Advertisers will soon be able to purchase retargeting ads on Facebook, as the social giant reveals that it will introduce Facebook Exchange in the next few weeks.

Retargeting lets a company advertise to someone who came to their website by setting a cookie in the browser that can identify the visitor on other sites.

The process works best if a website targets a specific category on the site or possibly even an action, such as an incomplete purchase, rather than broadly targeting all visitors to the website. So if someone goes online and looks at a company’s promotional baseball caps, that company could then show targeted baseball cap ads on other sites to people who have that particular cookie set.

While Facebook already allows advertisers to target ads using precise interests, with the introduction of Facebook Exchange it joins Google and others in offering retargeting (or “remarketing” as Google refers to it).

“Realtime bidding is an obvious thing for Facebook. We love it. LinkedIn has the LinkedIn Network. Google has the Display Network, etc… ,” says Marty Weintraub, CEO of aimClear®, an online marketing agency that has managed Facebook ad campaigns generating over 10 billion impressions.

Weintraub, who has literally “written the book” on Facebook as the author of Killer Facebook Ads, is excited about the opportunities Facebook Exchange will bring.

“Dependent on the quality of FB's advertising network partners, we expect this platform to amplify FB paid advertising in wonderful ways,” says Weintraub. “Giddy freakin' up DUDE! Can't wait.”

Facebook does not plan to combine retargeting and precise targeting ads, but has said it will continue to offer the precise targeting ads when it introduces retargeting. To learn more about precise targeting ads on Facebook be sure to watch Weintraub's Facebook Ads video.

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