The bottom line is, everyone wants to know what works and why.
Since mobile doesn’t really lend itself to easily traceable clicks or cookies, a number of ad-tech vendors have released new measurement tools in the past couple of months. Facebook has jumped on that train, opening up its Lift measurement tool as an API for marketing partners and third parties to build on and conduct their own tests.
Lift measurement used to mean Facebook telling you when stuff was working and when it wasn’t using various methods. Now you can see for yourself.
So far the platform is reportedly experimental, but even so, it’s an upgrade to Facebook’s ability to leverage its considerable resources to find out exactly what effect your ad spend has on consumers. That’s a good thing for marketers.
Facebook’s Atlas also received an update allowing it to receive point-of-sale data via upload and compare it alongside ads served.
Facebook is pushing deeper into offline attribution, a space that just about every mobile marketer is hoping to gain insight into.
As location data improves, and more marketers start shifting money into mobile, I’m curious to see if these moves pay off -- and if offline attribution breaks out as a viable metric at scale this year.