4 ms·

Are you familiar with conversion tracking? You can attribute conversion (checkout, sign-ups, etc) with clicking or viewing of FB ads. More details here: https:/

by mbesto 11y ago

Are you familiar with conversion tracking? You can attribute conversion (checkout, sign-ups, etc) with clicking or viewing of FB ads. More details here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/460491677335370 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/460491677335370

lsc 11y ago
Yes, tracking last-touch is easy. but last touch is far from the whole story, and once you move away from simply tracking last touch, it gets really complex. Sure, the user saw the facebook ad or clicked on the facebook ad. But... does that just mean that facebook is good at showing ads to the sort of people who already buy those products? (I know that when I'm running without ad-blocker, I already own most of the products that correctly-targeted ads try to advertise to me. My argument is that the ads are merely following my preferences, not driving those preferences.)
- mbesto 11y ago
  I'm not sure you're completely understanding how it works. I can actually run an ad on Facebook and with a conversion pixel I can see what the ROI return is. Read this for more details: http://blog.wishpond.com/post/63739323752/how-to-use-the-facebook-ad-conversion-pixel-to-track http://blog.wishpond.com/post/63739323752/how-to-use-the-fac...
  - nl 11y ago
    "Attribution" means more than just the last click. If you see an ad on TV, and then 2 minutes later receive an ad on Facebook for the same product, click through and buy then how much is the TV ad responsible vs the Facebook ad. Same for Youtube ads. Typically (as a very broad rule) people don't click through to purchase from a Youtube ad. And yet lab (and other) studies show an increased propensity to purchase a specific product after Youtube advertising exposure. As an ad buyer, how much do you spend on those TV/Youtube Ads, vs how much for the final click. lcs's point is that sometimes that (paid) final click comes from a user who was probably likely to purchase anyway. So an advertiser would be better off paying more for wider exposure than for that final click (assuming a fixed budget etc etc). This is a live problem right now, and a solution is worth billions of dollars.
    - 467568985476 11y ago
      Which studies in particular?
      - nl 11y ago
        Well there's one I'm involved with atm which is unpublished yet. But more broadly there are quite a lot of industry and industry-body sponsored ones, eg: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/online-video-ads-drive-consideration-favorability-purchase-intent-sales.html https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/online-video-ads-dr... http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Video-Ads-Lift-Brand-Metrics-Japan/1013426 http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Video-Ads-Lift-Brand... https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=video+ad+exposure+buying+intent https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=video+ad+expos... will find more.
        shostack 11y ago
        Can you share any details of the study you are involved in?
        nl 11y ago
        No details (embargoes etc), but the short version is that videos ads work.
        thenomad 11y ago
        Interesting. Is that true even if you're only able to consider last-touch rather than the whole picture? (For example, if you're a performance marketer working on commission for leads or sales.) I've not yet seen spectacular results for video, speaking as someone in the above category (some of the time) but my hunch has long been it can be very effective.
        shostack 11y ago
        I'd be shocked if this was the case given how much of video is pre-roll and the "view but don't click" nature of it. You'd have to have a pretty friggin' compelling CTA to get someone to click it and drop your cookie.
shostack 11y ago
I appreciate you sharing your information as it came across as an honest attempt to be helpful, however I think you might find it helpful to read this post by Avinash Kaushik [1] and then reread my post. I do digital advertising for a living, and that post is what I recommend to all who are new to the concept of cross-channel attribution as it is a very complex topic from both a data, math, and business standpoint. Easily one of the biggest opportunities and problems in the ad industry at the moment (and has been for some time). [1] http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/multi-channel-attribution-modeling-good-bad-ugly-models/ http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/multi-channel-attribution-mod...
- mbesto 11y ago
  No worries. I am actually in conversations with a client right now about multi-channel attribution, as I know it's a problem. The reason I responded the way I did was about your comment here: > If FB can provide advertisers with the tools to more definitively say "this is making you money" and not just "oh, we summed up all these random stats and call it Engagement--look at the shiny engagement metric!" I'm confident they would find advertisers even more willing to open their wallets, shift spend away from the GDN and exchanges, and stop questioning or caring about click fraud since it would be a self-correcting issue (ie. high levels of click fraud would in theory result in lower perceived incremental lift if proper analysis was conducted). Engagement metrics to me are much more about brand awareness then it is converting sales, so I didn't understand why you would point to engagement metrics when questioning tools that drive sales. Are you saying that you use conversion based ads on FB and aren't confident that their attribution window provides a highly accurate view of their performance?
  - shostack 11y ago
    NP, I can see why that might have been read in a different way. I may have mixed my points up a bit, but basically I've noticed that they seem to lump quite a few things under "engagement" (an autoplayed video that plays for 3 seconds from someone scrolling in their feed is apparently a valid view). I'm using engagement in the broader sense, not the specific definition in the FB platform here, although it is pretty all encompassing there as well in terms of Likes/Comments/Shares (none of which are really the apples to apples at all). My bigger beef is on the view-through side. Attribution windows alone don't dictate attribution weighting. You really need to be measuring incremental lift, otherwise you end up with lots of people seeing an ad and a ton of view-throughs, but a lot of wasted spend since many would have converted without the impression.

by mbesto 11y ago

lsc 11y ago

Yes, tracking last-touch is easy. but last touch is far from the whole story, and once you move away from simply tracking last touch, it gets really complex. Sure, the user saw the facebook ad or clicked on the facebook ad. But... does that just mean that facebook is good at showing ads to the sort of people who already buy those products? (I know that when I'm running without ad-blocker, I already own most of the products that correctly-targeted ads try to advertise to me. My argument is that the ads are merely following my preferences, not driving those preferences.)

mbesto 11y ago
I'm not sure you're completely understanding how it works. I can actually run an ad on Facebook and with a conversion pixel I can see what the ROI return is. Read this for more details: http://blog.wishpond.com/post/63739323752/how-to-use-the-facebook-ad-conversion-pixel-to-track http://blog.wishpond.com/post/63739323752/how-to-use-the-fac...
- nl 11y ago
  "Attribution" means more than just the last click. If you see an ad on TV, and then 2 minutes later receive an ad on Facebook for the same product, click through and buy then how much is the TV ad responsible vs the Facebook ad. Same for Youtube ads. Typically (as a very broad rule) people don't click through to purchase from a Youtube ad. And yet lab (and other) studies show an increased propensity to purchase a specific product after Youtube advertising exposure. As an ad buyer, how much do you spend on those TV/Youtube Ads, vs how much for the final click. lcs's point is that sometimes that (paid) final click comes from a user who was probably likely to purchase anyway. So an advertiser would be better off paying more for wider exposure than for that final click (assuming a fixed budget etc etc). This is a live problem right now, and a solution is worth billions of dollars.
  - 467568985476 11y ago
    Which studies in particular?
    - nl 11y ago
      Well there's one I'm involved with atm which is unpublished yet. But more broadly there are quite a lot of industry and industry-body sponsored ones, eg: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/online-video-ads-drive-consideration-favorability-purchase-intent-sales.html https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/online-video-ads-dr... http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Video-Ads-Lift-Brand-Metrics-Japan/1013426 http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Video-Ads-Lift-Brand... https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=video+ad+exposure+buying+intent https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=video+ad+expos... will find more.
      - shostack 11y ago
        Can you share any details of the study you are involved in?
        nl 11y ago
        No details (embargoes etc), but the short version is that videos ads work.
        thenomad 11y ago
        Interesting. Is that true even if you're only able to consider last-touch rather than the whole picture? (For example, if you're a performance marketer working on commission for leads or sales.) I've not yet seen spectacular results for video, speaking as someone in the above category (some of the time) but my hunch has long been it can be very effective.
        shostack 11y ago
        I'd be shocked if this was the case given how much of video is pre-roll and the "view but don't click" nature of it. You'd have to have a pretty friggin' compelling CTA to get someone to click it and drop your cookie.

shostack 11y ago

I appreciate you sharing your information as it came across as an honest attempt to be helpful, however I think you might find it helpful to read this post by Avinash Kaushik [1] and then reread my post. I do digital advertising for a living, and that post is what I recommend to all who are new to the concept of cross-channel attribution as it is a very complex topic from both a data, math, and business standpoint. Easily one of the biggest opportunities and problems in the ad industry at the moment (and has been for some time). [1] http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/multi-channel-attribution-modeling-good-bad-ugly-models/ http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/multi-channel-attribution-mod...

mbesto 11y ago
No worries. I am actually in conversations with a client right now about multi-channel attribution, as I know it's a problem. The reason I responded the way I did was about your comment here: > If FB can provide advertisers with the tools to more definitively say "this is making you money" and not just "oh, we summed up all these random stats and call it Engagement--look at the shiny engagement metric!" I'm confident they would find advertisers even more willing to open their wallets, shift spend away from the GDN and exchanges, and stop questioning or caring about click fraud since it would be a self-correcting issue (ie. high levels of click fraud would in theory result in lower perceived incremental lift if proper analysis was conducted). Engagement metrics to me are much more about brand awareness then it is converting sales, so I didn't understand why you would point to engagement metrics when questioning tools that drive sales. Are you saying that you use conversion based ads on FB and aren't confident that their attribution window provides a highly accurate view of their performance?
- shostack 11y ago
  NP, I can see why that might have been read in a different way. I may have mixed my points up a bit, but basically I've noticed that they seem to lump quite a few things under "engagement" (an autoplayed video that plays for 3 seconds from someone scrolling in their feed is apparently a valid view). I'm using engagement in the broader sense, not the specific definition in the FB platform here, although it is pretty all encompassing there as well in terms of Likes/Comments/Shares (none of which are really the apples to apples at all). My bigger beef is on the view-through side. Attribution windows alone don't dictate attribution weighting. You really need to be measuring incremental lift, otherwise you end up with lots of people seeing an ad and a ton of view-throughs, but a lot of wasted spend since many would have converted without the impression.