Watch out, Google. Facebook wants a slice of the digital advertising pie. This Monday, Facebook launched Atlas, an advertising system that was originally bought from Microsoft. Atlas allows advertisers to place better targeted Facebook ads to consumers, outside of Facebook.

Atlas’ competitive advantage over AdSense is its knowledge of user identities. A long-standing issue for online marketers is that they don’t know who has seen their ads. Cookie tracking hasn’t been the most accurate. Facebook states that Atlas can solve this by linking people’s Facebook accounts to these ad interactions (e.g. a click).

Image Source: Mashable

I think this is great news for marketers as they now have an actual consumer profile to match to when they see people interacting with their ads. One of the most critical components for marketers is to be able to understand who their consumers are to tailor the best content. Atlas would help significantly in accomplishing this. One downside is Atlas will not be gaining a lot fans from Facebook’s already privacy-conscious user base. Past backlash has even culminated into the creation of Ello, the currently invite-only anti-Facebook, that works just like Facebook, but with a promise to never sell user information.

The fact that Facebook users are concerned about privacy should be something marketers should consider if they choose to employ Atlas. Said users may be prompted to give fake information on their profiles as a result. This could skew online ad measurements, taking marketers back to square one with AdSense and cookies tracking. That being said though, there is no doubt Atlas will shift the current digital advertising landscape.