Facebook Measurement In 2013

While marketers have spent the past few years preoccupied with tracking fans of their Facebook pages, 2013 will be a year of more focused and disciplined measurement. According to a study by Awareness, over half of all marketers surveyed cited revenue generation as a top social media objective.

Proving the value of social media will be a top priority for marketers and one that will have major impact in 2013. Two major areas stand out where marketers will focus their measurement efforts: Converting fans into sales and targeting.

Converting Fans Into Sales

Facebook has implemented ways for marketers to see the sales impact of their social efforts – namely from Facebook Collections and Facebook Offers. Facebook Collections gives users new actions to take such as collect, want, or even buy products that brands share with their fans. The feature displays purchase-related words in a visible, easy-to-digest way that will help take the guess work out of determining revenue from social media. This can also help marketers discover what their consumers actually enjoy and buy. Facebook has just begun testing “Collections” — a new feature it says is “unrelated” to Pinterest but could be a competitor. No case studies have been made available yet and as of mid-December of 2012, Facebook launched a second round of testing.

Through Facebook Offers, business owners are able to offer discounts and other giveaways to their fans for free. Along with the offer, brands can expand their reach on Facebook using ad products from the site. Rolled out to a select number of brands to test, the social network deemed the product successful.  One case study provided by Facebook shows that Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas was able to book 1,500 room reservations by running a Facebook Offer. With the Offer product now available to all brands and Collections widely available in the near future, marketers looking to see the return on their investments in social will incorporate these features in 2013.

Targeting

Another 2013 Facebook measurement theme will be increased emphasis on targeting.  Two ways marketers can optimise their targeting efforts are through Facebook Sponsored Results and Facebook Custom Ads. Through Sponsored Results, marketers can target users searching for specific apps, Pages, and Places and insert a link into the results that points to their own app, Page, custom Page tab, or post. By choosing who to target their page or app to, marketers are being more careful with their money and getting a bigger bang for their buck.

We will see even more targeted ads when Facebook roll out their new Graph Search. This would mean that Facebook’s sponsored result ads would become more relevant for advertisers, and ultimately it would mean that raw fan numbers would be much more important to brands (or more accurately, the number of fans they have that match the profile of their customer base), as to appear in Graph Search results a brand will need to have a friend of the searcher as a fan.

Facebook’s other targeting option is through its Custom Ad product. This feature allows marketers to target ads by using users’ email addresses.  Instead of casting a wide net to a specific demographic, marketers can ensure their ads are seen by current customers or prospects. AdParlor claims that one client has seen the Custom Ads deliver a 25x return on investment by targeting an existing database of guests. By using these targeting techniques, marketers will be better equipped to see successful results in 2013.

Source: Serena Goldberg & Ollie Duff