Facebook, dunnhumby Partner to Link Ads and Sales

Facebook has teamed up with Tesco's data business dunnhumby to tie ads on the social network in with off-line sales.

dunnhumby's newly launched 'Sales Impact' solution combines the firm's database of around seventeen million UK shoppers with Facebook's thirty-seven million 'active' UK users, FMCG brands can measure whether ad campaigns on Facebook drove in-store and online sales. Brands will also be able to use the solution to understand how different types of audiences respond to certain ads, how differing creative or ad products perform, and the ideal frequency of ads to be show to certain audiences.

To enable the two firms' datasets to be matched while respecting data privacy, the parnters have used marketing tech company Acxiom to develop a 'safe haven', where data cannot be attributed to an individual user or household. Eight FMCG companies participated in pilot testing the new solution, measuring ten well-known household brands from a range of categories including soft drinks, laundry detergent, confectionary, personal care and beers, wines and spirits.

Adam Smith (pictured), dunnhumby's Head of Media Strategy, comments: 'This is a crucial partnership for marketing measurement, because advertisers are asking for robust learnings on how digital investment is impacting actual sales to help inform budget optimization across channels. The scale of the dunnhumby and Facebook datasets means that we can offer, and have already seen, detailed insight on the performance of campaigns on Facebook. We're looking forward to using the Sales Impact solution to help a range of advertisers and building on our learnings to date'.

Web sites: www.facebook.com and www.dunnhumby.com .