Atlas’s foray into advertising has left the entire industry shrugging.
Last Friday, Facebook announced that it would gradually cease the Ad server services of the Atlas platform over the coming months, while continuing to operate the Atlas measurement tool.
Facebook’s advertising technology structure has begun to diverge significantly from what it was when it acquired Atlas. Initially, when purchased from Microsoft, Atlas was seen as a front to challenge Google DoubleClick, as Facebook attempted to lure advertisers away from other ad servers and acquired the video SSP LiveRail to enhance its video ad serving capabilities.
However, developments did not unfold as Facebook had hoped, and Google’s position remained unshaken. It is difficult to fully estimate the size of the ad server market, but in certain segments, one only needs to focus on DoubleClick. For instance, in the video server market, DoubleClick holds an 80%-90% share. Breaking into such a market would undoubtedly be a tough battle for Facebook, especially considering that Atlas has always been in beta.
In March of this year, Facebook halted its planned DSP development, shut down LiveRail in April, and closed the desktop retargeting tool FBX in November. Within a year, several components of Facebook’s technological pyramid have been removed, yet its media attributes have become increasingly robust.
After all is said and done, the only thing left is the Facebook Audience Network, which, supported by Facebook’s advertising network and walled garden, generated over $1 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter. The only remnant of Atlas is the campaign evaluation tool.
Facebook’s advertising strategy has become increasingly straightforward: buy ads through FAN, everything else is secondary.
The troubled Atlas
When Facebook first acquired Atlas, it was merely a bare-bones ad server focused on analysis and desktop advertising, without support for mobile, video, or rich media. During the reconstruction of Atlas, Facebook focused on integrating Facebook ID rather than cross-platform capabilities and expanding ad formats.
When Facebook relaunched Atlas with great fanfare in 2014, it claimed to serve ads across desktop, mobile, and video, but this was not the reality.
Especially in mobile app ad serving, the solution was still in development at that time. It wasn’t until a year after the launch that a complete mobile app solution was officially released.
In terms of video, Atlas also could not fully serve video ads; Facebook developed video ad serving capabilities for Atlas but did not release them. Many clients had to turn to other ad servers for rich media and dynamic creative optimization.
This led to significant limitations for advertisers using Atlas, increasing additional technical costs and operational difficulties, with the greater issue being campaign evaluation.
The recently discontinued Atlas ad server and evaluation tool were originally a bundled product, but only a portion directly served Facebook’s ad sales. Advertisers used the ad server to determine which ads to place where, but Facebook did not directly participate in this step. Subsequently, advertisers used the evaluation tool to see how ads performed across different channels, including impressions bought from Facebook, to allocate budgets and decide where to spend more in the future.
It can be said that after the ups and downs of Atlas, Facebook has realized that ad evaluation is actually the foundation of all ad serving. This has made Atlas increasingly resemble a measurement tool rather than an ad server. Interestingly, this has led to a significant increase in Atlas’s client base.
In fact, when used, most clients viewed Atlas as a measurement pixel, which is typically classified as a fourth-party tag, commonly used by agencies and advertising companies to embed code and collect data, and thus has been blocked by many websites, such as Disney and AOL.
However, because Atlas was classified as an ad server, it was able to bypass many walls. The only site that cannot use Atlas is YouTube, and on Amazon, it must comply with relevant data restrictions.
According to a Facebook spokesperson, the Atlas evaluation tool has accumulated over 300 clients in the past 18 months. However, it has not disclosed how many are using the ad server.
What is Atlas’s value?
Atlas project head Erik Johnson believes that splitting Atlas and focusing on ad evaluation makes sense. His title has now changed from head of Atlas to Facebook’s client evaluation director.
In earlier observations, all ad servers faced a similar issue: many former clients began building their own channels and data to create ad servers. “We have seen the market’s demand for ad evaluation, and at the same time, more and more inventory is being ad served by first parties, especially on mobile. The trend of reducing third-party ad serving is evident and faster than we anticipated.”
“Advertisers need a compelling reason to switch from what they are currently using, but for evaluation, they do not need to change ad servers to enjoy all the value that evaluation brings.” Therefore, the choice to continue investing resources in a gradually shrinking market or to embark on a more attractive project is clear.
However, this is just one perspective; in reality, as a platform that started on PC, Atlas is not considered an “expert” in mobile and video. Even though Facebook has cut its ad serving capabilities, it is still working on cross-screen solutions.
“Without providing cross-screen technology, we cannot help marketers understand how their media performs and make long-term decisions. Therefore, you need data to assist clients; Atlas has not completely removed this aspect. Our positioning is now clearer, allowing measurement to guide everything we do. To achieve this, we need to eliminate the noise.” Erik stated.
Clearly, in Facebook’s view, the ad server has never been the focus of its attention. This was not even the most important reason for Facebook to buy Atlas back from Microsoft in 2013.
Brian Boland, Facebook’s then-product marketing director and now VP of advertising technology, stated regarding that acquisition, “We bought Atlas because we believed that evaluation tools are very important.“
When relaunched in 2014, Atlas’s slogan was “Audience Targeting Marketing,” emphasizing that being people-centric would be the core of future marketing. They believed that the foundation of being people-centric is that advertisers can clearly understand which ads can efficiently generate returns.
In earlier interviews, Boland repeatedly emphasized “Our approach has never been about the ad server; our goal is to maximize the resolution of evaluation issues and add more value. Once we understand where the value comes from, we can then focus on ad serving.”
However, the recent numerous evaluation errors reported by Facebook have undoubtedly cast a shadow over this statement.
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