A World of Insights – Google Analytics and Facebook Tabs

Once tracking is setup it’s a good idea to create profiles within Google Analytics to avoid counting Facebook traffic as website traffic and vice versa.

Using the new version of Analytics, profiles can be added by clicking on the Cog in the top right hand corner of the site as per the image below:

If you haven’t worked with profiles before, more information can be found on Google. One thing to remember is that it’s important to keep a master profile with no filtering to ensure no data is lost if a profile is creating incorrectly.

Tracking Interactions between your Site and Facebook:

It’s also possible to keep an eye on how people are interacting between your website and Facebook. This can provide insights into which content is shared and how many impressions these shares are getting, as well as how many people are interacting with widgets.

Knowing which content is getting shared can be a goldmine for future content creation and can also help with existing content. If certain content is being shared and other content is not, what is missing from the content that’s not being shared and what changes or additions can be made to make it more sharable?  It’s essentially free marketing information – what’s not to love?

Tracking these interactions requires a piece of metadata be added to the head section of your site.

What metadata you use depends on who you need to give access to the Facebook Insights. This can be a single person, a page or an app.

Of note here – while Facebook doesn’t specifically say anything about not adding all three, I have seen various comments in forums saying only the first one you add to a page will work. If you need to add more than one user, your best option is the page_id option below:

Once the relevant meta tag is added to the head section of your site, visit Facebook Insights and click the “Insights for your Website” and enter the domain URL to view insights from that site:

From there you’ll have access to a lot of tasty data around the Like button, demographics and more. As long as you have all the correct widgets on your site, insights will include:

Other Analytics Applications:

What else? The above lists the initial set-up to ensure your tabs have more robust tracking, however this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Take a moment to sit back and think about what would be beneficial to track on Facebook, and what you can track on your own site. Chances are you’ll be able to apply the same tracking functionality across both.

These could include:

• How people are interacting with your videos on Facebook and your Website to determine which audience responds best. This can help determine the best place to direct people to view your videos for maximum views and engagement
• A/B or Multivariate testing on forms or sales related pages to get the best conversion rates – what works on your website won’t necessarily work on Facebook
• A/B or Multivariate testing on landing pages to make sure you’re getting the best landing page view / Like conversion rate possible

A Quick Note on Facebook Policy Guidelines:

As with anything you do on Facebook, it’s essential you keep up to date with the policy guidelines. These can and will change without notice and your page can get slapped with a warning or pulled down for violating these guidelines.

If you’re not sure about a specific guideline, or feel that your page may be occupying a grey area, it’s best to err on the side of caution, particularly if you’re investing a large part of your marketing budget into the platform. The last thing you want to tell your boss after spending thousands on Facebook is that the page has been removed by Facebook because it wasn’t following their policy guidelines!

So now to you – how do you track your Facebook visitors and do you have any tips and tricks to help others get the most out of their data?