Facebook has created its own analytics tool for Messenger bots. With more than 34,000 Messenger bots on the market since their April 2016 debut, Facebook is rolling out an analytics tool that will detail to Messenger bot makers how people are interacting with their bots and cross-reference those stats with people’s Facebook profile data, in hopes of improving people’s experiences with those bots. Developers, including brands and publishers, will be able to use the new branch of Facebook Analytics for Apps in the same way they use Facebook’s analytics platform to track how people are interacting with their websites and mobile apps, and will be able to connect those people across the three platforms. Twist laid out an example of how an e-commerce brand could use Facebook’s analytics tool to understand the in-Messenger purchase cycle. While Messenger bot makers will still be able to use third-party analytics tools to track their bots’ performance — including in tandem with Facebook’s analytics tool — “obviously we’d recommend Facebook Analytics for Apps at this point,” said Twist. If bot developers use Facebook’s analytics tool, that’s more data Facebook is able to collect about what people are doing on its service, which it can then apply to the ads and organic content it shows those people. Setting aside Facebook’s own interests, Twist made the case for why the company’s analytics tool serves bot makers’ interests. In addition to incorporating Facebook user data to give bot makers a deep look at their bots’ audiences and offering that look for free, the bot analytics tool can be linked to Facebook’s mobile app and web analytics tools. As a result, a brand can see how many people interacted with its Messenger bot then later bought something from its desktop site, or what types of people checked out a product in its mobile app then tried to get customer service support through its Messenger bot. “We can actually tell, in more cases than any other platform, if two devices are actually one user,” Twist said.
With more than 34,000 Messenger bots on the market since their
April 2016
debut, Facebook is rolling out an analytics tool that will
detail to Messenger bot makers how people are interacting with
their bots and cross-reference those stats with people’s Facebook
profile data, in hopes of improving people’s experiences with those
bots.
Developers, including brands and publishers, will be able to use
the new branch of Facebook Analytics for Apps in the same way they
use Facebook’s analytics platform to track how people are
interacting with their websites and mobile apps, and will be able
to connect those people across the three platforms. And like the
other analytics products, the bot analytics tool will be available
for free.
For example, a Messenger bot maker will be able to see how many
people opted to stop receiving messages from a Messenger bot, break
down that audience into segments according to their Facebook
profiles — like their age, gender, job title, relationship status,
household income, purchase behavior and whether they’re fans of a
brand’s Facebook page — and see which message was sent before the
people opted to block the bot, according to Facebook Analytics for
Apps product manager Josh Twist. Facebook is aggregating and
anonymizing the data so that developers won’t be able to see how
specific individuals are interacting or their profile data, he
added.
Messenger bot makers will be able to specify which events they
want Facebook’s analytics tool to track, be they certain types of
messages, specific individual messages or categories of content
included in messages. As a result bot makers will be able to see,
for example, whether messages that include calls to action for
people to click on do better with certain types of people and worse
with others, and then they can use that insight to segment what
types of messages to send to which audiences.
Twist laid out an example of how an e-commerce brand could use
Facebook’s analytics tool to understand the in-Messenger purchase
cycle.
“If your bot has a purchase stage, you can send a purchase
event, send over the value [of the purchase], and then one of the
cool things you can do is segment based on behavior. So you can
segment the people who made a purchase or the top 10% of…
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