WSJ: Facebook To Unveil New Advertising Platform

(RTTNews) - Social networking giant Facebook Inc. (FB) will next week introduce a new advertising platform that is designed to help marketers target Facebook users more effectively, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar with the company's plans.

According to the WSJ report, the move is also aimed at helping Facebook to challenge Google Inc.'s (GOOG, GOOGL) dominance of the online advertising space.

The new product, called Atlas, is said to be a reworked version of the Atlas Advertiser Suite business that was purchased by Facebook from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in 2013. Facebook will reportedly reveal the Atlas platform at next week's Advertising Week Conference in New York.

The WSJ reported that the product will help marketers to understand which Facebook users have seen, interacted with or acted upon ads that appear on Facebook's services as well as on third-party websites and apps.

The product will provide an automated advertisement-buying tool known as a "demand-side platform" or "bidder", that will offer marketers the ability to buy ads that target Facebook users.

With Atlas, Facebook will link users' ad interactions to their Facebook accounts, which can be used to track users across both desktop and mobile devices on an anonymous basis, according to the WSJ report.

In July, Facebook reported a profit for the second quarter that more than doubled from last year, as revenue surged 61 percent amid strong growth in mobile advertising. The company's advertising revenue for the quarter surged 67 percent year-over-year to $2.68 billion and constituted more than 92 percent of total revenue.

Facebook's mobile ad revenue represented about 62 percent of advertising revenue for the second quarter, up from about 53 percent in the prior quarter and 41 percent in the prior-year quarter.

In early July, Facebook acquired video ad tech startup LiveRail in a bid to boost its revenue from video advertisements. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, though media reports at that time indicated the deal value to be between $400 million and $500 million.

FB closed Monday's regular trading session at $76.80, down $1.11 or 1.42 percent on a volume of 31.96 million shares. In after-hours, the stock further declined $0.15 or 0.20 percent to $76.65.