This is how Facebook learns what you buy at brick-and-mortar stores in order to show you relevant ads — and how you can opt out
If you recently bought something at a physical, brick and mortar store, you might have noticed an increase in the number of Facebook ads you see related to that store or the item you purchased.
The phenomenon is not a coincidence.
Through its partnerships with retailers, Facebook learns about what users are buying, both online and in brick-and-mortar stores. That data is ultimately used to target ads to people, based on what they’re likely to spend money on.
Any business can send Facebook information about customers, including hashed identifying information like an email, name, or phone number, and a record of what they bought. Facebook uses that information to match the purchases to user’s profiles, allowing the business to advertise to those people directly on Facebook’s apps.
The advertising service is already being used by a range of Facebook’s advertising clients, including Macy’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Facebook rolled out an “off-Facebook activity” tool in August that allows users to view how the social network gauges their activity off the site.
Ad money comprises the lion’s share of Facebook’s revenue — of the $17.6 billion the company made in the third quarter of 2019, $17.3 billion came from ads. Part of what makes Facebook appealing to advertisers is the fine-tuned demographic information on users it offers, borne out through its tools that allow for hyper-targeted ads.
How it works:
The process begins when you buy something, either online or in a store. The retailer may retain information about you from the purchase.
If that retailer wants to target those customers with Facebook ads, it can send Facebook details of what was purchased, along with information that could match that purchase to a Facebook profile.
Personally-identifying information sent by the business could include your name, email, phone, or date of birth. Facebook only needs a few data points from retailers in order to create a “custom audience,” or a group of users it determines have shopped at that retailer.
All identifying information is hashed before it’s sent from retailers to Facebook and subsequently deleted after being used to match a user to a purchase.
“With store visits custom audiences, we re-engaged customers who had visited one of our stores with a targeted Facebook ad,” a Dick’s Sporting Goods spokesperson said in a statement. “And, using lookalike audiences, created from people similar to those who visited our store, opened up a broader audience of new customers for us to reach, driving incremental foot traffic and sales.”
A Macy’s spokesperson said the retailer has used Facebook ads to drive more in-store sales. “We are encouraged by the positive results we saw in-store and are excited to continue testing Facebook’s offline suite to fuel our growth,” the spokesperson said.
Check YOUR shared information
I checked my Facebook settings on Advertisers and Businesses using my information and I was quite surprised. Most alarming of all was “Advertisers who uploaded a list with MY info to Facebook. There were 256 different companies/advertisers who, in the past 7 days, have run an ad using a list(s) uploaded to Facebook.
How To Opt Out
Users can opt-out of being served ads based on offline events by logging into Facebook on their PC:
Go to settings | selecting “Ads” | and disallowing “ads based on data from partners.”
It slightly more convoluted on an iPhone:
Click on the 3 parallel lines on the lower right | Settings and Privacy | Settings | Ad Preferences | Advertisers and Businesses. From here you can click on the 3 … and hide ads from each of them – 1 at a time.
