Facebook Tries Topic Targeting

The social media giant wants to introduce a new marketing model — topic targeting. It includes in-stream videos and topic-related ads.

As Facebook reports, there are 2 billion users on the platform. And all of them watch  FB’s video ads on a daily basis, with 70% of viewers finishing their ads before getting to the actual video.

The ads play in the Facebook videos that are at least 3-minute long. And advertisers — mostly small or medium businesses — used to target their potential customers regularly by the Audience parameter.

And now, they also will be able to reach out for potential clients through the topic of a video they watch. For example, if you’re interested in sound engineering, ads similar to the topic will pop up after the first 45 seconds: Melodics course, M-Audio equipment, and so on.

Carolyn Everson, FB’s vice president of global group, added:

“I do believe that we are going to be very competitive and consistent with the marketplace. Everyone measures these things a little bit differently, but these are numbers that people are going to be very excited about.” 

Targeting will include 20 topics at first: Sports, Beauty, Entertainment, and so on. Each topic will include numerous subtopics: Basketball, Hockey, Cosmetics, Console games, etc.