Facebook and Nielsen partner to track social networking advertising efficacy

Facebook, Nielsen to partner on ad stats [CNET News]

This morning, Nielsen and Facebook announced a new partnership for tracking users' impressions of advertisements on the popular social networking site. Calling it "BrandLift," it will use opt-in polls off the main page of the Facebook site to determine the effectiveness of social networking advertisements. According to the two companies, this polling is set to measure "aided awareness, ad recall, message association, brand favorability, and purchase consideration."

Facebook recently added its 300 millionth user worldwide, but there still are questions about the efficacy of the advertisements that appear on the site. As this article points out, putting metrics on the value of their advertisements is important to Facebook in growing the number of mainstream advertisers that purchase ads on the site. The partnership with Nielsen promises to add credibility to Facebook's advertising metrics.

The polling is set to begin with a limited number of advertisers on Facebook in the U.S. this week, eventually ramping up to "hundreds" of BrandLift polls in the coming months.