New Facebook ads will be based on places you physically shop, a change that the social media company is making in an attempt to make ads more relevant to its users, which, might actually be preferred by some, and in a likely attempt to drive ad revenue up. Some users may not take kindly to this new change as it might seem a little bit invasive, but Facebook has thought of that and will be allowing users to opt out of location tracking, which is how it will know where you shop so it can deliver ads to you based on those places. So, for example, if you frequently shop at Target and you have location tracking enabled, then you would probably start seeing more ads for Target in your news feed.
This isn’t just a move to help ad revenue, it’s also a move to drive up business for, well, other businesses. Facebook wants to increase the amount of sales for its ad partners and this is how it’s going to make that happen. In its post detailing the new ad changes, Facebook notes that marketers will be able to utilize Facebook’s tracking data to both help drive foot traffic back into stores from customers who have previously visited those retail locations and re-engage customers who have purchased products from a specific brand offline.
For those marketers who take Facebook up on its offer for tracking information about customers, this is sure to be a huge benefit. For the users, if they feel like this would invade their privacy and want to disable location tracking for ads, the option to configure the news feed’s advertisements and opt out of this new change is located in ad preferences in the settings for the app or website. That said, many users may not know exactly where this particular menu is located, as it’s not really out in the open. Facebook isn’t making it difficult to find, but it’s not necessarily putting it front and center either. To find the ad preferences, users will need to click on the little arrow button in the top right corner of user interface if browsing Facebook from the website, then click on settings, and then on the left side of the page there will be a link that takes to you ad preferences. If browsing Facebook from the app, users can get to the ad preferences by tapping the three lines button in the nav bar, then tapping account settings, then Ads. Facebook is already introducing these new changes to the service, so users should expect to start seeing ads based on where they shop physically in the very near future, if not already, unless they turn off location tracking.