New Rules For Facebook Custom Audiences; Snap Opens Up

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

How The Sausage Gets Made

Facebook announced new requirements for businesses building Custom Audiences. Facebook wants to make it clearer to users how their names got on lists that are commonly used for ad targeting. Starting July 2, businesses using the tool will have to identify the origin of their audience information, specifying whether it came from their own lists, a third party or a combination. Marketers that want to share Custom Audiences with their agencies will have to do so through Facebook’s Business Manager. Facebook also warned marketers that they may see “more regular, detailed reminders of their obligation to help protect people’s privacy before they run their ads.” Read the blog post.

APIs That Bind

Snapchat will open its content to third-party tech and developers to better integrate features across the web. Pandora is using the tool, called Snap Kit, to let Snapchatters send animated links to download a song via Snapchat video ads. Snap is looking to juice its user growth and revenue per user, which have lagged behind analyst expectations since the company went public. But it’ll have to be careful not to repeat the foibles of Facebook, which is still catching heat for lax data-sharing policies. Snap claims it’s only exposing a fraction of the information Facebook shared with developers prior to 2014 and that Snap Kit is designed with privacy in mind. But, as The Wall Street Journal points out, Snap’s privacy track record isn’t flawless. In 2014, developers built apps that tricked Snap’s servers into sharing information and saving pictures. More.

Why This Ad?

Google has revamped its ad settings to make it easier for people to understand why they’re seeing certain ads. Read the blog post. Users can’t disable ad targeting completely but can limit what’s used to target them to very generic categories. Google is also updating its “Why this ad?” tool, which informs users users about the targeting decisions that led them to see an ad. It will be available across YouTube, Google Play, Gmail, Maps, Search and any site or app that partners with Google to show ads. “With these improvements, you can browse the web confidently knowing that you have the information and control to make Google work better for you,” wrote Google product manager Philippe de Lurand Pierre-Paul. VentureBeat has more.

VASTly Superior

The VAST ad-serving standard, which originated in 2008, has for the most part been disappointing, largely because it couldn’t handle viewability or measure performance. But VAST 4.0, released two years ago, started to fix that by implementing some of the capabilities that VAST had traditionally lacked. VAST 4.1, which the IAB Tech Lab released for public comment, seeks to improve even more. Read the proposed specification here. Modifications focus on using macros to standardize ad requests to provide better context, taking steps to move on from VPAID and improving measurement. The public comment period runs through July 14. Read more.

But Wait, There’s More!