Facebook plans to cut into Google's advertising business

By Lisa Eadicicco

Google may be dominating the online advertising business, but Facebook could be readying a new ad strategy to take some of that spotlight off the search engine giant, reports Tom Dotan and Amir Efrati at The Information.

Facebook is reportedly pouring more resources into Atlas, the ad server Facebook bought from Microsoft for an estimated $30-$50 million in 2013.

The social network is said to unveil a new set of features that aimed at competing with Google's display advertising platform DoubleClick as early as September.

One of these new features will be a "demand-side platform," which is a system that lets advertisers make automated bids for ad inventory. This demand-side platform would be designed to specifically compete with Google's DoubleClick Bid Manager.

Facebook is also reportedly in talks to provide Nielsen with data from major publishers to improve ad tracking.

Facebook is already raking in a ton of revenue thanks to its mobile presence. Facebook saw a 50.5% increase in US digital ad display revenue last year, while Google saw a 33.3% growth rate, according to statistics published by eMarketer in March.

Facebook isn't the only tech company looking to cut into Google's ad business. Amazon is also reportedly building new software to compete with Google's AdWords platform, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.