Facebook recently announced a new ‘Ad Settings’ page that allows users to have greater control over what ads they see on their site. This page is an improvement over the option to click on the ‘x’ on an individual ad and say that you don’t want to see that ad again in that you will be able to remove specific types of ads.
Of course, you won’t be able to completely remove all ads. According to their Help Center page, “You can’t block Facebook ads entirely. Ads help keep Facebook free and we strive to show you only ads that are relevant and interesting to you.”
The fact that the ads are relevant and interesting to the users is one problem many Facebook users have. Facebook knows what types of things you will be interested in because they collect massive amounts of data on you as you use your computer and mobile devices.
This goes well beyond just what they collect when you ‘like’ something or browse to Facebook pages. They collect information about virtually every activity you participate in online. That’s why when you are looking at travel sites, you’re more likely to see a hotel ad on Facebook. Many people don’t like this data collection strategy.
The fact is, however, that is not going away. This type of targeted ad is what has allowed Facebook to make billions of dollars per year and that number is only likely to grow. Having this new ad settings page does seem like something of a good compromise, however. Being able to have greater control into what ads you do see will, over time, help to give you a better overall user experience.
While ad blocking is rarely seen as a good thing by marketers, this actually could be a decent move for us as well. Allowing users to provide direct feedback on the type of ads they do and don’t want to see will help to improve conversion rates, at least in theory. If you are showing your ad to fewer people but making more sales, it is certainly a win for your business.
As with all changes, we’ll have to wait and see how this turns out after it is active for a few months.
