How advertising works
Personalized ads
See how we use your information to serve relevant ads to you.
Ads + social context
Learn how we make ads more relevant and interesting by pairing them with social news.
Sponsored stories
Learn how sponsored stories work.
Featured content
See how we give you a better experience by telling you about some of the features your friends use on Facebook.
Personalized ads
We do not share any of your information with advertisers (unless, of course, you give us permission).
When an advertiser creates an ad on Facebook, they are given the opportunity to choose their audience by location, demographics, likes, keywords, and any other information we receive or can tell about you and other users. For example, an advertiser can choose to target 18 to 35 year-old women who live in the United States and like basketball.
When an advertiser creates an ad on Facebook, they are given the opportunity to choose their audience by location, demographics, likes, keywords, and any other information we receive or can tell about you and other users. For example, an advertiser can choose to target 18 to 35 year-old women who live in the United States and like basketball.
Try this tool yourself to see one of the ways advertisers target ads and what information they see.
If the advertiser chooses to run the ad (also known as placing the order), we serve the ad to people who meet the criteria the advertiser selected, but we do not tell the advertiser who any of those people are. So, for example, if a person clicks on the ad, the advertiser might infer that the person is an 18-to-35-year-old woman who lives in the US and likes basketball. But we would not tell the advertiser who that person is.
After the ad runs, we provide advertisers with reports on how their ads performed. For example we give advertisers reports telling them how many users saw or clicked on their ads.
After the ad runs, we provide advertisers with reports on how their ads performed. For example we give advertisers reports telling them how many users saw or clicked on their ads.
But these reports are anonymous. We do not tell advertisers who saw or clicked on their ads.
Advertisers sometimes place cookies on your computer in order to make their ads more effective. Learn more.
Sometimes we allow advertisers to target a category of user, like a "moviegoer" or a "sci-fi fan." We do this by bundling characteristics that we believe are related to the category. For example, if a person "likes" the "Star Trek" Page and mentions "Star Wars" when they check into a movie theater, we may conclude that this person is likely to be a sci-fi fan.
Sponsored stories
Many of the things you do on Facebook (like "liking" a Page) are posted to your Wall and shared in News Feed. But there's a lot to read in News Feed. That's why we allow people to "sponsor" your stories to make sure your friends see them. For example, if you RSVP to an event hosted by a local restaurant, that restaurant may want to make sure your friends see it so they can come too. If they do sponsor a story, that story will appear in the same place ads usually do under the heading "Sponsored Stories" or something similar. Only people that could originally see the story can see the sponsored story, and no personal information about you (or your friends) is shared with the sponsor.
Featured content
We like to tell you about some of the features your friends use on Facebook to help you have a better experience. For example, if your friend uses our friend finder tool to find more friends on Facebook, we may tell you about it to encourage you to use it as well. This of course means your friend may similarly see suggestions based on the things you do. But we will try to only show it to friends that could benefit from your experience.
Ads + social context
When you show up in one of these news stories, we will only pair it with ads shown to your friends. If you do not want to appear in stories paired with Facebook Ads, you can opt out using your Edit social ads setting.