Patterns in Commercial Trace Data Use Facebook’s average revenue per user in the US and Canada was around $20 in 2016 (Oreskovic, 2017). This revenue is largely a result of the social media giant’s access to volumes of data that, at scale, it can use to create insights and new products. These new products include targeted advertisements, news feeds that contain “recommended” posts and new software, such as the aforementioned facial recognition software.