Facebook uses big data to start making profits in the mobile advertising arena

Facebook, long being criticised for not turning its “user base” into profits, eventually turned this around, moving into increased general profits-and even making profits in the mobile advertising arena. One of the ways they did this was by utilising big data.

This is according to Johann Evans, chief financial officer of unified data management specialist, Cherry Olive.

“Facebook – after lingering for some time- eventually entered the mobile advertising arena with something of a bang,” said Evans. The company reported in October that it now derives 49% of its $1.8 billion in advertising revenue from its mobile platform, up from zero mobile ad revenue just 18 months ago.

“A lot of people asked just how Facebook did this, after being lambasted by the investor sector for being unable to make money in the mobile advertising industry,” said Evans. Facebook analytics chief Ken Rudin told the press that the company’s use of Big Data was crucial to creating its mobile business.

Before placing ads directly into mobile user new feeds, the company ran data analysis to gauge both user reaction as well as the optimal ratio of ads to user-generated content. “Data analysis had a huge impact on the development of mobile advertising,” he said. “I am not sure we would have had the nerve to throw ads into the news feed without it.”

Facebook’s massive data analytics warehouse–300 petabytes and counting–provided the foundation for the research. And it shows that investments in Big Data can, and does, payoff.
Three years ago unified communications – which enables company’s to effectively drill down into big data – was touted as having the potential to be the next thing since sliced bread.Today, it certainly seems to be living up to its promise – offering users a plethora of streamlined communications and accelerated business processes.

Commenting further, Evans, said that unified communications used to be known as the means to offer little more than instant messaging for workers, or point and click dialing for contact centres. But it has morphed way beyond this, and, today, offers companies what some believe is the holy grail of productivity benefits, streamlined communications and accelerated business processes.

“The evolution of unified communications has been pretty staggering and, today, thanks to this technology – advanced conferencing capabilities, presence technology and highly sophisticated internal networking technologies –are becoming part and parcel of day-to-day business life. The latest reports show that over 85% of Fortune 500 companies have deployed some version of unified communications.

It is all about managing data –including big data

“At the end of the day it is all about data management,” said Evans. “something which we focus extensively on. By managing data properly the net outcome is the insight or intelligence gained from all the ‘noise’ out there. Everything in our modern world creates data, and we can change the world we live in if we listen and learn from this data”.