The targeting will function through anonymized matching of
loyalty-program members and Facebook users through email addresses
and phone numbers. Holders of loyalty cards from retailers are
asked for their email or phone number when they register, and
Facebook users sign into the site using one or the other, and a
match between two corresponding data points needs to be detected to
enable delivery of an ad.
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It functions similarly to another Facebook ad product that was
rolled out last fall: "custom audiences." In that case, brands can
upload their CRM databases consisting of phone numbers, emails and
addresses into Facebook to target their existing customer base with
ads. The technology in place to protect consumer privacy in that
instance is the same as for the new ad targeting powered by shopper
data. Through a process calling "hashing," a match can be found
without allowing Facebook data to be intelligible to the data
vendors, or vice versa, according to a Facebook spokeswoman.
Facebook is also announcing a partnership with a fourth big-data
purveyor: BlueKai. That company's integration with Facebook will be
cookie-based and not connected to offline purchases, and thus akin
to the Facebook Exchange but with some distinctions. It will enable
brands to target cookie clusters that BlueKai may have stored for
them over a longer period of time, whereas FBX is designed to
function in real-time to show ads to Facebook who have relatively
recently visited a website and had a cookie dropped on them.
BlueKai's integration will also allow for ads delivered through
cookie matching to show up as sponsored stories or other formats,
whereas FBX ads are only shown on Facebook's right-hand rail.
For example, an automaker can potentially target people who
visited its website a year ago to configure a car, according to a
Facebook spokeswoman.
