Marketing on Facebook can bring great rewards — or a lousy ROI. What’s the secret to Facebook marketing? Facebook is just about as big as the Internet: it has 2 billion users worldwide out of an estimated 3.8 billion Internet users. That’s more than half of all Internet users, and in some places, these numbers get even higher. In the US, for example, 79% of Internet-connected adults use Facebook. Marketing on Facebook is not new; an estimated 3 million businesses advertise on it, and 94% of marketers incorporate the social network into their efforts. But…

In this case, the but is that many businesses struggle to get a decent ROI on their Facebook marketing efforts. In total, 34% of the marketers in the above-mentioned report said that Facebook wasn’t a very effectual marketing channel for them. And according to Weebly, 62% of the small business owners who used Facebook ads said these weren’t really reaching their target audiences.

Admittedly, there is a learning curve involved in Facebook marketing, just as there is with any new technology or platform. And there are many ways you can customize your reach on FB, including geographic area, device type, operating system, and customer interests, behaviors, and demographics. So the potential is there. Do you have the data to make it work?

In Facebook Marketing, Success Is All About Your Data

Facebook certainly provides huge amounts of data on each active user. But there are other data sources — such as your own CRM data, customer data, and survey data — that Facebook doesn’t have. Do you use this data in your Facebook marketing efforts?

It’s a worthwhile question. Precisely because there’s so much Facebook data available, marketers may not think to connect what they already know about a customer — i.e. their company’s proprietary customer data — with the individual’s social media presence. This is where advanced analytical techniques come into play; by matching up customers with their Facebook profiles, you can learn a lot about their tastes, views, and preferences. And you can bring targeted messages to their attention more easily.

If you want to take Facebook marketing to the next level, don’t rely solely on Facebook’s data troves and ad-targeting options. What people put on their profiles is only part of what you need to understand about them; the rest resides in your company’s data stores. To be truly effective at Facebook marketing, you need to combine data from all available sources.