Facebook recently introduced its Ad Conversion Tracking feature through a limited beta program. To quote Facebook, “Conversion tracking allows you to track activity that happens on your website as a result of someone on Facebook seeing or clicking your Facebook Ad.”
Twas a magical morning when the Ad Conversion Tracking icon appeared in our Facebook Ads Manager dashboard.
In a nutshell, Facebook provides tracking tags for you to add to key pages on your website. The tag is triggered when a user who’s previously encountered your Facebook ad hits the page.
Bulbstorm received early access to the beta tool this week. Here are our initial thoughts on Ad Conversion Tracking for Facebook:
1. Impressions vs. clicks. At first, this line from Facebook gave us pause: “When a Facebook user who has seen or clicked on your ad visits the page […] the tag is triggered and a conversion is recorded by Facebook.”
On Facebook, impressions are easy to come by – and easy for users to dismiss. So, we don’t want “impression conversions” impacting our click conversion figures. Fortunately, a deeper dive into the reporting screen shows that conversions are split into one of five buckets: post-click (0-24 hours or 1-7 days) and post-impression (0-24 hours, 1-7 days, or 8-28 days). Whew!
2. Cleaner tag management. We’re a tad concerned about the tag management interface. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of sorting tags by campaign, by client, etc.
That might not be a big deal for single-client or in-house ad managers. But for businesses tracking complex funnels or managing multiple ad campaigns for multiple clients out of the same ad account, it could get a bit clunky. No doubt Facebook will improve the interface after beta testing.
3. Hurray for data! More data is always welcome. And Facebook seems committed to providing businesses with the data they need to succeed on the platform.
It’s been less than a month since Facebook launched Post Insights (providing data on impressions and interactions for individual posts) and we’re already gaining valuable input that’s helping us optimize content and timing for our clients. Ad Conversion Tracking is yet another tool and we’re looking forward to putting it to use!
Have you experimented with Facebook’s Ad Conversion Tracking beta? If so, let us know your early thoughts in the comments!
I need to track my ads on FB, or I’m going to cut off funding, I don’t feel like I’m getting results through FB how can I track ads I don’t have this option on my page.