Why didn’t Facebook develop a Tracking Software?

The obvious question

Every media buyer knows the struggle when it comes to online advertising. We’ve already talked a bunch about this topic on this blog – there’s currently a huge plague of data loss and therefore a rise in ad spend which is a detriment to a lot of companies out there.

So shouldn’t the obvious question be:

Why didn’t Facebook go ahead and develop a tracking software like OneTrack?

They already spent $1 billion on Instagram and another $19 billion on WhatsApp.

So why not just go ahead and spent a few millions on developing a tracking software that would benefit them in terms of data?

They are a data driven company after all, so wouldn’t that make a lot sense?

A couple of million dollars wouldn’t even hurt them at this point, especially with the benefit in mind that could come with it – people wanting to advertise more on Facebook, since it would become a lot more affordable.

So why don’t they?

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Facebook's hidden agenda

One guess might be that while there is massive data loss out there and people struggle to get good quality leads from their advertising efforts, they still advertise on Facebook and spend more money on their ads to get more leads.

And more ad spend simply means more money for Facebook.

So in the short term, this might profit Facebook a lot.

And since this isn’t just a Facebook problem but something that occurs on all advertising platforms, this might even be an unexpected longterm profit for them.

Especially, because big companies that can afford to throw out a couple hundreds of thousands of dollars for advertising will most likely not stop at a price increase.

Some people might even argue that this is Facebook's hidden agenda, but we also know that a good amount of smaller companies decreased their ad spend on Facebook or shut everything off entirely, so we can't really say how much more money Facebook is actually generating.

And to be honest, we personally don’t think that this is the main reason why Facebook hasn’t made an effort to develop a tracking software like OneTrack, yet.

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Every page is unique, which means more headache

‍As so many things in tech, tracking is a rather complicated matter.

Facebook is a one size fits all solution. Tracking on the other hand, well, not so much.

Especially, not the way we do it.

OneTrack plugs into every part of your business. And when we say “every part of your business” we really mean it.

We integrate your landing page, every step of your funnel up to your payment provider, your e-mail system, all of your ad platforms, your CRM, your integrations and so much more.

All of this is data, lots of it.

But the most important part is that every data set of each customer is completely unique. And that's where Facebook's problems start.

Bear in mind, Facebook can’t just plug into all of this data so easily. But for the sake of simplicity, let’s just assume they could. What would actually happen?

They would have tons of data that they not only have to manage but also provide support for.

Every company has different landing pages, payment providers, CRM systems and integrations. Everything is individual. Everything is unique.

And the amount of work that would go into managing all of this individual data compared to the return it could bring Facebook is just not attractive enough for them.

And that's not only because of all the work that has to go into it. I mean, Facebook has more than 50,000 employees and more than enough money to grow.

But the reason why it's most likely very unattractive for Facebook to spend a large amount of work and money into tracking is because the market is just not big enough for them at the moment.

There are still only a handful of tracking companies out there, which doesn't say anything about the need on the market, but to a multi-billion-dollar company, it's just too small of a fish right now.

But of course, there's more reasons why Facebook hasn't yet claimed a spot on the tracking market. We already said that everything is unique. But that also means that most of the customer's poblems are going to unique as well.

Just think about it, if a customer has a problem, it is also going to be very individual since you need to track every button and event on the page. Now let's assume that the customer changes the page and puts a new button on the page. Suddenly, that button and all of the clicks that go with it, aren't tracked anymore. All of those little changes need further investigation.

And that’s where one of Facebook’s biggest problem lies.

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‍Facebook has support problems

If you’ve ever had a technical or billing problem, you will most likely have noticed that it is a dreadful experience to get support from Facebook. Really dreadful.

You will find a ton of help articles on Facebook’s help page but you won’t be able to speak to anyone personally for an individual problem.

Unless you have inside connections or have spent hundreds of lost hours until you finally reach someone that actually answers you, you’re pretty much lost whenever you have an individual problem.

In short, Facebook has a massive support problem as is.

(Because again, Facebook is a one size fits all solution.)

So imagine the amount of support that would be needed for an individual tracking solution like OneTrack.

For them, it’s just not possible. Not at this time and maybe not even in the future, unless they specifically set a focus on reforming their support model entirely.

But that’s not what Facebook is interested in, at least not right now.

So what are they interested in? Buying?

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‍Will Facebook buy a tracking software?

‍If you’ve noticed the trend, Facebook likes to buy finished platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram rather than developing something new.

So is it likely that Facebook might be interested in buying a software like OneTrack in a couple of years?

Well, we can’t say for sure. It might be interesting for them if they intend to fix their underlying support problem.

But only time will tell at this point…

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What can you do now?

Luckily, you don’t have to wait that long and rely on Facebook to develop a tracking software that helps you to reduce your ad spend and increase the quality of your leads.

That’s what OneTrack is here for.

We’ve spent the last couple of years developing our software even further just so you don’t have to worry about all of the new regulations and updates that make tracking more and more complicated.

All you have to do, is let us do our jobs so you can fully focus on your advertising.

Try it out yourself and you’ll be surprised about how good it works! Why wait? Schedule your free consultation today and stop wasting your money on ads that don’t work anymore:
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‍https://www.one-track.io/pricing