Measurement for Games

Overview

To build the best possible experience for your players, it is important to track how they are interacting with your app and how this changes over time. To make informed decisions and design new features in your game it is important to test, measure, and learn from effective instrumentation. In this guide we will cover important tools you can use to measure your game like App Events and referral tracking.

Instrumentation with App Events

In order to measure X you will need to be logging events with an instrumentation solution. One such solution is App Events, which unlocks some powerful marketing automation.

Adding support for App Events is simple when using the Facebook SDK for your platform, or if you are server inclined you can use our App Events API. Integration is lightweight and in the simplest case, each event only takes adding a single line of code. These events can be one of several predefined events or a custom event you define for your app.

In addition to common events shared across most genres of apps, there are 3 predefined events for games:

To get started visit the Facebook App Events documentation and follow the directions for your relevant platform. Find best practices and vertical-specific examples on the App Events Best Practices Guide.

Referral Tracking

For games on Facebook.com, players can reach your game through a number of surfaces. It can be helpful to measure these traffic sources through the use of referral parameters. When a player navigates to your game from a location on Facebook.com, like bookmarks, Feed, or a person's Profile, a query string parameter fb_source will be appended to the URL. You can use this parameter to measure incoming traffic to your game.

Parameter Values

Navigation

This list refers to the set of fb_source parameters returned when a user clicks on the bookmarks or recommendations while playing a game on Facebook.com (i.e. from apps.facebook.com/*).

Sidebar navigation

This list refers to the set of fb_source parameters returned when a user clicks on the bookmarks on the Facebook sidebar. The sidebar is shown to a selection of targeted, active app users and appears on the right hand side of every page, if the user's screen size is wide enough to support it. This unit, if enabled for the viewing user, appears above the chat and ticker sections of their sidebar.

Homepage Bookmarks

This list refers to the set of fb_source parameters returned when a user clicks on the bookmarks on the user's homepage.

Homepage Right side column

This list refers to the set of fb_source parameters returned when a user clicks on the links on the right side column of the user's homepage.

Search

There is a search bar is present on many pages within Facebook. If a user reached your app from the Facebook search bar, we will add the search fb_source parameter.

Notifications

There are a variety of ways a user can be sent a notification about your app, see [Game Requests] and [App Notifications]. If a user reached your app from the Facebook notification tray, we will add the notification fb_source parameter.

App Center

This list refers to the set of fb_source parameters returned when a user installs apps from the App Center.

Feed

Feed stories are surfaced in many places around the site. If a user reached your app through one of these stories, we will add the feed fb_source parameter.

Timeline

Facebook users can choose to show what Apps and Games they use on their Facebook profiles. If a user reached your app from the timeline of a Facebook user, we will add on the timeline fb_source parameter.

Referral Tracking (sub-categories)

While fb_source defines broad referral categories, you may look into fbs parameters that refer to specific UI elements.

App Center

Facebook Web (Canvas)

Bookmarks