Facebook moves to improve measurement with Atlas buy
Facebook says its purchase of online ad measurement company Atlas is to help marketers better understand how their campaigns perform both on its network and elsewhere on the web.
The social network confirmed its purchase of Atlas Advertiser Suite from Microsoft for an undisclosed fee, although estimates range from $50-$100m, yesterday (Feb 28) bringing an end to months of speculation.
Brian Boland, Facebook’s head of monestisation product marketing, confirmed the purchase via a post on the official Facebook blog which further explains how two services can be used in unison.
“Marketers and agencies struggle to understand how their efforts across different channels complement and strengthen each other,” reads the post which goes on to explain how integration of Atlas will provide brands with a “holistic view of campaign performance”.
Facebook says it will invest further in the Atlas Advertiser Suite to make more tools available to marketers which can then be used in conjunction with others, such as Nielsen analytics and Datalogix. This will help “close the loop” and compare their Facebook campaigns to the rest of their online ad spend according to Boland.
“Our belief is that measuring various touch points in the marketing funnel will help advertisers to see a more complete view of the effectiveness of their campaigns,” adds Boland.
The purchase is the latest move to bolster ad sales on the social network. The Atlas suite will help advertisers better assess the ROI of their campaigns on the network of one billion people and also lets them book campaigns across the web from a single point.
Boland dismisses speculation that Facebook’s purchase of Atlas signals an ambition for the social network to launch its own ad network with inventory sourced from third party sites.