Earlier this week, the head of Facebook analytics,
Ken Rudin, said that the company may begin capturing even more data about how users behave on the social site. The data collected could include minute interactions or more specialized information than has previously been tracked.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Rudin told a conference in New York that the company would potentially be collecting data on, for example, cursor movements and hovering:
The social network may start collecting data on minute user interactions with its content, such as how long a user’s cursor hovers over a certain part of its website, or whether a user’s newsfeed is visible at a given moment on the screen of his or her mobile phone, Facebook analytics chief Ken Rudin said Tuesday during an interview.
Facebook is testing various scenarios. It’s unclear whether any of them will be implemented, however. The additional behavioral data, including “hover” metrics, could be used for both site design and ultimately ad-targeting purposes.
Even if adopted it’s unlikely that any of these micro-metrics would find their way into explicit ad targeting or analytics from a marketer perspective. Quite the opposite: Facebook has been trying to streamline its advertising programs. Along those lines the company recently introduced a simplified ad creation flow using a marketing objectives-based framework.
The company has been criticized for not delivering more clarity around ROI to marketers. Accordingly Facebook is trying to simplify and offer new ROI tools that make advertiser value more obvious and transparent.
Earlier this week Facebook reported a better than expected Q3, with $2.02 billion in top-line revenue. Ad revenues were $1.8 billion, 49 percent of which came from mobile.
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