There are millions of ads that are eligible to be shown in News Feed every day from more than 1.5 million active advertisers on Facebook, the company stated in an announcement today. Facebook’s goal is to show people ads they think each individual will find interesting.
In order to better achieve that goal, Facebook will be rolling out two updates to the news feed to help show people more relevant ads.
One way Facebook is going to do that is by analyzing the data they have gained from users who hide ads, and using the feedback to inform whether or not we show the ad to other people.
The other way Facebook is going to deliver more relevant ads is by paying more attention to feedback from people who don’t often hide ads so that when they do give feedback Facebook will take it as a stronger signal.
Facebook reminds that anyone has the ability to hide any post they don’t want to see, which includes sponsored posts.
From the menu on the top right of every post you can select ‘I don’t want to see this’. Whenever someone tells us that they don’t want to see certain stories, including ads, we try to show them fewer stories like the one they don’t want to see.
Learning More About Why Users Hide Ads
Now, whenever someone indicates that they don’t want to see a post Facebook will ask why. Through this they say they have learned the reason why someone hides an ad can be just as important as the hide itself.
For example, sometimes people would rather not see an ad because it’s not relevant to them. Other times, people may not want to see an ad because it offends them. By learning why someone hides an ad Facebook can determine if the ad was just not relevant to the individual, or if the ad was not appropriate for Facebook in general.
When testing this update Facebook would stop showing ads that users marked as offensive or inappropriate:
As a result, we saw a significant decrease in the number of ads people reported as offensive or inappropriate. This means we were able to take signals from a small number of people on a small number of particularly bad ads to improve the ads everyone sees on Facebook.
Listening More To Those Who Rarely Voice Complaints
Facebook will weight feedback differently based on how often someone hides ads and other content in their News Feed.
For example, iff someone hides things very rarely, Facebook will consider that when we choose what to show them. If Facebook detects even even a small chance that a user might hide an ad, it won’t be shown to them.
When testing this update, Facebook saw that people who rarely hide ads ended up hiding 30 percent fewer ads with this change.
How Will This Affect You As An Advertiser?
Facebook says most advertisers will see no change to the delivery of their ads or how their ads perform on Facebook. “These updates are designed to affect the ads that a small set of people give us negative feedback on.”
