Facebook Introduces New Metrics to Please Brands

In an attempt to appease marketers and advertisers who are demanding better analytics, Facebook will introduce new metrics and measurement tools.

In its announcement, Facebook described three new metrics it says will help page owners better understand their audiences and marketing efforts:

Follows. Facebook will break out the number of follows a Page gains or loses over time, insights into where follows happen, follower demographics, and a breakdown of organic and paid follows. Until now, it has shown only the business’s total number of follows.

Previews. This metric will show the number of people who saw the Page’s information when hovering over your Page’s name on desktop. That’s valuable to know since people can learn about a business without visiting its Page.

Recommendations. This will reveal the number of times a Page has been included under someone’s recommendation as a suggestion from friends and family. People often use recommendations get advice from friends, family, and local Groups on Facebook.

The metrics, which will roll out the coming weeks, can be viewed within the “overview” tab of Page Insights on desktop. Facebook says it will continue to introduce a new metric “about every month or so.”

Metrics for Advertisers

Other new metrics may benefit advertisers.

The new metric for landing page views shows the number of visitors that arrive on the brand’s website after clicking on an ad. Slow-loading mobile sites or poor connections can cause people to lose interest while waiting for a page to load. The landing page metric will help businesses appreciate the importance of optimizing for a better mobile web experience. Businesses will be able to choose to optimize for landing page views when they use the traffic objective.

The pre-impression activity breakdown, to be introduced over the coming weeks, will show the number of people who have previously engaged with an advertiser’s website or app versus new visitors. The insight is particularly helpful for businesses running dynamic ads for broad audiences, where the audiences expand beyond their own customers and where ad creatives are generated dynamically based on associated product recommendations.

How Marketers Feel About the New Metrics

Facebook likely hopes to improve brands’ trust in its measurement capabilities following a string of measurement mistakes over the past year. Although most miscalculations were relatively minor and resolved quickly, their cumulative effect likely hurt brands’ trust in the social media giant. Companies have urged Facebook toward greater transparency into how it computes metrics in its “walled garden”

Some marketers and advertisers may appreciate the additional data from the new metrics. However, more metrics may not necessarily address questions about accuracy of Facebook’s data. Advertisers may still wish to verify Facebook’s data with third-party audits.

Early this year, the social media giant agreed to an audit by the Media Rating Council “to verify the accuracy of the information we deliver to our partners.”

A deluge of more metrics will not necessarily end complaints about the lack of unification, standardization and simplicity in digital marketing, says David Kirkpatrick, a marketing consultant and contributing editor for Marketing Dive.

In addition, some of the new offerings appear to serve Facebook’s own products, Kirkpatrick says. The landing page metric, for example, emphasizes the value of fast-loading, mobile-optimized web pages, which are offered via Facebook’s own Instant Articles for publishers.

“Still, Facebook’s commitment to working more closely with marketers and other third parties is clear,” he concludes.

Bottom Line:  Marketers may be able to glean useful insights from Facebook’s more detailed metrics. Cynics suspect the new metrics promote Facebook’s self-interest and represent a belated attempt to woo advertisers, but marketers will examine the metrics to learn how to improve their campaigns and will stay abreast of new metrics Facebook introduces.