Facebook looks to measure direct impact of ads on its platform
Facebook’s ‘conversion lift’ service is an effort to allow advertisers to measure the business driven by ads on the social network as it continues to grow its digital ad services.
‘Conversion lift’, introduced on the company blog, will attempt to measure impact by using advertisers’ conversion data from a Facebook campaign to compare people that have seen the ads to those that have not. The brand claims this will determine the additional business lift brands gain from placing ads on its platform.
Facebook claims that digital marketers have faced some “challenges” with relying on clicks to measure the effectiveness of campaigns in the past. They attribute this to clicks not being a useful measure of the amount of ads users see, which ignores the impact of display ads.
Laura Fisher, an analyst for eMarketer says: “By offering its advertisers a measure of conversion lift, Facebook is catering to advertisers that want to understand how ad dollars aren’t just driving clicks but actual sales.”
Facebook is continuing to increase its digital ad services, an area it increasingly focused on in 2014. Research from eMarketer highlights that Facebook accounted for a 7.75% share of all global digital ad revenues last year. In addition, Facebook’s share of the $40bn worldwide mobile ad market reached 18.4% in 2014.
The news has arrived as Facebook is set to release its quarterly financial results today (28 Jan). The brand is expected to do well in its digital video ad revenues, as brands such as John Lewis have seen a high level of engagement on the platform.
