Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

nypost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 71 posts

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#41

Post by Ralfp »

saiya-jin wrote: post #34
Ralfp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it was considered dishonest way to count views since then too: https://medium.com/@hankgreen/is-facebook-lying-about-video-...

this is subjective evaluation, but they have been open about it and not lying on our faces. I get the big brother corp hate, but let's be reasonable and factual with it if we must go this way

> I get the big brother corp hate, but let's be reasonable and factual with it if we must go this way

I fail to see how calling FB out on cherrypicking criteria for counting conversion on videos is invalid because those criteria were made know ealier. This is IMHO alike of arguments over e-bay auctions doing "image scam" not being scam because you knew what was sold, after all it was there in auction's description. It's still dishonesty.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#42

Post by Mtinie »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14
shostack wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw sounds like they are opening up to independent third party review with viewability vendors like Integral. Now if only they'd let me use DCM tags to measure impression data and VTs.

DCM tags? VTs?

'DCM' = DoubleClick Campaign Manager tags

'VT', in this context, probably meant 'viewability tracking' or 'viewability targeting'.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#43

Post by DavidWanjiru »

The only anecdote I can give where I know for a fact Facebook ads have a real and clear ROI is people who build pages and groups to sell stuff exclusively on Facebook. The 3 or so people I've asked tell me the ads work. Of course Facebook fully determines the "doesn't work" outcome as well, so...

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#44

Post by eis »

smallgovt wrote: post #31
chenster wrote: post #29

Facebook Scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag Most of views, if not all, are from click farms. Stop wasting your money.

Assuming that click fraud is pervasive across all advertisers, the fact that it exists should have no bearing on your ROI as an advertiser. FBX is a RTB ad exchange. If only 10% of clicks are real, you simply bid 10% less than you would otherwise. You'll get the same ROI.

Your math doesn't work out. If 10% are real, you'd need to bid 90% less. And that also totally ignores that you are bidding against others and wont get clicks for 90% less.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#45

Post by Silhouette »

Good. Regardless of the details in this particular disclosure, the sooner these huge online companies are properly accountable for the money they take and the results they provide, the better it will be for everyone using them.

But remember kids, there are only two metrics that truly matter here: how much did you spend on Facebook ads, and how much revenue did you bring in as a result? Everything else, all the other metrics, all the different forms of advertising and different relationships Facebook invents in their world, these things are merely tools to optimise the ratio of the two metrics that count and they have value only to the extent that they do so.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#46

Post by cgvgffyv »

Mtinie wrote: post #42
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DCM tags? VTs?

'DCM' = DoubleClick Campaign Manager tags 'VT', in this context, probably meant 'viewability tracking' or 'viewability targeting'.

And people worry we won't have enough jobs when the robots take over.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#47

Post by dsr_ »

elgenie wrote: post #21
vthallam wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget about this article and consider the video metrics they inflated. They counted a 3 sec play as a video view and that's a big thing. 4 out of 220 is still a big number for a big company such as FB to be wrong at.

> They counted a 3 sec play as a video view and that's a big thing. 3+ seconds representing a single FB view has been the definition of a video view on FB since the metric became public.

It wouldn't be a problem if they discontinued autoplaying. The average FB user needs more than 3 seconds to find the X button.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#48

Post by ransom1538 »

smallgovt wrote: post #31
chenster wrote: post #29

Facebook Scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag Most of views, if not all, are from click farms. Stop wasting your money.

Assuming that click fraud is pervasive across all advertisers, the fact that it exists should have no bearing on your ROI as an advertiser. FBX is a RTB ad exchange. If only 10% of clicks are real, you simply bid 10% less than you would otherwise. You'll get the same ROI.

This is true. However, Facebook & Google deal mainly with 'dumb money', eg, ad money not analyzed or checked. Fraud doesn't affect people that know how to calculate ROI from a CPC campaign -- fraud affects "Coke" trying to run a large spend near the end of the quarter. Thus when these large companies ignore fraud or view inflation -- it does steal from ad companies that could have offered a real ROI and it steals from the client.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#49

Post by jarnix »

The article is wrong on a few things :

"It’s not difficult to measure engagement." => with video ads it's doable but it's always approximations when it comes to ad viewability (and for example, even if I can see an ad, it does not mean I'm watching it)

"Online advertising has a history of opaque reporting" => compare this to TV or radio

It's clearly an article against Facebook Ads, even if they are miscalculating things, it seems too biased to be taken seriously.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#50

Post by arbuge »

ransom1538 wrote: post #48
smallgovt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming that click fraud is pervasive across all advertisers, the fact that it exists should have no bearing on your ROI as an advertiser. FBX is a RTB ad exchange. If only 10% of clicks are real, you simply bid 10% less than you would otherwise. You'll get the same ROI.

This is true. However, Facebook & Google deal mainly with 'dumb money', eg, ad money not analyzed or checked. Fraud doesn't affect people that know how to calculate ROI from a CPC campaign -- fraud affects "Coke" trying to run a large spend near the end of the quarter. Thus when these large companies ignore fraud or view inflation -- it does steal from ad companies that could have offered a real ROI and it steals fro…

And as long as there are dumb clients out there spending vast sums of money indiscriminately without demanding to see results, there will be very little motivation to fix anything. Those clients are mentally still stuck in the TV age, where measuring results is hard and hoping for the best is the mindset.
Post reply on HN