Facebook Offers Conversion Tracking

Sonya Wood - February 19, 2010

For any person using Facebook for contextual advertising, it has been a major source of frustration that it did not have conversion tracking or a means to determine if visitors were completing any actions on their site. Not having the option to track conversions limits the amount of analysis and optimization an advertiser can do to improve the performance of their ads. Using an analytics platform was one way to track certain goals that were completed; however, not every advertiser uses analytics.

Conversion coding enables advertisers to track certain goals as well as make strategic decisions on performance of ads. Testing different ad copy or targeting is beneficial for marketers so they can actually measure what is performing the best. On the flip side, they can also see what isn’t performing and make decisions to optimize the campaign. Larger search engines including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask and Business.com all offer conversion coding.

Facebook recently released a very limited beta program for conversion tracking. Not much is known about this beta, but it clearly shows that Facebook is looking to be a contender as a major advertising platform. By giving advertisers this tool, Facebook is making it easier to show how well ads can perform.

No longer is Facebook a valuable market for just for building brand awareness, it is moving toward becoming a portal in which advertisers can expect to see conversion driven success.