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ProBlogger: How Facebook Gets Its Creep On and Knows What Ads To Show You

ProBlogger: How Facebook Gets Its Creep On and Knows What Ads To Show You

Link to ProBlogger

How Facebook Gets Its Creep On and Knows What Ads To Show You

Posted: 12 Jul 2016 07:00 AM PDT

FB Gets Creepy 600pxBy ProBlogger Social Media Expert Angela Ponsford from Dotti Media.

When you're running Facebook Ads, getting the targeting right can make or break your ads. A great ad shown to the wrong audience is the quickest way to throw your advertising dollars down the drain. And Facebook knows that if advertisers aren't getting great results then they're going to stop advertising on the platform.

Then Facebook doesn't make money. Then Facebook is sad. 

But have you ever wondered what information Facebook knows about you? And how they actually get all that information?

Most people think that it's only related to the pages that they like on Facebook. But there's a whole lot more information that is being collected and used for ads targeting. 

What do Facebook Say About Targeting?

In Facebook's help section they state:

We want the ads you see on Facebook to be as interesting and useful to you as possible. To decide which ads to show you, we use:

Information you share on Facebook (ex: Pages you like)

Other information about you from your Facebook account (ex: your age, your gender, your location, the devices you use to access Facebook)

Information advertisers and our marketing partners share with us that they already have, like your email address

Your activity on websites and apps off of Facebook

So almost everything you do online is contributing to building your profile. Facebook then adds you into a demographic group and shows ads to you based on that information.

But wait, there's more.

The actions your friends take also has an impact on what ads you get shown. You've probably seen an ad that says 'Your Friend' likes this page. That's Facebook using your friends info and actions to show ads to you.

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So choose your friends wisely!

But there's even more.

It's not just your online actions that have an impact on the ads you see – things such as how much you earn, buying a house/car, or using a store loyalty card when you do your weekly grocery shop are being tracked by third party partners. And that information is being shared with Facebook so that they can make their advertising platform more useful.

So the factors involved are:

  • Actions that you take on Facebook
  • Actions that your friends take on Facebook
  • Actions that you take online. These actions are tracked using the Facebook Pixel and Cookies
  • Offline activities and demographic info that is shared by third party partners to FB 

And while all that may seem great as an advertiser, as a general Facebook user it's all a bit creepy.

So what can you do about it?

Well, Facebook ads are here to stay. And unless you want to shut down your Facebook account there's no way to opt out of seeing ads. By using Facebook you're giving them permission to track your actions inside Facebook and then use that data to show you ads. (See their privacy policy here).

And if you're going to be running ads yourself then it's kinda good karma that you accept some ads from others. Don't you think?

The good news is that you can check what interests are being used to target you. And then you can edit them to make them more relevant.

When you see an ad in your newsfeed or in the right column, you can click on the symbol near the top-right corner and select ‘Why am I seeing this?' (The symbol is a v on desktop newsfeed, an x on right column ads and 3 dots on mobile)

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You'll then see some information about the targeting the advertiser was using when deciding who to show the ad to.

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So for this ad, if you're not particularly interested in 'Shopping & fashion' and don't want to see ads about that topic, you can click on the smiley or sad face underneath 'Let us know if this topic interests you'. That will then update in your ad preferences, and Facebook will use that information when showing you ads in the future.

You can also click on 'Options' and choose to 'Hide all ads from this advertiser'.

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You can also click on 'Manage Your Ad Preferences' to see a full list of your preferences and make some changes. This will take you here.

Now there's some pretty weird stuff in there. For me, because I'm often doing research on how to target ads for clients, I'll visit a lot of websites and like a lot of FB pages that I might not normally do. Which in turn makes Facebook think that I like those things. For example, under 'Hobbies & Activities' Facebook thinks I'm into Fishing Lures, Fox (?) and Flowering Plants! And under 'Food' it thinks I like Eating & Dinner. Well duh.

You have the option to remove interests that aren't relevant (by clicking on the x to the right of the interest) or add some new ones. For example, if you recently got engaged you might want to add 'Wedding Dresses' as an interest, so that you start to see ads for them in your newsfeed. Or if you've recently become a vegetarian, you might want to add that.

Opting out of other tracking

If you really don't want Facebook to track your every move online and show you relevant ads, then you can opt out from within your Facebook settings. You can also change the things that your Facebook friends see about you.

To do this you need to go here: https://www.facebook.com/settings, then click on 'Ads' in the left column. This will take you here:

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The four different sections can all be edited to your preferences. The steps above have shown you how to edit 'Ads based on my preferences', so let's look at the other three.

1. Ads based on my use of websites and apps 

When you click on 'Edit' you can choose to switch it on or off. If you choose 'Off' then you'll still see ads, but those ads may be less relevant to you.

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2. Ads on apps and websites off of the Facebook Companies

Again, click 'Edit' and you have a Yes or No option. You're not opting out of being tracked; you're just opting out of your Facebook Ad Preferences being shared and used to show you relevant ads when you're using other apps and websites.

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3. Ads with my social actions

This setting is used to show social proof in ads. It's a powerful marketing tool, based on our human emotions of being more trusting of companies that our friends already like. However, if you're like me, you don't actually want your information being used in ads that your friends see. So set that to 'No-one'.

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So none of the above options actually allow you to opt out of being tracked altogether; you're only opting out of the various companies sharing your information with each other. Which essentially means you won't see ads on Facebook based on the shoes you've just been eyeing up on eBay. And you won't see ads in apps or other websites based on your Facebook Ad preferences.

Opting out of all data tracking

If you really want to limit the information that is being collected about you then you need to visit the following sites and opt out from all participating companies:

Remember, you'll still see ads; they just won't be targeted for your particular interests.

Keep calm and sort out your ad preferences

Before you delete your Facebook account, remember that advertising has been around for well over a century. It's just with today's technology there's so many sophisticated ways of collecting your information and using that to show you ads that are highly relevant to you.

Unfortunately you can't just change the channel like you do with television; but you can at least tell Facebook the topics you're interested in and the types of ad you like to see. And I don't know about you, but I'd much rather see an ad for something I like rather than for some rubbish that I'm totally not interested in.

I'd love to know if you found any random interests in your ad preferences, and if you've made any changes to make your ads more targeted to you. Leave a comment below.

Angela Ponsford is one half of Dotti Media and is a self-confessed Facebook Ads nerd. She loves geeking out over clients' Facebook Ad campaigns and figuring out how to get them the best results. Angela also works with clients doing one-on-one Facebook Ads coaching, runs Facebook & Instagram workshops and is the co-creator of 'Get InstaSavvy', an online Instagram course. When she's not on Facebook you can find her on the roller derby track as her alter ego, Slingshot Polkadot. She lives just outside Byron Bay with her husband and twin daughters.

The post How Facebook Gets Its Creep On and Knows What Ads To Show You appeared first on ProBlogger.
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ProBlogger: My Blogging Income Breakdown for the First Half of 2016

ProBlogger: My Blogging Income Breakdown for the First Half of 2016

Link to ProBlogger

My Blogging Income Breakdown for the First Half of 2016

Posted: 11 Jul 2016 07:00 AM PDT

It’s been a few years since I did an income report here on ProBlogger for my business, and so while I was pulling together some reports for the end of our financial year I thought it might be good to give a little insight into where the income on my blogs comes from.

As in previous years I don’t want to get into specifics of exact dollar amounts, and instead will keep this to be a percentage-based report to give a feel for the income streams that have been worthwhile for us.

Note: we’re also currently doing a study into bloggers income levels. You can participate by filling in this confidential survey.

This report is based upon the first six months of 2016. Here’s a snapshot (click to enlarge):

Blog income report

Before I get into each section – let me make a few explanations.

Firstly – this is for my total business and includes the income from both ProBlogger and Digital Photography School (dPS).

To give you some insight on the differences between those businesses – dPS is around 8 times larger than ProBlogger both in terms of traffic and income. I’ve included the logo of each business in the different sections that is relevant (i.e.: we don’t run AdSense on ProBlogger and the event and job boards are purely ProBlogger related).

Secondly – I’ve tried as much as possible to show you the profit of each sector rather than the total revenue that each generates.

I’m not able to get exact on this as the businesses do share some expenses (development, servers etc) but I’ve attempted to take any direct expenses that each income stream attracts.

This is why our ‘Event’ is a relatively small piece of the overall – while it generates a lot of revenue it has a large amount of expenses. Similarly our Product sales revenue is higher than Affiliate Commissions but once we pay for the cost of production of the products the profit is not as high.

I’ll now make a few comments on each category.

Affiliate Commissions

This has risen since the last time I produced a report like this, as we’ve put more effort into affiliate promotions at dPS.

Each year on Digital Photography School we run big promotions with our 12 Days of Christmas Sale and our Mid Year Sale. For both of these promotions we do daily deals where we deeply discount a mix of our own products and affiliate products.

These two sales generate a significant chunk of our annual profits and are the reason why this category has grown so much as the affiliate products have done really well for us in these promotions.

Here on ProBlogger we’ve also been focusing a little more on affiliate revenue over the last 6 months through doing some promotions with SumoMe, LeadPages and promoting a number of teaching resources. We’ve also incorporated into our design a new Blogging Resources page which has converted well and are working on promoting Bluehost with our How to Start a Blog page.

Amazon’s Associate program has not been a major focus of our attention but continues to generate a stable income using some of strategies I outlined in my Guide to Making Money with the Amazon Affiliate Program.

Product Sales

Up until 2009 all of my income was generated from running advertising on my blogs and from a little affiliate marketing on my blog. But in 2009 I decided to invest some time into creating my first products on both ProBlogger and Digital Photography School. The first products were eBooks and this has been a major focus of what I’ve done since (see the Photography eBook range on dPS and the ProBlogger eBooks). You’ll see in the graphic that 70% of this category is eBook sales still today.

However since 2009 we’ve experimented with other types of products over at Digital Photography School. We created some posing printables that did ok when we launched them, then created some photography courses and more recently have created some Lightroom Presets.

Our Lightroom Presets have been particularly popular both at launch and in our sales and we will continue to create more collections of these going forward.

Courses also did well but during this 6 month reporting period we didn’t promote them with a deal so they didn’t sell many.

Further Reading: Why You Should Create a Product to Sell On Your Blog (and Tips on How to Do It)

AdSense

Every time I have done one of these income reports I get people who are surprised that I use Google AdSense. I know not everyone has much luck with it but because dPS has a large amount of traffic we find that it works well for us.

I should say that our income from it has decreased in the last two years. This is partly because we’ve attracted a bit more direct sponsorship (see the next category) and given up some of the ad inventory that AdSense used to serve, but it is also because we’ve seen our RPM decline over the last few years.

It’s not the option that it once was for us but is still a revenue stream that I’m glad to have.

Sponsorships

On dPS we’ve continued to offer sponsorship options to advertisers who want to work directly with us to reach our audience. This has largely been banner ad campaigns but we also run advertising in our newsletters and have run a few other more creative campaigns including running competitions for our readers.

On ProBlogger we’ve not run any banner advertising (or AdSense) for many many years but have done a handful of sponsorship campaigns on the ProBlogger podcast in the last 12 months with companies like Edgar and 99Designs.

The other place we’ve done sponsorships is via our event (although I’ve included that in the Event category below).

Job Board

Here on ProBlogger we’ve had a Job Board for Bloggers since 2006. At first it was just a trickle of ads that were placed (earning $50 per ad) but it’s gradually grown and we’re getting close to celebrating our 6000th ad placed!

Considering the initial investment on the board was minimal and it’s been a largely passive income stream I’m pleased to have started it.

In the coming weeks we’re looking forward to releasing a much needed update to the job board which will give a lot more features to advertisers and applicants. Watch this space.

Further Reading: Check out our How to Make Money Blogging page which has a good overview on how to grow your income from blogging.

Event

This year we’ll host our 7th ProBlogger Event here in Australia (tickets are still on sale if you want to join us).

This event is a massive focus for our team and is largely a labour of love. While it does generate a large amount of revenue from ticket sales and sponsorship the expenses of running an event of this size are huge, and while we make a small profit it really is something I’ve done all these years more because I’m passionate about what happens at the event than anything else.

This year we will offer a virtual ticket so there is some potential to grow this wedge of the pie a little – watch this space.

A Word on Expenses

There you have it – my long overdue income report for the first half of 2016.

The only other thing I’ll add to this is that if I were to talk about expenses (as I know I’ll get asked about) I would say that while our revenue has definitely risen in the last 12 months I would also point out that so too have expenses.

This last 12 months we’ve invested heavily into the development of our sites – particularly here on ProBlogger with the redesign. In addition to our development team I’ve also expanded my team which now includes:

  • 2 editors (one for each site)
  • 2 business unit managers (one for each site)
  • Admin/Customer service team members (one for each site)
  • Marketing (one person – for dPS)

All team members (except for one) are part time.

Then there’s a huge array of others who are contractors who help with product creation, writing, proof reading, podcast editing etc.

Lastly in the expense column are of course things like servers (which are not cheap) and the amazing array of software as a service subscriptions that most bloggers have these days to be able to send emails, create landing pages, run webinars, calendarise editorial and schedule social media, etc (most of which you’ll find on our Recommended Blogging Resources page and all of which we pay for).

To make money you have to spend it!

Summing Up

Wow – that was quite the post to prepare (now I remember why I don’t do it that often). I hope you found it useful!

What’s your #1 Blogging income stream? We’d love to hear what it is in comments below or if you have a moment would love you to participate in this study we’re doing on bloggers income.

Participate in Our Study Into Bloggers Income

We are currently doing some research into the income streams that are most profitable for bloggers and would love you to participate by filling in the following survey (whether you’re a full time blogger or just making your first few dollars blogging).

We will keep all information that you submit confidential and will only publish the overall anonymous results unless we contact you to see if you’d be interested in participating in a case study post here on ProBlogger (which we’d only do with your permission).

Please take our Blogging Income Questionnaire

The post My Blogging Income Breakdown for the First Half of 2016 appeared first on ProBlogger.
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