Facebook Tests Real-Time Ad Targeting

By now, we're all used to targeted ads. Whether you're getting daily Groupons in your inbox or if you're one of the 600 million who regularly browse Facebook, you've seen a targeted ad. Until now, these advertisers have been aggregating your data, grouping you and targeting ads to you based on these groupings. Facebook has been testing a new service that alters the method by which ads are chosen. Traditional targeted ads are based on aggregated data. Facebook has begun serving ads to a small subset of their users based on real-time data mining.

The new feature being tested does not alter this algorithm other than speeding it up, so ads are served immediately after a status is posted, getting the brand in front of the user much faster, hopefully during decision-making time. – AdAge

That makes simple sense. Now, posting a status update about some random desire could serve you with relevant targeted ads immediately. That's cool. Really, this doesn't change much. It's just speeding up the process that's already in place. Before, this information had to be filtered and aggregated before the ads were served to your browser. Now, it's much quicker.

1% of Facebook's 600 million customers are enjoying this new feature.

[via TIME]