Saw my item in an Etsy ad on FB!

[PrairiePrimitives]

I was on FB this afternoon and happened to notice that one of the ads on the right side of the screen was an Etsy ad ... and the image was of one of my items!

Have you ever seen one of your items in an Etsy ad?

[KatGurumi]

Unfortunately, those are specific to each user, and they use the items you have recently browsed on etsy.

[SnarkFactory]

Yeah, I've seen that many, many times. I think that those ads are generated based on the previous history on your browser. For example, a few times already I was shopping on kohls.com and I lingered on a listing but didn't buy it. Then, later on while browsing other sites, i'll see an ad advertising kohls and the specific item I was looking at.

[ashleynchl]

I saw one of my photos in an ad on Facebook last week. These things are based off of your browser history.

[FfigysDesigns]

If you look closely, you will see that these are actually attempts by Facebook to get you to take out an ad for your business. They are trying to tempt you by showing how your items would look in one of their ads. Unless you do actually want to spend money on buying an ad to promote your business, you are best to just ignore it.

[PrairiePrimitives]

This ad had the Etsy URL. I was too excited about doing a screen capture, that I forgot to click on the ad to see if it went to Etsy's front page or my shop.

SOME online ads are based on your browsing history. But not ALL Facebook ads are or they wouldn't be showing me ads for things I have noooo interest in.

[Former_Member]

Many websites are starting to do this sort of marketing now.

Its partially based on what's in your cookies. So if you want to reduce the amount of 'targeted' advertizing, clear your cookies every so often.

I clear mine at least 2x each day, more if I'm doing a lot of surfing.

[WindDancerStudios]

Click and you go straight to my shop so, it's definitely an Etsy ad and not a you could be here FB ad. I've managed to catch a couple screen shots. I generally ignore ads so it usually catches me off guard to see my items over there lol I realized it was a cookie thing pretty quickly when the items from my last treasury were rotating through. I still think it would be fun to create a collage of my items as seen in the ads though.

[Former_Member]

That hasn't happened to me but I can see how facebook can use your images and stick them on an ad...just so you click on it and they gain money.