The news that Facebook has ended its beta trial of conversion tracking – with no plans to ever launch full scale (http://bit.ly/di4c06) – distresses us greatly. While we all know that by pontificating about the granular tracking abilities of online we dug a huge whole for ourselves in the early 2000’s, those abilities nonetheless still serve as the foundation of campaign success. So, why is the current 800lb gorilla of online backing away from quantifying its success potential?
Agency media folks will always have a multitude of conversion tracking options available; and at best, Facebook’s conversion tracking served merely as a reality check against other analytics tools for the agency media exec. But to the mom and pop retailer, or neighborhood restaurant, Facebook’s conversion tracking might have been the only way they could determine if they were making a return on their Facebook investment.
So why pull the plug? In our view, Facebook got scared. We in the business know that the platform leaves a lot to be desired from an advertiser’s standpoint; so how do you think the average Joe trying to run a business felt about it? We’re guessing that Facebook feared a lack of demonstrable return to the non-media savvy, and so they moved away from quantifying ad dollars to instead push for “socialization” metrics as justification.
Some in our world would claim that this is a boon for agencies, as advertisers will be forced to continue to rely on us for rich ROI analyses. This is not the case, and the evidence lies in search. Google made it simple for any and everyone to tap into and exploit AdWords, and the result was not a migration away from agencies. Rather, it pushed major advertisers – the ones with significant media budgets – to rely more deeply on agencies, who could further assist them in an increasingly complex and competitive environment.
Facebook’s move was wimpy and shortsighted, and it’s one that will stifle growth in social advertising. More distressing, it buys Facebook more time to drag their feet in improving their platform and allow media execs to drive even greater success in the channel for clients.
