Facebook is asking users to provide more feedback on its ads, and the best way to make sure your voice is heard is to speak up — rarely.
Want to Get Facebook’s Attention? Speak Up (Rarely)!
Facebook wants (selective) feedback on its ads.
Confused? Here’s how it works: When users hide an ad from their News Feed, Facebook will now ask them why they’ve decided to hide that ad, and feedback from users who rarely provide it will be given the most weight, according to a company blog post. That means that if you rarely hide ads in News Feed, the one or two times you do will have a greater impact on what ads you’re shown in the future.
With the update, Facebook says its looking for more user feedback to provide more relevant ads. For example, hiding an ad because it’s not relevant to you will impact your News Feed, but hiding an ad because it’s offensive or inappropriate may mean Facebook will show that ad less frequently to other users, too. “We’ve learned that the reason why someone hides an ad can be just as important as the hide itself,” wrote Facebook product manager Max Eulenstein in a blog post.
Facebook tinkers with News Feed regularly to show content users actually want to see. User feedback — whether explicit or not — is usually the strongest indicator for what Facebook shows you. For example, users who watch videos on Facebook will see more videos, and users who Like or comment on a post from a specific friend will see more posts and comments from that friend.
Getting this balance to work for ads is important because ads are Facebook’s attempt to guess what you might like. With an influx of auto play video ads on the horizon, Facebook has a strong interest in showing users ads they want to see.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
