Facebook Advertising has continuously taken impressive steps forward. Here are three features that have really caught our attention when we’re making recommendations for clients.
1. Cross-Device Conversion Tracking
Facebook is the only publisher that currently can track conversions cross device. For a Facebook user to see your ad, they must log in (and be cookied) by Facebook. For each user, the same cookie is deployed on mobile, tablet, and desktop so that Facebook can monitor how individual users are using their devices at different times and deploy ads appropriately. This allows advertisers to execute unique cross-device campaigns, reaching the same user in different ways.
Recently, Google launched “Estimated Cross Device Conversion Tracking,” which is exciting, considering the massive data sets that Google has access to. But because of the unique nature of every advertising campaign, it’s important to note that this is not true conversion tracking, but rather, a great benchmark to reference when developing and executing a campaign.
There have been many studies surrounding the value of mobile — we all know it. But now on Facebook, you can prove those ideas.
2. Impressive Targeting
Targeting is foundational to an effective advertising campaign, and Facebook has excellent targeting — so excellent I am convinced I could isolate and target only the Collective Measures executive team (…future blog post?). Facebook combines social, demographic, and personal data to reach the right people efficiently.
Basic Categories:
| Age | Likes | Intent | Education |
| Gender | Interests | Precise Interests | Workplace |
| City / State / Zip | Connections | Retargets | Relationship status |
| Birthday | Activities | Broad Categories | 474 Partner Categories |
Partner Categories:
Facebook partners with Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon for their targeting, allowing advertisers to organize users using categories as specific as “Likely to Buy a New Lexus,” seven different “mom types,” and even if you buy “crackers” or “non-chocolate candy.”
This specific targeting allows you to find the right customers, and exclude everyone else.
3. Lead Generation with a Side of More Facebook Likes
Imagine a hard-working social media team engaging with significantly more unique users.
Even though your Facebook campaign may only be focused on generating leads, we’ve clearly seen that more page likes has been a long-lasting side effect of paid social campaign visibility. When more users see a business’s content with a paid campaign, we are able to report more engagement and enhanced virality, and Facebook’s Edgerank definitely takes notice.
Below are the residual effects of a direct response-oriented campaign that exceeded its direct response goals. You can easily see the lift in likes from the paid Facebook campaign launch.
As a peripheral benefit, this campaign had massive amount of new page likes. In this case, how would your business value a 25%+ lift in total likes as a residual benefit? Note: this isn’t just an isolated trend; we’ve seen it continuing across multiple clients and campaigns.
Cross-device conversion tracking, impressive targeting, and social media residual effects are three reasons why Facebook is great for advertising.
