Webtrends Gives Marketers Facebook Analytics Tool To Measure Investments

Gaining qualified leads and measuring return on investments (ROIs) in social networks hasn't been easy. Webtrends Thursday will release a tool in its analytics package that tracks and measures activities in Facebook.

Webtrends Analytics for Facebook lets users see tabs, applications, and share features. Marketers can see Twitter activity driving to Facebook Fan pages, Facebook Fan page activity that overlays with corporate blog posts, and conversions in Facebook. It also provides a view into custom applications, Facebook page tabs and click performance.

"Facebook tends to cache all their information, including images, and that has rendered a lot of traditional data collection inept," Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, vice president of marketing at Webtrends. "We have found ways to work with Facebook's language to communicate directly into our core analytics product by a data collection API. This means we don't have to use image-pixel pushing, which is a pretty flawed technique."

The method allows marketers to see tons of data related to interactions on tabs and in applications, along with the Flash version that runs on Facebook. Kaykas-Wolff says Webtrends' early investments in microsites failed, and that's one reason the company has begun to move investments into Facebook.

Some of those investments have been in building Webtrends Analytics for Facebook. The platform relies on Webtrends Analytics 9, which combines the real-time analytics engine and user interface. It enables users to track custom tabs and applications, allowing marketers to measure Facebook campaigns alongside other digital marketing campaigns, such as Web sites and mobile applications. An RSS overlay feature also lets marketers see the impact of promotions.

Custom tabs and applications in Webtrends Analytics collect data differently because of Facebook's privacy regulations and Terms of Service. Brands can't use traditional methods for tracking custom tabs because the social network does not allow JavaScript.

Bringing Facebook data into Webtrends Analytics meant developing a method to bypass existing limitations. Webtrends did this through a data collection API. Aside from tracking tab views, the application also measures tab views segmented by fans and nonfans, as well as clicks on buttons and links, such as Share.

Before releasing it to customers, Webtrends tested the platform in a campaign called the "Great Data Giveaway." The company set out to demonstrate the new capabilities to show marketers that social channels, such as Facebook, can generate qualified leads.

The campaign is a drawing for prizes that appeal to Webtrends' target market. The application placed it on a custom tab on Facebook explains contest details. The person becomes a fan first, called a "fan-gate," and then allows the application to install.

Once the app installs, the user can enter the contest through a form driven by the company's marketing automation system, Eloqua. The key performance indicators are the entry, follow-up email opens, and follow-up email conversions. Webtrends allows users to post the contest info to their Facebook wall. The application measures the number of times the post is shared. Hopefully, the contest gets mentioned on Twitter and in blogs.

Kaykas-Wolff says in the next couple of weeks, Webtrends will start talking with marketers about how to track things in Facebook's version of Flash. Soon the company will launch analytics tools for Google Buzz and Twitter.

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