Facebook has done a lot for its marketing customers; that fact cannot be denied by anyone really, especially those marketers who are actually using Facebook as their main platform for advertising. The social media company has many ways of helping advertisers, most of them being in the field of presenting new marketing tools and opportunities. However, Facebook is now taking new, bigger strides to help users of its advertising tools.

Today we are excited to announce the global launch of a new conversion measurement and optimization system for direct response marketers. Facebook conversion measurement allows advertisers to measure the ROI of their Facebook ads by counting relevant user actions, such as registrations and shopping cart checkouts, that are driven by people seeing an ad on Facebook.

Measuring the success of Facebook advertising efforts has been possible in the past, but there has been plenty of criticism. Facebook created their new global measurement platform back in November, and have just recently decided to make it available all around the world. It can be used for Facebook ads, sponsored stories, and of course any of the other forms of targeted advertising available on Facebook’s advertising platform. So what makes this new tool so important?

Well, Facebook tells us that the new conversion measurement tool will be able to report any time a user views an ad on a given platform and then converts on a separate platform. For example, if a user were to view an ad on mobile, and then continue on to convert on their PC, marketers will now be able to measure that user action. So far, there really are no other measurement tools that can provide this type of service to users, therefore putting Facebook a step ahead once again.

Also, the new tool allows marketers to use optimized CPM in order to deliver ads to those users that are more likely to bring in conversions on their websites.

 Beta tests have shown that when conversion measurement is used with optimized CPM, ads reduced the cost per conversion by 40 percent when compared to CPC ads using the same budget.

This means that marketers who are interested in using Facebook ads and sponsored stories to drive specific actions on their websites can now use conversion measurement both to understand the ROI of their ad spend and to improve that ROI on future campaigns.

Needless to say, this will be an incredibly valuable new set of opportunities for Facebook advertisers, and Facebook made the tool global for just that reason.  Here are a few examples provided in the announcement that show the success that some companies are already having with the new tools, and what marketers can expect upon tapping into the new resource.

• Online retailer Fab.com was able to reduce its cost per new customer acquisition by 39 percent when it used conversion measurement and optimization to serve ads to consumers deemed most likely to convert.
• The Democratic Governors Association used conversion measurement with optimized CPM to deliver ads to users who were most likely to sign up for its mailing list.  According to Mark Giangreco, Digital Director of the DGA, the Association noticed a dramatic decrease in its cost per conversion - 85% lower than any other campaign the DGA had run online.

Written by Michael Levanduski

Michael Levanduski is a news reporter at Performance Marketing Insider. He’s been a writer at one level or another for the past 15+ years. He has three kids and lives in Grand Rapids, MI.

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