Facebook is making a big leap into the world of accountable advertising and analysis today with the acquisition of Atlas Solutions, a Microsoft ad-serving platform that provides better insight into purchase paths and conversion data. The acquisition is expected to be announced later today.

Ad Age broke the story about the imminent acquisition yesterday:

While the ad-tech world still debates the main reason for the deal – is it about Facebook proving that advertiser conversions can be attributed to its ads or about Atlas’ ad-serving tech helping to build a Facebook ad network around the web? (answer: probably a bit of both) – Microsoft already indirectly made its pitch to Facebook publicly…in a blog post seven months ago.

Among its advertising serving solutions, Atlas also offers clients engagement mapping services that move beyond last-click attribution models to offer clients step-by-step insight into the conversion process. In a case study published by Atlas that analyzes an Alltel media campaign, this technology accounted for 60 percent of search sales being reattributed to display advertising after examining the engagement funnel. The four display advertising partners analyzed effectively garnered an increase of 33 percent in their collective conversion rates.

In a Microsoft blog post, Sanjay Vasdev explains how the Atlas Solutions technology can impact Facebook advertisers:

The Atlas Campaign Builder tool gives a definitive answer into how many cookies are showing overlap between the Facebook campaign and other Atlas-tracked media buys (i.e. is the same advertiser’s message reaching the same user across multiple networks?). Concerns may be amplified if the level of duplication between Facebook and (traditional) display is so large that it renders both channel investments sub-optimal. Or that average frequency on Facebook tips over the point of diminishing returns, where the cookied user starts to become oversaturated with the advertiser’s message.

About Jeff Berg

Jeff serves as the Social Media Strategist with CUnet. With more than seven years of experience, Jeff uses his social media expertise to help schools create cohesive, school-wide social media policies, manage their online reputation and, above all, foster meaningful, personal dialogues with current and future students. In his spare time, you can probably find him tinkering around in his den, building odd electronics projects that incorporate social media data with home decor.

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Tags: analytics, atlas solutions, conversion funnel, Facebook, online advertising, purchase funnel, Social Media

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2013 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Marketing Analysis, Media Buying, Paid Search Advertising, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.