Facebook and Google strike online pact for FBX ads

Google has announced advertisers using its DoubleClick Bid Manager tool – which helps brands buy ad space from across the web via private and public ad exchanges – will be able to buy inventory sold via Facebook’s ad exchange FBX in real-time. 

Payam Shodjai, Google DoubleClick, senior product manager, says the development means advertisers will now be able to manage their cross platform campaigns more efficiently from a single platform. 

He adds: “We help clients access dozens of private and public exchanges in more than 75 countries, and continue to see double-digit quarter-over-quarter growth in spend – last quarter was our biggest ever.”

FBX launched last year, and lets advertisers retarget users from across the web using cookie-based retargeting methods. The social network had previously omitted Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager from its list of approved ‘demand-side platforms’ (an online platform that lets advertisers make adjustable bids on web inventory in real-time). 

The reason for this omission hadn’t been shared publicly, but industry observers have speculated that Facebook was wary of giving Google too much of an insight to its ad operations, as a potential reason. 

For instance, having DoubleClick as an approved ‘demand-side platform’ will give Google an insight into how much Facebook charges for its ad inventory, and the value of cookies on its exchange. 

Neither party has publicly shared the reason for the change of circumstance but the sheer number of online advertisers using Google’s online ad tools is likely to increase the number of advertisers bidding on FBX inventory, and therefore push up its average ad prices.