Long gone are the days when it was difficult to answer the question: “Can social media really boost my sales?”
The answer is yes, and now it’s easier than ever to track conversions from social media, online and off. Facebook recently announced Offline Conversion Tracking, a way to match transaction data from your customer database or POS system to your Facebook Ads reporting. For the first time, you will be able to see ACTUAL numbers and results from your Facebook Ads, tracking when transactions occur in your store or over the phone after someone sees or engages with your Facebook Ad.
You can access Offline Conversion Tracking from the Offline Event Manager, found within Business Manager. (We don’t love Business Manager for retailers with one location, it’s confusing. We are hoping you’ll be able to access this from the Ads Manager soon.) Here is a direct link: https://business.facebook.com/offline_events/?business_id=[YOURBUSINESSID].
You must run ads in order to access this data – it’s not technically a “free” feature because you’ll be paying for ads. The first thing you will do is link your ad account. When you link your ad account, you will be asked to accept the terms and conditions. According to Facebook’s terms that must be accepted, “Facebook will not share the Sales Data you provide to us for OC with third parties or other advertisers. Facebook will maintain the confidentiality and security of the Sales Data, including by maintaining appropriate organizational, technical and physical safeguards that are designed to (a) protect the security and integrity of the Sales Data while they are within Facebook’s systems and (b) guard against the accidental or unauthorized access, use, alteration, or disclosure of Sales Data within Facebook’s systems. Further, Facebook will not give access to your Sales Data to third parties or other advertisers, unless we have your permission or are required to do so by law.” Here is more information.
Once your ad account is linked, you can upload transaction data, a set of files with offline event data that is pulled from your POS system or customer spreadsheet. Once your offline data is compared to your ads data and you have a list of people converted through your ads, you can create Custom Audiences from these people – to then advertise to in the future, or create a lookalike audience from.
We’re testing this feature and will continue to share our results with you. Be sure to share with us, too! Have you run an offline conversion ad?
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