Toronto-based boutique marketing agency Refresh Partners has launched a tool that lets Facebook application developers get analytic and demographic info on their users. Until yesterday’s release of the Refresh Analytics free tool, the company says Facebook app developers have had access to very little information about their active user demos and cannot track the impact of new features or advertising.
The tool can be easily integrated into any Facebook app. It tracks users across 13 demographic and six interest categories: geography, gender, age, marital status, music, books, etc. The info is collected in aggregate to protect user privacy and respect Facebook rules. A daily snapshot of 1,000 users is provided, and historical reports can be generated for the past month, six months or two years.
‘We’re excited about the opportunities that Refresh Analytics creates for Facebook application developers to better understanding their users and how that information can positively affect their advertising revenue,’ says Refresh Partners co-founder Roy Pereira. ‘Over the last six months, our clients have benefited from this information, and now any Facebook application will have the same access.’
Refresh Analytics has partnered with Marin County, California-based Joyent, a hosting provider, to help the Refresh app meet the demands of Facebook developers, effectively giving Refresh a scalable and reliable platform to grow. Joyent reports the largest Facebook app running through it reaches one billion page views per month. Joyent VP platform evangelism Rod Boothby called Refresh Analytics ‘a useful tool to help developers manage the process during exponential growth.’
One application that was involved in the Refresh Analytics testing program reported great results. Toronto-based WedSnap founder Kevin Lister says the tool helped his company’s app, Weddingbook (300,000 registered users), go after the right advertisers. ‘For a traditional brand advertiser, this demographic information is not only helpful, but necessary. Any application that doesn’t have insight into their demographics will not be able to escape the commodity-level CPMs offered by most ad networks.’
