• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, June 23, 2015

Most advertisers still aren’t exploiting Facebook data to its full potential, and the social media behemoth wants to change that with intensive training courses, according to a report in Bloomberg, citing remarks by Facebook vice president for global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson. The company is also bringing Facebook-style ad targeting to Instagram; both initiatives will be unveiled this week at, you guessed it, Cannes (P.S. everyone who’s not in Cannes: party at my place!).

The new tactics Facebook is encouraging marketers to adopt include, for example, targeting different versions of ads to viewers based on their interests -- something that Toyota’s Lexus brand has already tried out with help from Facebook’s data mavens. To help propagate the new, more data-centric approach Facebook actually built a temporary training facility in Cannes.

Last month Facebook introduced some new ad-targeting tools for native advertising, allowing advertisers to automate optimization around the best-performing ads. It also announced a new partnership with IBM, integrating Facebook ad targeting capabilities, including Custom Audiences, with IBM Commerce’s offerings for marketing cloud clients, including IBM’s Journey Designer and Journey Analytics.

Meanwhile marketers will now be able to target ads on Instagram more precisely with the integration of Facebook’s targeting data to the photo-sharing app. Up until now advertisers have only been able to target Instagram users based on age and gender, but Everson tells Bloomberg, “The notion is to open up the entire suite of Facebook targeting on Instagram over the next few months.” Buying ads on Instagram should also become more streamlined, although that will take a bit more work.

Facebook is also working on boosting user engagement with Instagram. Earlier this month Facebook bowed a major redesign of Instagram’s desktop and mobile sites: the new aesthetic, which brings the sites up to date with the app, focuses on bigger pictures, displayed in a less cluttered environment, with simpler navigation and fewer visual distractions in the background.