Correction: A previous version of this story stated the pilot program found conversion rates increased 123%. Converter rates are the correct metric and they improved by as much 123%.
Dive Brief:
- Telecom company O2 with its agency Havas partnered with Visual IQ on a pilot program that measured Facebook ads against other digital channels, publishers and placements, per a press release made available to Marketing Dive.
- Key findings from the program include converter rates improving as much as 123% when combining Facebook Custom Audiences ad placements with other digital channels; cost efficiency for new customer acquisition went up 52% and improved for existing customers by 38%; and Facebook ads contributed to O2’s sales goals in a significant and cost-effective way, according to the company.
- Through Visual IQ's recent partnership with Facebook, O2 was able to leverage the former's multi-touch attribution capabilities and measure previously untracked Facebook impressions for the first time.
Dive Insight:
Brands and agencies have been clamoring for better methods to measure the effectiveness of their digital marketing, especially in two keys areas — how ads on one platform compare to a brand's other efforts and how those ads directly impact sales. With this in mind, O2's pilot is noteworthy example of a new option for trying to accomplish these goals.
The program was valuable for O2 in that it provided a view into its full media investments in Facebook to put a clearer value on the channel compared to other digital advertising options. Facebook has been known to be notoriously tricky to measure between only recently allowing for third-party measurement as well as its own sketchy history of providing false or misleading metrics such as a video viewability issue from last year.
The pilot program came out of a partnership between Visual IQ and Facebook from last September and other Visual IQ clients are taking part in the program. Co-founder and CEO Manu Mathew said the pilot has eliminated previous limitations in measuring Facebook media and allowed O2 and Havas to understand the effectiveness of Facebook ads in a way that wasn’t possible before.