MENLO PARK, Calif. – Direct response marketers have a new conversion and optimization tool thanks to Facebook. The social media giant unveiled the service this week and it lets advertisers place a piece of code on a website to track when desired actions, like shopping cart checkouts or registrations, are driven by someone seeing an ad on Facebook.
MediaPost reports that when marketers choose the Optimized CPM bidding option, they can see which ads drive the most conversions and adjust their campaigns accordingly. Facebook suggested that marketers involved in E-commerce, retail, travel, financial services and other direct response categories would benefit most from the new feature.
In a beta test last year, retail site Fab.com used the tool and reduced its cost-per-new-customer-acquisition by 39 percent when it used this type of bidding to serve ads to consumers deemed most likely to convert. And the Democratic Governors Association used it to deliver ads to users who were most likely to sign up for its mailing list. The association reportedly saw a substantial decrease in its cost per conversion – 85 percent lower than any other campaign the association had run online.
Facebook says conversion measurement and optimization can be used on all Facebook ads and sponsored stories, and in combination with any targeting capabilities. Facebook also claims it the only analytics tool that can report when a user views an ad on one device like a mobile phone but converts on another like a desktop computer.