Facebook Inc. (NYSE: FB) has had to go a long way to prove that marketing to social media users can match the targeting that search advertising, particularly by Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), can provide. Facebook is not there yet, based on the relative revenue of the two companies. The social network has, however, excited Wall Street with its success on mobile platforms, which are considered the near-term future of major advertiser efforts. Facebook released one more product in the hope of picking up market share. It is the latest incarnation of Atlas, which Facebook claims will make it an attractive home for marketer budgets.

Atlas is hard to define, even for Facebook management. Erik Johnson, the head of Atlas described the service this way:

People spend more time on more devices than ever before. This shift in consumer behavior has had a profound impact on a consumer’s path to purchase, both online and in stores. And today’s technology for ad serving and measurement — cookies — are flawed when used alone. Cookies don’t work on mobile, are becoming less accurate in demographic targeting and can’t easily or accurately measure the customer purchase funnel across browsers and devices or into the offline world.

People-based marketing solves these problems.

READ ALSO: Facebook Climbs in Ranking of Top 50 Web Properties

Put another way, a model for online advertising that has worked for years has become obsolete. Johnson added:

Atlas delivers people-based marketing, helping marketers reach real people across devices, platforms and publishers. By doing this, marketers can easily solve the cross-device problem through targeting, serving and measuring across devices. And, Atlas can now connect online campaigns to actual offline sales, ultimately proving the real impact that digital campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales.

Atlas has been rebuilt on an entirely new code base, with a user interface designed for today’s busy media planners and traffickers. Targeting and measurement capabilities are built-in, and cross-device marketing is easy with new ways of evaluating media performance centered on people for reporting and measurement. This valuable data can lead to better optimization decisions to make your media budget even more effective.

Without attempting to make its description of Atlas easier to understand, Facebook provided evidence of its prowess by introducing a set of customers that have already decided to use the tool. Most are companies the general public does not recognize, although PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP) and Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) are “testing” Atlas. Maybe Facebook will report back on how they have done.

Atlas is one more example of how difficult it is for online media to differentiate marketing tools and thus differentiate themselves as media. So far, the process has not worked for any of these media, at least when measured against search. The numbers bear that out.

ALSO READ: 10 Best Technology Companies to Work For

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.