Facebook Terminates Its Conversion Tracking Tool for Performance Ads
Facebook has concluded the private beta of its conversion tracking tool for performance ads. A small set of advertisers had a chance to try the product which allowed them to track actions such as page views, purchases, registrations, downloads and more taken on a website after a user saw or clicked a Facebook ad. Facebook says that “We are no longer going to offer our conversion tracking beta product. While we learned a lot from the beta, our focus is not on building a full featured conversion tracking tool.”
A range of third parties provide analytics tools for advertising, Page features, applications, and more. Facebook is apparently leaving this business to them.
The Help Center document for the tool is still available, as is the Conversion Tracking Getting Started Guide. These explain how users could assign a conversion value and SKU to tracking tags and paste them into their site’s code. Users could then monitor conversion data including time between clicks or views and subsequent conversions using the Ads Manager’s Reports section.
Without the tool, though, advertisers must calculate their own ROI, or use one of many third party tools. Though some hoped Facebook would extend the conversion tracking tool to all advertisers, instead Facebook asserts it will “continue to invest in tools that help marketers better understand the effectiveness of ads that are social and include social context from friends.”
Facebook followed up saying, “We recently launched social metrics in our Ads Manager as a way of doing just that” along with Facebook Ads for Applications to help social games and other apps raise CTRs by including the names of friends who’ve recently used the advertised app. However, analytics and ad units don’t replace the conversion tracking functionality.
September 23rd, 2010 at 12:40 am
[...] mehr auf: Facebook Terminates Its Conversion Tracking Tool for Performance Ads von Josh Constine für Inside Facebook. Geschrieben von PW – der webconsul23. September 2010 um [...]
September 23rd, 2010 at 12:42 am
OMG, they are killing their own business. Now how I can track if my facebook ads are effective since 3d parties are showing awful statistic results? :(
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:10 am
There is something alarming in the words “While we learned a lot from the beta,…”. What was the purpose of launching this analytical tool? Of course, medium and big businesses with large seo and analytics departments don’t need a FB app to see conversion rates, but in term of educating people who start the business and just because the app was obviously used by some people, why are they removing it? And more importantly why did they implement it? They could introduce payment for using it, but what they did is strange and inexplicable. Any ideas about the real reason?
September 24th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Now I know why the option just disappeared. We saw low, if any, conversions using this tool.
My guess is that maybe they were finding out that conversion rates are not high from Facebook and continuing it might shed light on the ineffectiveness of ads. Then again, that’s just being a conspiracy theory!
I wish there were some clear guides on how to use 3rd party stuff to track conversions. If we are pumping a lot of dollars into ads, we really need to be able to say to ourselves was the cost worth it or should we explore other options. We love to communicate via Facebook, but it may not be the best way to get someone to register or buy something.
I wished this article listed the “many other 3rd party” tools available. Please email me if you have any advice. Thanks!
September 24th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
[...] announced yesterday that it decided to end their beta test of conversion tracking for Facebook advertising. While [...]
September 24th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
What they are doing is making it more and more a pain to advertise with them traditionally (IE: Ad – click – landing page on brand site) to try and force you to drive traffic to your fan page for your brand still on Facebook. They want to harvest the ad clicks you pay for to boost their own pageviews. They have been steadily adding functionality and metrics for your fan page and ads to them, while stripping away features for your regular ads that point off site.
Will somebody close to this imp of an owner Zuckerberg convince him to sell the company to someone who has a clue? You are a site for people to post pictures of their vacations, drunk weekends, or links to political news articles. You are not going to change the way the world does advertising. Sorry.
October 29th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
I agree with Nick, there needs to be a reliable article on 3rd party tracking programs. We have reverted back to using the URL building to track FB conversions in Google Analytics. Here is the building if anyone wants it: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578
December 6th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
[...] that Facebook has killed its conversion tracking features marketers have to take a couple extra steps to make ensure Facebook marketing efforts are measured [...]
December 21st, 2010 at 5:53 pm
[...] on Facebook since the sel… Facebook killed their conversion tracking a few months ago http://www.insidefacebook.com/20…Insert a dynamic date here BIU @ Edit Link Text [...]
December 21st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
[...] that only recently my tracking ceased from operating.The blog post killing the feature is here:http://www.insidefacebook.com/20…What's the best practice for tracking Facebook Ad conversions / performance and ROI?Cannot add [...]
January 10th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Is Facebook considering offering CPA/CPI models to advertisers?…
Another major point to note is that Facebook once provided a built-in conversion tracking system into their Ad Platform. This conversion tracking is the building blocks behind eventually offering a CPA model. This program was discontinued in September …
January 20th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Has anyone tried any of the 3rd party analytics solutions for tracking FB ads conversions?
Using Google Analytics and the URL builder method doesn’t seem to be very accurate…
February 24th, 2011 at 9:44 am
[...] shown in ad reports? Are these numbers accurate?Background on Facebook ending conversion tracking: http://www.insidefacebook.com/20…Does the fact that Facebook shut down the beta program for its conversion tracking tool indicate [...]
March 3rd, 2011 at 7:54 am
[...] a quote, explained to be from Facebook® from the blog Inside Facebook: “We are no longer going to offer our conversion tracking beta product. While we learned a lot [...]
July 7th, 2011 at 9:45 am
[...] and other activities that happened after a consumer was exposed to a Facebook ad, but the company ended that program last September. So, if a marketer wants to get a good idea of a Facebook ad’s ultimate efficacy, [...]
August 23rd, 2011 at 10:25 am
[...] some opinions about Facebook not allowing conversion tracking at InsideFacebook.com. Related content: Targeting [...]