Facebook Now Tracks Consumers’ Retail Purchases

Facebook is working with a data mining firm to show marketers that consumers who see ads on the social network actually buy advertised products. The company has purchased data on 70 million U.S. households from Datalogix, which culls information from loyalty cards and programs from more than 1,000 retailers, according to The Financial Times. Datalogix matches emails and data associated with those cards and programs with emails and information required to set up a Facebook account, according to the report. Using this information, the company can say whether a consumer purchased an item after seeing it advertised on Facebook.