Facebook Releases Atlas- Should AdSense be Scared?

Google  has some serious competition coming its way, as Facebook have announced their very own ad serving platform to rival Google’s AdSense. The news has consumers cautious and marketers excited but the real question is… Should AdSense be scared?

Atlas and People-Based Marketing

“Atlas by Facebook” which the social network purchased last year for $100 million, will allow brands to use Facebook data to remarket people across the web. Head of Atlas Erik Johnson explains that it will help marketers in “reaching people across devices and bridging the gap between online impressions and offline purchases.”

It’s being called an alternative to Google’s AdSense but with a very different twist. While AdSense uses cookies to track consumers, Atlas is focusing on “people-based marketing” which is essentially marketing that relies on having ample information about your audience while their name and identity remain protected. Although users are likely to be concerned about their privacy, Facebook claims they will not be sharing personal data with marketers about users’ identities.

Arguing that “cookies are flawed when used alone,” Johnson says in his blog post that  people-based marketing provides a solution for the cross-device problem by targeting, serving and measuring across devices.

Should AdSense be Scared?

While it’s true that Google still uses cookies, the search giant fully understand its limitations and are constantly working towards a better way of marketing and of understanding the many layers of who people are online. This is obvious through the integration they’ve been focusing on within their Google+ platform.

Although Facebook have long had an advantage over Google with their 1.23 billion active monthly users resulting in unrivalled social data, something they haven’t been so successful at is search data, and this is obviously where Google has the upper hand. Facebook have already tried desperately to become a strong search competitor with their release ofGraph Search in early 2013 but unfortunately, it wasn’t well adopted.

Still, that doesn’t mean it’s time for Google to get comfortable just yet. Our SEO specialist weighs in on whether or not Google’s AdSense has just cause to fear.

AdSense should be worried in the sense that the Facebook ad platform is pretty user friendly. This means that if Atlas is eventually integrated and offered to individuals and small business who are running their own marketing, then it’s very likely that they will push some of their marketing through Facebook. AdSense could see a decline in marketing spend here.

However, Google are also making a big push for small businesses and individuals through initiatives like Google my Business and free AdWords vouchers, so they are certainly holding their own in the face of serious competition. There’s no need for them to be scared stiff but they definitely should be cautious. – Anrich Brummer

Facebook is expected to fully unveil Atlas by the end of the week but it has already been confirmed that both Pepsi and Intel are early testers.

What do you think of Atlas? We’d love to hear your thoughts!