Do you usually examine the URL address of a web page you visit? Have you noticed that something new appears in some URLs when you click an ad coming from the Facebook’s network?
Even though you use an ad blocker, there are still some ways to bypass the cookie policy and laws by some companies. Probably the parameter fbclid is determined to do exactly the same thing.
We are not talking about the well-known Facebook Pixel here. The parameter fbclid is something totally new of which many users are interested and even more – they are afraid.
Is there something common between gclid and fbclid parameters?
Not at all. Only the situation is pretty similar given to the fact that some time ago Google started adding the gclid parameter to transfer data between Google Analytics and Google Adsense.
So what is fbclid – the new Facebook parameter?
Facebook users have noticed a new fbclid tag, which appeared in the URL of publications in the social network. For the first time, the parameter was noticed in the middle of October and made lot of people wondering what the purpose of fbclid is.
Fbclid can be decrypted as a Facebook Click Identifier (“Facebook Click Identifier”) by analogy with Google Click Identifier – GCLID. The GCLID parameter is used to exchange data between Google Analytics and Google AdSense, like we already mentioned.
Thus, it can be assumed that fbclid is used to exchange data with
Facebook Analytics, but is it true?
Another assumption from users claimed on Reddit pages is that the parameter is intended to bypass the Apple 2.0 smart tracking system,which the company introduced to protect Safari from cross-site tracking of Facebook and other sites. In early October, Facebook just announced the launch of the main cookies for cross-site tracking of data from Safari and Mozilla Firefox.
It is possible that in the future this parameter will help to get more complete statistics on Facebook and expand the pages insights which is great for advertising purposes.
However, while there is no official information, it is recommended to add the fbclid parameter to the exceptions in the “View Settings” in Google Analytics. The new tracking mechanism might be some sort of first party pixel implementation, but a lot of people are reporting that pages with the fbclid parameter are not redirecting properly to the right destinations.
What is fbclid designed to do – help you understand the effectiveness of
your ads or identify where your ad traffic is going and coming from?
Only time will tell.
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