There’s no debating that Facebook has become one of the most powerful tools available for digital advertisers, and that holds true for nonprofits and social good organizations. However, there’s little point to advertising or spending energy on Facebook if you have no way of tracking how users interact with your content or, more importantly, whether they click through to your site and take meaningful actions like signing up to volunteer, opting into a newsletter, or giving a donation. This is where Facebook Analytics comes in. In this post, we’ll go over what the tool is and walk through how to use Facebook Analytics so you can feel like a pro in no time.
What is Facebook Analytics?
Facebook describes their analytics tool as “people-first analytics for an omni-channel world.” In essence, Facebook Analytics allows you to see how users interact with your Facebook posts, and then see how those same users move over to your site and convert. In the nonprofit world, this conversion would look like a donation or a volunteer sign-up, those key actions that people take that help you get closer to achieving a larger goal of your organization.
If you’re not utilizing Facebook Analytics, you’re not able to see the full journey of a user from Facebook to your website, and you could be missing out on actionable insights that could be applied to high-level digital strategies. Using Facebook Analytics, you can do things like track users across different channels from organic and paid Facebook content, to a mobile app or a website. It will also provide aggregate demographic information about visitors and give you the option to segment or group visitors that share certain characteristics or behaviors.
How To Set Up Analytics on Facebook
To set up Facebook Analytics, you’ll need to first set up the channels you want to track. This will almost always include your organization’s website, assuming that’s the place where you want users to take meaningful actions. To make sure Facebook Analytics and your website are set up to work together properly, you’ll need to install the Facebook Pixel. We’ve published a detailed post on what the Facebook Pixel is and how to set it up.
Facebook Pixel
If you already have a Facebook page for your organization, you can view the current analytics by visiting facebook.com/analytics. If you’re not at this step just yet and are unsure how to create a page, this tutorial might be a little advanced. Start from square one by following Facebook’s directions on how to set up a page for either business/brand or Community/Public Figure.
Omni-channel Analytics
Beyond the Pixel, Facebook recently rolled out the option to set-up what they call “Omni-channel Analytics.” We highly recommend using this feature to get the full scope of Facebook Analytics. Omni-channel analytics allows you to combine data from your site, mobile app, Facebook page, and more to get a complete view of your user’s behavior and journey across various channels. For example, someone interested in your organization might first interact with your Facebook ad on their mobile phone, but then later go on their desktop, click the ad and donate (or convert in some other way). You’ll want to track this behavior to see if it’s part of a bigger trend or to gain other actionable insights and also to make sure the conversion isn’t credited to only the desktop interaction. To get started using Omni-channel Analytics, you’ll need to get a unified view of your customers across all of your properties by creating an event source group.
Inside FB Analytics
Once everything is setup and you log into Facebook Analytics, you’ll notice that the interface is broken down into two main sections: Activity and People.
Under “People” you’ll be able to see demographic information about your audience. You’ll also be able to see the types of devices they’re using, their Facebook app version, and how they log in to Facebook. Within the ‘Users Properties’ subheading you’ll be able to see a list of properties you’ve assigned to users for segmentation and breakdown purposes.
Under the “Activity” tab you’ll be able to do a deeper dive into your Facebook audience and how they’re interacting on your site and/or mobile app. You can setup different funnels to measure conversions for a specific set of actions, and cohorts to see how groups of users behavior over a certain time period. Facebook Analytics recently introduced ‘Journeys,’ which show customer behavior across multiple event sources (which you’ll need to have set up before you can fully utilize this data.)
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What Can I Measure in Facebook Analytics?
Similar to Google Analytics, there’s no one-size-fits all view for Facebook Analytics. There are many things you can measure, including:
- Similar metrics you’ll find in Facebook Insights, like Top reacted/shared/commented posts that can help you see what type of content resonate with your audience and drives them to convert
- Basic demographic breakdowns like age, gender, and country, that can be used for further segmentation for different campaigns you might want to run
- Funnels, which help you learn more about the conversion rate and completion time for any specific flow on your website that originate on Facebook
What exactly you decide to measure is dependent upon your organization or nonprofits larger mission tied to specific goals. We wrote a piece on how to set realistic fundraising goals for nonprofits that can help get you thinking about how you want to go about setting up Facebook Analytics and reporting on it.
Viola! You’ve finished the beginner’s guide to Facebook Analytics! As with most analytic platforms, practice makes perfect. While there is a little bit of a heavier lift to get everything properly installed, we promise it’s well worth the effort and will help you learn more about your audience and get you thinking more strategically.
Have more questions regarding Facebook Analytics? We have answers! Tweet us @wholewhale!