Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is adding a new way for advertisers to track who sees their advertisements and who makes a purchase after seeing them. TechCrunch was the first site to obtain details on this new feature, which is called “View Tags.” The way it works is simple. Advertisers are able to put cookies on Facebook users who see their ads, so that they can track them and record if they make a purchase after seeing the ad.
Josh Constine at TechCrunch said he got the first results from the feature, which show that “up to 87 percent of conversions can come from views.” He believes that this new feature might help the social media network claim responsibility for helping advertisers drive sales. Currently, a lot of advertisers see Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) as the driver for sales that actually come about because someone saw the ad on Facebook.
The new “View Tags” feature is different than the tracking system uncovered by Reuters last week, which requires that the website of the advertiser be able to recognize the Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) IDs that purchase something on their site.
Constine asked Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) for more information on exactly how the “View Tags” feature works, and he published full details on it Tuesday. He said a Facebook representative told him they are proceeding with the new feature carefully, most likely so that they can look for problems with privacy violations. He also said that early indications seem to show that the “View Tags” feature works quite well. He cites the results of one Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) advertiser, saying that out of almost 6,000 people who redeemed the advertiser’s offer, just a little over 5,000 of them had only seen the ad, while about 800 of them clicked directly through the ad. This information could be supremely valuable to advertisers, who currently only know when someone converts by clicking on their ad.
Check out Constine’s article for a complete rundown of how the feature works.
