When you’re the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room, you can pretty much do whatever you want, whenever you want, without any explanation.

Facebook, by far the largest social media platform in the world, has decided to do just that with its useful Facebook Analytics feature.

With no explanation, it has announced it will shutter its Analytics tool by June 30. In the intervening weeks, they’ve also announced they’re dropping Audience Insights by July 1. Facebook Attribution will be gone this coming August.

What happened?

The official announcement from Facebook reads:

“We are retiring Facebook Analytics as part of an initiative to consolidate business tools. Even though this tool is going away, we continue to invest in measurement products that provide insights and data analysis capabilities.  This does not affect the Insights sections of Facebook Pages and Instagram Profiles.”

Facebook saw fit not to reveal the reasons it took this step. So now observers have been left to guess at the motive.

Most have speculated that it’s related to Apple’s iOS 14’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy, which debuted this spring. The new Apple operating system allows users to block Facebook and other platforms and apps from tracking and collecting their Internet usage.  

This loss of cross-platform data tracking means Facebook can no longer track activity on other platforms.

Why this matters

Analytics are a crucial tool to understanding how and whether your social media marketing is effective.

The Facebook analytics tool is—or was—better than Google analytics, because it was able to cross devices. It allowed you to see real-time statistics about visitors to your Facebook pages. This included who’s viewing them, from which sources, and—most important—how they’re engaging with your posts.

You could also find out which fans are most active, their demographic metrics, and audience growth.

Now this information, if it’s even available, will be harder to access and buried within Facebook’s replacement tools.

Save your data now

Before we explore alternatives, we want to emphasize the importance of downloading all of your Facebook Analytics data to your desktop before the end of this month.

Facebook’s announcement included these instructions for saving reports, exporting charts, and tables:

“To export data into a CSV file from Facebook Analytics on your desktop, click the arrow in the top-right corner of each chart or table.”

What to use instead

Facebook is steering their business users to their other business tools “that can help you understand your advertising, presences, and activities on Facebook and Instagram.”

The main tool they’re offering is Facebook Business Suite. There, you can manage all of your Facebook marketing and advertising activities. It’s available for both desktop and mobile devices.

Facebook says this tool “enables you to manage your Facebook and Instagram business accounts and can show you detailed insights about your audience, content, and trends.”

The Insights section of Business Suites provides metrics, trends, and visual reports that Facebook says “can make it easier to understand which Facebook Page and Instagram strategies work well and where to make improvements.” They say this will help you optimize the way you spend your time and resources.

Business Suite is so far available only to small business accounts, and may not yet be available in your region.

Two other Facebook tools are: 

  • Ads Manager. Allows you to view, make changes, and see results of all your Facebook campaigns, ad sets, and ads.
  • Events Manager. Helps you set up and manage Facebook Business tools like Facebook pixel and the Conversions API. It also reports actions taken on your website, and in your app and your physical store.

The one thing you can count on when it comes to social media platforms is that they never stand still. The changes are nearly constant, and vital to the success of your business. We can help you adjust to these new Facebook changes and learn to make the most of them.

So be sure to consult our social media management experts to let us keep you abreast of the latest innovations in the social media world. We’ll help you build your brand, increase engagement rates, and boost channel traffic.