How does a particular company's ad get into your feed? This is possible in one of three ways:

- you were not a client of the company, but got into the targeting of the ad

- The company has uploaded a database of phone numbers and emails of its customers to the Facebook with a database of phone numbers or emails of its customers (sometimes this is done is sometimes done not by the company itself, but by an agency that advertises it)

- you visited the company's website while being logged in to Facebook.

Do you want to be unpleasantly surprised? Go to the the Advertisers section in the advertising settings. The first tab contains advertisers, who have uploaded a database of phone numbers or emails of their customers, including your data. You will see companies you have never even heard of. you've never even heard of. However, they have your number or email, and they use your data for marketing purposes.

This is what I saw. With the mobile operator and the supermarket are clear. But how did my phone or email get to the marketers who advertise tire fitting in Borshchagovka? It seems that my number got into some kind of database of live contacts that are bought for advertising mailings. Or one of the companies whose services I used sells contacts of their customers. Or it may have been leaked, just like Novaya Pochta. One thing is clear - I have already lost control of my data. The only way to get it back is to get a new phone number and email address and keep them hidden.

The second tab in this section contains pages that may show you ads because you have previously visited their their website before. Special tracking tools from Facebook allow website administrators to track visitors. You visit a website when you are logged in to Facebook, your ID is added to the database, which is then uploaded to the the advertising account for displaying ads. This is called retargeting, and it is thanks to it, you see ads in your feed from sites you have recently visited.

And the most interesting section in the Facebook ad settings is the "Interests" section. This is a set of topics that Facebook's algorithms Facebook's algorithms think you're interested in. Explore your ad profile you'll learn a lot about yourself.