Page 277 - The Digital Financial Services (DFS) Ecosystem

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Ecosystem

• Third-party sites: Data collection is not limited to user behaviour within a social network. For example,
sites send tracking data to Facebook if they use one of their many services: Facebook Login, Facebook
Pixel (for conversion tracking), Facebook Audience Network (ads Facebook delivers to other sites), and
Facebook social plug-ins (Follow, Save, Like, Share, Send, Quote, Embed, Comment). Essentially, Facebook
knows what other sites and/or pages a user visits even if they’re not on the Facebook site.
• Non-web sources: Social networks can enrich user profiles with ‘offline’ data provided by data brokers
such as Acxiom. This data includes retail purchasing data, home ownership, voting registration, and other
data provided by retailers and government organizations. In some cases, social networks use this data to
infer additional characteristics about their users (e.g., people in a certain zip code tend to be wealthy).
In other cases, social networks can develop consumer-specific insights by matching/cross-referencing
name, physical address, e-mail address, phone number, or some other data element. Note that these
types of data are not currently available for all consumers and geographies.

Social networks can also help merchants "remarket" to more deeply engage with existing customers, for
example, drive a consumer back to a merchant’s website to complete a prior shopping session, or cross sell
new products and services based on prior behaviour, behaviour of their social network friends, or behaviour of
those with similar profiles. Using Facebook as an example, to use this feature, an advertiser uploads a customer
list to Facebook (based on email lists, phone numbers, or simply tracking cookies/IDs). Facebook will then
link those identifiers to specific Facebook users and serve them the appropriate ads. Advertisers can further
refine their targets using data only Facebook possesses (age, interests, relationship status, etc.) – Facebook
often knows more about a merchant’s customers than the merchant. These customer lists can also be used
for lookalike marketing in which Facebook targets new customers similar to existing customers, again based
on traits only Facebook knows.

What’s particularly impressive is the ability of advertisers to close the loop between marketing and outcomes.
Through browser cookies and other technologies, advertisers can determine which viewers saw ads and
returned to the merchant’s website, installed an application, or took some other action. This approach also
works for physical merchants. For example, a retailer may deliver an ad to a specific user and later identify the
associated transaction on that customer’s loyalty card.

I.2 Reaching users 24/7

Social networks can obviously reach users while on the social network site, but the reach also extends to
other venues.

• Social network sites: Social network sites are very popular. For example, Facebook users spend 50
minutes per day on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger platforms (excluding the globally popular
WhatsApp). Facebook’s capabilities for gaining insights about and targeting users are at their peak while
13
its users are on Facebook properties.
• Other websites: Facebook can reach its users and non-users while on third-party websites through the
Facebook Audience Network. This ad network allows third-party websites to earn revenue by displaying
ads Facebook sells to advertisers. Visitors with Facebook accounts are targeted with great precision
because of Facebook profile data. But, Facebook can even target non-Facebook users with some level of
precision since Facebook profiles non-users based on visits to sites using Facebook services (Like buttons,
etc.).
14
• Physical merchants: Because social networks interact with many businesses and mobile phones are
ubiquitous, social networks can facilitate services between consumers and physical merchants. Essentially,
social networks are becoming "virtual plumbing."

13 Stewart, James B. Facebook Has 50 Minutes of Your Time Each Day. It Wants More. New York Times. May 5, 2016. http:// www.
nytimes. com/ 2016/ 05/ 06/ business/ facebook- bends- the- rules- of- audience- engagement- to- its- advantage. html?_ r= 0 (accessed
August 16, 2016).
14 Marshall, Jack. Facebook Wants to Help Sell Every Ad on the Web. The social network will show ads to non-Facebook users on
other websites. Wall Street Journal. May 27, 2016. http:// www. wsj. com/ articles/ facebook- wants- to- help- sell- every- ad- on- the-
web- 1464321603 (accessed August 23, 2016).

249