The marketing world has been busy digesting the news that Facebook will eliminate its Facebook Analytics platform at the end of June 2021, in a bid to consolidate the social giant’s various business tools.
Facebook Analytics was originally positioned as a way for marketers to aggregate data from key Facebook components (your business page, Facebook pixel, ads, etc.) and unearth insights about the user journey across Facebook and Instagram. It attracted its share of fans, but also struggled to gain wider traction among marketing teams, who were already well-invested in other analytics platforms.
For many of our clients just hearing about Facebook’s decision to discontinue Facebook Analytics, perhaps the biggest question is, “Should we care about this?”
In short: not really.
One of the reasons that has been suggested for Facebook’s decision is the fact that all of the data available through its analytics platform is easily accessible through other services, such as Google Analytics and Facebook’s own Business Suite. If your analytics are handled by a full-service marketing agency like Informatics, it’s likely that your team is already running your analytics through other platforms, making this change a non-event.
If you personally rely on Facebook Analytics to manage social data for, say, your small business or organization, you will have until June 30 to access and download your existing reports, charts, tables and other insights. Note that this change does not affect the Insights sections of Facebook Pages and Instagram Profiles.
Facebook is recommending that those users transition to its other business tools, including Business Suite (which may or may not be available to you yet), Ads Manager and Events Manager, to manage your data. You can find more about the change and those platforms here.
The bigger question: Apple’s iOS change
Arguably, the more important change impacting Facebook now revolves around Apple’s recent launch of iOS 14.5, which will allow users to prohibit certain data collection and sharing with apps like Facebook unless they explicitly opt in.
Facebook has warned that Apple’s decision will limit both “ads personalization and performance reporting” on the web and in its apps, although iOS 14.5’s ultimate impact on advertisers’ ability to target advertising remains to be seen.
Look for more about the Apple’s iOS update and how it may affect your advertising efforts in a future Informatics blog post, and reach out in the meantime with all of your analytics-related questions—we love data!
