Facebook unveiled a number of new tools Tuesday that strive to help marketers track the impact of their online and mobile ads on in-store sales.
Discovering these amazing business insights, we’ve also been encouraged to restructure our approach and optimization systems to focus on the full picture
Brian cuddy, Cossette
Store Visits, a new metric available in Facebook’s Ads Reporting, uses mobile location services to estimate the number of brick-and-mortar shoppers that have been served a Facebook ad for a given retail outlet.
With 90% of retail sales still taking place in store, according to eMarketer, marketers often struggle to quantify the impact of their online advertisements. The transition towards mobile has also further complicated the picture, as Facebook says smartphones are now used in 45% of all shopping journeys.
“The shift to mobile has happened, but the vast majority of sales take place in-store,” wrote Matthew Idema, Facebook’s vice-president of monetization product marketing, in a statement provided to Marketing. “With these products, Facebook can now drive people to your stores from mobile and measure the results for your business.”
Among the first Canadian brands to demo Facebook’s new Offline Conversion API was wireless carrier Telus, which was able to attribute 18% of in-store revenue to Facebook campaigns.
Samantha Huen, head of search and performance marketing for Telus, said that the company “discovered new audience segments we previously considered unprofitable were actually contributing significantly to offline outcomes.”
During the pilot program, Telus cross-referenced customer email addresses or phone numbers at the point of sale with Facebook profiles to get a better understanding of which customers had made in-store purchases after being served an online ad. Using the new API, Telus can also ensure that customers who purchase a phone in-store are excluded from future acquisition campaigns.
“Having previously implemented [direct response] tactics which were blind to actual in-store outcomes, we’re now able to apply our industry-leading tools and tactics to the full picture,” siad Brian Cuddy, the director of performance for Cossette Media, which partnered with Telus to incorporate the API into the telco’s CRM system. “Discovering these amazing business insights, we’ve also been encouraged to restructure our approach and optimization systems to focus on the full picture.”
Though competitor Google Ad Words provides offline conversion tracking, it is primarily done through an invite-only import for Salesforce, or via integration with third-party tracking systems.
By bridging the gap between online advertising efforts and brick-and-mortar retail sales within a single platform, Facebook’s Offline Conversion API is poised to be a game-changer for digital marketers.
Tammy Martin, a Newmarket, Ont.-based Facebook advertising consultant, suggests that the new tool will allow advertisers to become more precise in their targeting.
“This actually is a very powerful tool to help advertisers figure out what’s working, and figure out which audiences are buying,” she said.
Last year, Facebook introduced a feature that allows businesses to create messaging for individual store locations, and now the company is adding a native store locator within the ad format.
“That pattern of bringing more on the platform is a good one, because some [companies’] websites are unreliable,” said Martin. “If Facebook keeps [a retail experience] within [its] platform, they know that it’s mobile optimized, and [users] will get their answer quickly.”
Facebook is currently testing Offline Conversions API across all ad objectives, including local awareness, and hopes the tool is used to provide marketers with real time results while optimizing future campaigns.
These metrics are going to create a lot of clarity for advertisers. Once we know who our buyers are, then we will create a clearer picture of who our target market is.
Wednesday, June 15 @ 12:12 pm |