Facebook have expanded controls to give people a better experience with advertising both on and off the platform. The announcement made yesterday explained three main changes that they hope will improve user experience. As a result of recent findings, they have decided to introduce tools to enable users to control their personal experience, improve the decision-making behind who sees what advert, and created new ad formats that will enhance people’s experience.
Relevant Ads?
I’m sure most of us have been bombarded with adverts whilst flicking through our Facebook news feed. Some of the adverts will have been of interest to us, whilst others will have no relevancy whatsoever, leaving us wondering how they have reached us in the first place. Irrelevant adverts that disrupt or break the user experience can be very annoying which is why Facebook have addressed the issue by allowing users to stop seeing certain types of ads.
Ad Controls
In order to improve the experience, Facebook are making ad preferences easier to use. For example, if you don’t like certain interests, such as shopping, sport etc, you can select to remove adverts of this nature from your personal preferences. Further improvements have been designed to enable users to stop seeing ads from businesses or organisations that have added them to their customer lists.
Taking A Stand Against Ad Blockers
The announcement also revealed that they have tweaked their technology to prevent ad blocking software from working on Facebook’s desktop site. The majority of its mobile traffic comes from Facebook’s app, where ad blockers already don’t work. Of course, ads can be very useful when they are well made and targeted and are relevant to your interests. However, adverts don’t always work in this way and this has seemingly forced users to seek ad blockers to counteract this problem. The new developments should see an end to this trend.
“More Philosophical Than Money Motivated”
Facebook have insisted that this move is not driven by money. The proportion of time users spend on the network via desktop versus mobile is declining, with Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s ads chief, declaring the new changes are a “principled stance on how Facebook should be delivered”.
What do you think about Facebook’s new ad controls?