It’s sad news that the Facebook Exchange (FBX), the company’s desktop retargeting solution, will sunset soon. The reason to the exchange’s declining influence is due to Facebook’s decision not to expand FBX access to mobile inventory. Instead, the newer Custom Audiences and Dynamic Ads capabilities have far overshadowed FBX.
“Dynamic Ads and Custom Audiences have mobile at their core and are delivering excellent results for businesses, so Facebook Exchange spending has shifted towards those solutions,” said Matt Idema, VP monetization product marketing, Facebook in a statement.
When FBX first launched in 2012, they began their run with 16 partners. When you sat with the Facebook Exchange, you had some definite benefits, as you had access to retargeting on Facebook. But, the adtech partners that made FBX a centerpiece of their business had to adjust expectations as budgets ended up moving away from the desktop inventory of FBX. Facebook ended up cuting over 15 partners from FBX. This means that the list went from 25 to 12.
“FBX has been a very successful platform for us, and over the past year, as we have seen consumers increasingly move to purchase and browse on mobile devices, Dynamic Ads have increased to become a more significant part of our mix” over the past year, said Eric Eichmann, CEO of Criteo in a statement — adding that 5,000 of Criteo’s customers are already using Dynamic Ads.
With Dynamc Ads, marketers have the ability to retarget site or app visitors with specific or multiple products that are relevant to their browsing behavior. With Custom Audiences, advertisers can upload their own data to target users on Facebook. With these two products, users can be targeted across devices and are available to marketers directly through Facebook’s ad interface or Facebook’s APIs.
AdExchanger reported FBX is going to shutdown on November 1, 2016.