals with highly personalized ads, as the system will track Facebook accounts as they move around the web instead of cookies, the go-to tool for internet trackers. This will present digital marketing professionals with detailed demographic information.
Expert Opinion: Eva Perez (Pictured Above), Lecturer and Digital Marketing Certificate Course Director
“I am really excited about Facebook’s new marketing tool; this is going to be a massive step towards understanding the online purchasing journey the consumer takes.
Atlas delivers people-based marketing, which means reaching real people across devices, platforms and publishers. Now marketers can easily solve the cross-device problem through targeting, serving and measuring across devices. What is even more exciting is that now we will be able to connect online campaigns to offline sales. This is going to reveal the real impact that digital marketing campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales.
I think is a fantastic move for Facebook and it is competition for Google so I can't wait to see how they are going to respond to this innovation.”
Unfortunately, Facebook’s new ad platform will not be without its downsides, so hold your cheers. Below are the two notable caveats that digital marketing professionals will worry about:
1. Your customers will need a Facebook account in order to track them across devices.
2. Email addresses must be linked to your customer’s Facebook account in order to ensure online to offline tracking.
Want to learn more about digital marketing courses? Our Certificate in Digital Marketing (Level 8) provides a comprehensive overview of the best-practices for both Facebook and Google advertising. In NCI’s Certificate in Digital Marketing, you’ll learn the ins and outs of search (SEO and SEM), email, social media, mobile marketing, strategy and planning from digital marketing experts currently working in the area. Our Certificate in Digital Marketing is one of our many postgraduate courses starting in January 2015.
Please note that the January 2015 intake for the Certificate in Digital Marketing will run on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.
Student Testimonial: George Hannan
“Thank you NCI for everything during the Digital Marketing Certificate course - I very much enjoyed participating and certainly learned a lot. Eva’s input and encouragement was great. The interesting thing is that the course seems like more of a 'beginning' than an end - there are loads of aspects I plan to keep chipping away at and hopefully develop further.”
Student Testimonial: Patrick Hamilton-Walsh
