In A Huge U-Turn, Facebook Is Letting Google Get A Glimpse Of Its Ad Business

In news that many within the ad industry never thought they'd hear, Google has announced that it has come to an agreement with Facebook that will allow the search giant to participate in Facebook Exchange (FBX), Facebook's real-time bidding advertising platform.

This means that marketers who use Google's DoubleClick Bid Manager to automatically allocate their advertising dollars across the internet can now start seeing some of those advertising dollars materialize on Facebook.

Until now, Google had been conspicuous by its absence from FBX since the bidding platform debuted in 2012. It was widely speculated that Facebook did not add DoubleClick Bid Manager to the list of "demand-side platforms" (ad buyers, basically) that can bid on its ad space because doing so would allow Google to get an inside look at how much inventory Facebook had, how effective it was at driving sales, and how much money it cost to purchase.

Now, anytime a DoubleClick Bid Manager customer wins a bid on a Facebook ad slot, Google will know how much money it cost. Additionally, if a user clicks on a Google search link to a pair of shoes and then goes to Facebook, Google will know how much that cookie is worth on the Facebook exchange. Google will also get a better idea of how much money its clients are spending on FBX.

For Facebook, opening its exchange to the huge DoubleClick Bid Manager could increase prices, due to having more marketers bidding on its ads. Since DoubleClick customers are aided by Google's industry-leading repository of web search data, their algorithms could be willing to pay more money for certain Facebook ad slots if they know enough about the user being shown the ad to determine he or she are likely to purchase the product being advertised.

"We are happy that Google is joining Facebook Exchange," a Facebook spokesperson said. "We think that relevant ads, targeted to the right people, are good for people and businesses."