Guide to measuring the success of Facebook marketing

One of the great things about online marketing using Facebook and social media is the potential to measure almost everything you do – as long as you know what you are measuring and why. Ultimately, you are looking to measure the return on your investment (ROI), but what you measure will depend on your individual aims.
The benefits of data measuring
Your goal could be as simple as encouraging traffic and then measuring conversions; alternatively, matters may be more complex if, for example, your ROI involves the cost savings of choosing to use Facebook to deal with customer service provision rather than using the phone. Whatever your aims, effective data measurement can ensure you are in the best position to manage your campaigns – and budget.
What to measure?
There are two types of data: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative is normally numeric and can form part of true scientific analysis. This type of metric can range from the number of Facebook ‘likes’ to engagement, timing and click through rate (CTR).

Engagement can form the basis of some of the most valuable measurements and can be judged by factors such as the numbers of shares or comments your Facebook posts attract. This data can give you a good idea of how you are performing in terms of interacting with users and providing interesting content.

Get your timings right
Looking at times relating to your friends’ activities can help you to ensure that you are active at the same times; meanwhile, the CTR will help you to assess whether your efforts to drive traffic to your website are working, for example.
In terms of timing your efforts to maximise their returns, data analysis can show up issues that can easily be changed. You might only use Facebook during business hours, for example, while most of your friends are online early in the morning, in the evening or late at night. These are factors that are simple to rectify as long as you understand what changes need to be made.
Qualitative data
This revolves around observations and can include such factors as influencers, sentiment analysis to judge people’s attitudes to your brand or ad campaign, and conversation drivers; for example, it can be valuable to know what people are saying about your brand and who they see as your main rivals. Other benefits of measuring conversation drivers include discovering what customers or potential clients see as weaknesses in your product or brand and what they believe are your differentiating assets.
What next?
Regardless of which data you choose to collect, you should always consider it with a view of using it to improve your brand’s performance. If you find that you cannot do anything at all with the data being measured, you are probably wasting time and effort even looking at it.
You should also aim to have an in-depth knowledge of the tools available to measure your Facebook data; alternatively, you can enlist the help of someone who does. This will ensure that the facts and figures you see are put into context and can be as useful as possible in terms of your marketing efforts.