Three Problems With Facebook's New Conversion Tracking Feature

The concept is very simple, and very similar to how conversion tracking is done in Google AdWords. You create a unique tracking tag for your ad in Facebook and embed the javascript it generates to the landing page on your site.

It is also possible to insert the javascript on your thank you page. This is the page that people reach after filling out a form on your landing page. This combination allows you to get some really slick reporting as seen below.  

Not only do you get the normal ad performance metrics such as impressions, click and click thru rate, but you also see the number of leads you converted and conversion rate which is the holy grail of advertising - determining the ROI of your spend! Right?

Well, here is the problem with Facebook Conversion Tracking:

1. You're collecting information outside of your system

Marketers beware! While the conversion tracking dashboard provides a lot of great intel, that information is outside your systems.  Good luck trying to tie it to all your other marketing efforts unless you use their API to import all that information to your system. The average Joe or Jane marketer is probably not going to do that!

2. More invasive code to your site

So do you really want Facebook to know what visitors are doing on your site by placing their code on your pages?  Will you follow suit if Twitter offers the same service?  How much 3rd party code will you keep stuffing into your pages, giving companies your data for free while paying them for theirs?  You are after all paying them to understand how your visitors are doing on their site while they are getting to learn about their visitors on your site for free!

3.  It's another dashboard to worry about

How many tools do you use to check your email? One, perhaps two because you separated your personal email from work email.  So how  many tools will you log into to understand your marketing? Google? Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? YouTube? With the need to spread your activity amongst social sites you will need to track them all, but could managing so many tools spread you too thin? 

All social sites should aspire to provide the level of insight that Facebook is providing.  It is critical for marketers to understand how their time and dollars spent is yielding results.  At the same time there is a need to simplify and centralize to make our lives easier!

Have you used Facebook conversion tracking or have you thought about it?  Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo credit:Marco Bellucci

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