A new update for Facebook’s Conversion Lift tool aims to make things a little easier for advertisers on the social network’s site. While the previous version compared audience members who were served ads and those who were not, the latest iteration will allow companies to compare multiple ads to see which are more effective.
The updated version of Conversion Lift is designed to help advertisers discover which ads perform best; whether brand and direct response ads work better than brand ads or direct response ads on their own; how effective mobile ads are; and whether ads focused on consumers’ lifestyles or the products are more powerful, according to Facebook.
No More Depending on Cookies
Facebook originally launched Conversion Lift in January as a way to help advertisers quantify exactly how much business was being driven by Facebook ads. At the time, the social network had pitched the tool as a better value metric than measuring click-through rates alone.
“Counting clicks doesn’t account for the value created by simply seeing an ad,” the company said on its corporate blog in January. “By allowing advertisers to measure the impact of exposure to an ad, with consistency, across devices, conversion lift measurement offers a more holistic view of an ad’s performance.”
Rather than relying on cookies to tie exposure to an advertisement with behavior, and then using clicks as a proxy for sales, conversion lift methods compare the behavior of a control group that doesn’t see any ads with a randomized group that does. Information from the advertiser, such as point-of-sale data, is then combined with the audience data to determine how effective an advertising campaign is.
Measuring Offline Behavior
Just as the original goal of Conversion Lift was to better understand the value of ads run on Facebook in general, the latest upgrade promises to improve marketing data even further, by allowing companies to combine different types of advertising to see how different types of messages can work in conjunction with each other.
For example, a company might use a conversion lift study with multiple test and control groups to determine whether direct response ads in combination with brand awareness video ads drive more premium subscriptions than using direct response ads alone. While the direct-response-only campaign may prompt substantial growth, the combination of the two might prove even more effective.
What could be even more enticing for advertisers is the ability to track the effect of advertising even on offline behavior. Conversion lift studies can measure advertising impact across purchase channels, such as stores, Web sites, and apps, to develop a more complete picture of how advertising can affect behavior.
To conduct a conversion lift test, advertisers must have an advertising campaign that hasn’t gone live yet, as well as access to conversion data through either Facebook pixels, App Events or e-mail addresses, or phone numbers for offline conversions.
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