Who says it isn’t doing enough for marketers? Facebook says it is now testing out a data collection technique that will track the movements of your cursor across its platform.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook’s head of analytics Ken Rudin said the technology aims to track what parts of the website users spend the most time hovering on, whether on a PC or mobile. He said this could give Facebook a wide variety of analytics to be used for product development and better, more targeted advertising.
New types of data Facebook may collect include “did your cursor hover over that ad … and was the newsfeed in a viewable area,” Mr. Rudin said. “It is a never-ending phase. I can’t promise that it will roll out. We probably will know in a couple of months,”
This brings up many privacy concerns, with critics saying this new data gathering technique is too invasive, although it isn’t too far removed from all the data-mining Facebook is doing already. And with the effectiveness of display ads being openly questioned by research firms like Forrester, will data on where your cursor is hovering even be worth the extra investment? Plus with the big shift to mobile, there isn’t much cursor data, it’s all mostly clicks, which Facebook already has.
Privacy concerns aside, how much use will this data be for marketers. A cursor hovering over an ad still isn’t a click, or a guaranteed sales conversion.
