SAN FRANCISCO — Debra Aho Williamson, an advertising industry analyst and devoted coffee drinker, was intrigued by a promotion that popped up on her Facebook (FB) page recently. Sign up for a Starbucks (SBUX) loyalty card, it said, and get $5 off. “When I saw that, I thought, I’m already a member of their loyalty club,” she said. “Why don’t they know that?” Despite the streams of data Facebook has collected about people like Ms. Williamson, the social network needs to know its users much better if it is going to become, as the company hopes, the Web’s most effective advertising platform. And Facebook is scrambling to do just that. In shaping its targeted advertising strategy, it is no longer...
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