2 ms·

The problems you are experiencing should be what ta digital marketing consultant should be able to solve (i.e. naming conventions, automated reports) however an

The problems you are experiencing should be what ta digital marketing consultant should be able to solve (i.e. naming conventions, automated reports) however anything above rudimentary analysis seems to be outside most analyst's skill sets form my experience - the tools don't help with this as you've discovered. You could even think that the platform providers (Google, Facebook) make it unnecessarily hard on purpose...

shostack 10y ago
So...I actually am a senior digital marketer who has been doing this stuff for over a decade. The naming conventions aren't an issue, and automating through another analytics platform has its own issues (GA for example won't track FB's view throughs unless you manage it all via an ad server that can get the post-impression performance from FB). My ask was around whether anyone had solved for this use case in FB since the documentation on Custom Events is limited in this regard. My broader point is that having seem MANY different ad platforms in my time, I'm disappointed that FB's is so limited compared to something like AdWords which, despite its issues, I still consider the gold standard in terms of UI/UX. Your last note about making it unnecessarily hard on purpose is an interesting one that I've heard floated on more than one occasion. I think there is probably some gain for them in not giving super granular data on this as it leads to inefficiency in ad spend which in turn means higher CPMs for them. The counter-argument I've always made is that if you provide an amazing ad platform with great tools to drive performance, advertisers will shift more budget to you away from competitors in such a manner that should offset losses from people cutting out more of the crap inventory. There's also the possibility they don't prioritize giving their ad platform love because it nudges people to PMDs and they have a lot to gain by growing that ecosystem. If your partners are doing all the development work for you to build their own interfaces AND they are driving more media sales, that might be enough to drive a strategic shift away from their own platform. I'd be very shocked if this were the case though.

shostack 10y ago

So...I actually am a senior digital marketer who has been doing this stuff for over a decade. The naming conventions aren't an issue, and automating through another analytics platform has its own issues (GA for example won't track FB's view throughs unless you manage it all via an ad server that can get the post-impression performance from FB). My ask was around whether anyone had solved for this use case in FB since the documentation on Custom Events is limited in this regard. My broader point is that having seem MANY different ad platforms in my time, I'm disappointed that FB's is so limited compared to something like AdWords which, despite its issues, I still consider the gold standard in terms of UI/UX. Your last note about making it unnecessarily hard on purpose is an interesting one that I've heard floated on more than one occasion. I think there is probably some gain for them in not giving super granular data on this as it leads to inefficiency in ad spend which in turn means higher CPMs for them. The counter-argument I've always made is that if you provide an amazing ad platform with great tools to drive performance, advertisers will shift more budget to you away from competitors in such a manner that should offset losses from people cutting out more of the crap inventory. There's also the possibility they don't prioritize giving their ad platform love because it nudges people to PMDs and they have a lot to gain by growing that ecosystem. If your partners are doing all the development work for you to build their own interfaces AND they are driving more media sales, that might be enough to drive a strategic shift away from their own platform. I'd be very shocked if this were the case though.