Amongst the flurry of new developments from Facebook after its IPO a few months ago, the announcement of the RTB (real-time bidding) exchange is worth taking note of. As media buyers are becoming accustomed to working with demand-side platforms (DSPs) and real-time bidding platforms, Facebook’s ad exchange (FBX) is a natural and exciting next step.

This allows advertisers to target users based on their web browsing history outside of Facebook. For example, a consumer that finds their way to step three out of four of a hotel booking engine but then drops off, could later be targeted on Facebook to encourage them to complete the booking process. The first phase of FBX will be a closed ecosystem for now. This means that advertisers can use third-party data available to target Facebook users, but Facebook has not yet announced plans to make their data available for purchase through DSPs.

The promise of being able to optimize toward CPA goals with FBX will allow advertisers to analyze the performance of their Facebook ads on an apples-to-apples basis with other display advertising and will encourage businesses to view social media ads as serious revenue drivers.

With 900 million consumers on Facebook and 25% of all online impressions, this is news is big for our industry, and we’re excited to see how it progresses.