Block Party: How Facebook is Combatting Ad Blocking Services for Your Convenience

By: Anna Barden | @awbarden

Many Facebook users have utilized ad blocking services on their desktops. The reason many of them do is because they find the ads in their News Feeds irrelevant. This month, Facebook introduced a way to combat these ad blockers, and cater more to every user’s interests.

Because most of the social media platform’s revenue comes from ads, it has always been a priority to include them. It wasn’t until recently though, that Facebook began offering ad preferences to users, allowing you to choose what you see in their newsfeed. It’s sort of a compromise to combatting ad blockers.

Now, instead of solely using the demographics and the information you provide on your profile (where you work, currently reside, or interests in general,) to feature certain ads, the ads you see will be based on what you choose to see, under Facebook ad preferences:

If you are a Hulu user, you may be familiar with the breaks your favorite shows have, where an announcer comes on and says, “choose your ad preference now,” and you are given an option to choose between watching a dog food commercial or a cat food commercial… this is basically what the new Facebook ad preferences are doing also, but with more options as far as what a user’s interests may be. There are plenty of categories to choose from; it all comes down to what interests you the most. For some of us, that could be beer - for others, it could be Harry Potter.

Facebook is one of the most personal social media platforms with regard to status updates. Now the ads you see will be just as personal.

To make things seem a little less Big-Brothery, Facebook also explains why you’re seeing a certain ad, if you click an arrow in the right hand corner:

At the bottom of the screen, there is a link to change your ad preferences.

This update is also an advantage for marketers, because it allows advertisements to be more focused on consumers who are interested in certain products, making things more cost effective.

How do you feel about the new Facebook ad preferences? Tweet us your thoughts @SocialMediaDel.