Justin

This guest post is by Justin McGill, founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]), a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients.

Facebook has long been a thorn in the side of marketing executives who understand the necessity of creating exposure on the popular networking site but who cringe at the thought of being unable to effectively measure ROI through traditional web analytics. While Facebook itself offered an analytics service, it was extremely limited in terms of what information could be gathered, restricting data to items such as demographic and geographic statistics or post comment numbers. All that is about to change.

Webtrends recently introduced the first analytics system for Facebook that provided detailed information without operating through cumbersome image-based workarounds. With the Webtrends system, marketers can monitor custom tab interaction, link sharing, ad effectiveness and conversions, flash and custom apps. The company touted the ability to compare customer activity on Facebook and the effect those interactions were having on other venues side by side as a key aspect of their service. Quantifying customer activity on a given marketing rollout has been crucial to making the most of advertising dollars for many online businesses, and the importance of the Webtrends announcement cannot be underestimated.