In the UK I sometimes pay for a single Banana by card, 50p (0.6€).

When I do, I wonder if the highest carbon footprint was from the payment processing or the banana processing!

Without it you're not going to achieve much on Facebook as you need to feedback their system when a particular ad had an impact so that they can model the ad delivery accordingly and get you more converting users. Whatever your conversion is (viewing a page, registering, purchasing).

This is never going to end. This is true for criminal orgs but also legit businesses that despite regulations will mostly prioritize features to their customers over less tangible/monetizable value like hardened infrastructure and updated software.

Maybe I'm wrong and this cluster was left exposed for another reason, though.

1. You don't need to visit Facebook properties for them to link your activity to you. Unless you're a brand new user and they have never finger printed you...

2. Referrer might be in the pixel tracker, but there is way more to that, including product IDs, product costs, your stage in the funnel (have you Added to Cart but not Purchased?), product category, etc.

3. Everytime a Facebook owned property (or piece of: Like button, FB connect) is 'used' by a device you use, then you can be sure the relation between you and that Pixel call is made (ahem, improved).

Install the Chrome Extension Facebook Pixel Helper, and check what happens when you use an ecom site. You'll be amazed to see what is shared with Facebook (no PII though).

It's what is happening with Safari (and the other browsers). First, knowledgeable users are empowered to make a decision, then, that decision is rolled out automatically to the masses. E.g., https.

It's a matter of months, maybe a couple of years.

When this happens, what is happening with Safari now will look like a minor issue.

Hopefully they will still trigger a revolution of some sort... but this was predictable.

Maybe a bit too much? The entire SaaS industry will have to come up with new, better BS to sell now!

[1]https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/23/8830977/google-photos-sec...

Jira is the primary target of the article when it probably should be how people run agile projects, and how organizations tend to struggle findind the most efficient (software development) processes to reach their business goals.

This article could have been written for any similar Jira direct / indirect competitors like you mentioned, and the like of Asana, Trello (Atlassian), Aha, plain old Word, Excel and so many others.

But it wasn't, because it's just easier to pick the elephant in the room and have a go at what remains a great tool when used wisely. Kind of like pen and paper, after all.

Then, clients that help keeping lights on start asking for this and that.

And suddenly you end up providing a service with user level insights, cross-device tracking and advanced behavioral segments powered by ML because why not.

GA was simple, before.

Zenly has definitely an amazing team, but I don't think their tech is that valuable, at least it's not a valid shield against what Facebook could come up with if they feel they should.

Don't buy.

The first thing to understand is how different Facebook metrics are from your metrics.

Clicks on Facebook Ads are not visits, for instance, and the drop-off you're seeing is just normal.

Then, Facebook allows to track many events that can help you acquire the right people, including the one who stick, whether your product is B2B or C. There are 1.7bn people on Facebook, meaning getting the right ones is more than possible.

Experience is key, I work in the field and I can already tell you that your ad and bidding options were probably not good enough to get the right users. You basically asked Facebook to drive traffic to your website, never to generate long lasting customers... so to me, Facebook did what you asked for.

If you want to be successful on Facebook, you must use their Pixel, and optimize towards events that define success for you.

Place the Pixel on your site now, even if you don't plan to buy ads on Facebook right away. Set some standard events on key pages (e.g. purchasing a subscription or similar). This will help you for the next time, as you will be able to create lookalike audiences based on your best users. This audience, ANDed with some interests will allow you to target your ads to the right people. Combining this with a good ad, and a good bidding option (e.g. oCPM optimized towards subscriptions) will probably lead you to posting much better results on your blog next time.

Lookalike Audiences: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/164749007013531

oCPM: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/494633817315490

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