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Facebook lured advertisers by inflating video ad-watch times: lawsuit

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Re: Facebook lured advertisers by inflating video ad-watch times: lawsuit

#11

Post by kawsper »

codedokode wrote: post #9
jsemrau wrote: post #2

I have mentioned that several times before, but I always believed that FB's but also Google's metrics are at least borderline fraudulent. Inflated by bots and apps that simulate DAUs and clicks. I only have anecdotal evidence from Google, where I was frequently charged over my campaign limit on ad clicks that I could never validate on my own site. I believe FB is same.

Bots exist, but is it Google's fault? Fake views are often bought by site owners wanting to get more profit.

Clicks should at least show up on the server the ad is linking to, bot or not.

Re: Facebook lured advertisers by inflating video ad-watch times: lawsuit

#12

Post by cortesoft »

codedokode wrote: post #9
jsemrau wrote: post #2

I have mentioned that several times before, but I always believed that FB's but also Google's metrics are at least borderline fraudulent. Inflated by bots and apps that simulate DAUs and clicks. I only have anecdotal evidence from Google, where I was frequently charged over my campaign limit on ad clicks that I could never validate on my own site. I believe FB is same.

Bots exist, but is it Google's fault? Fake views are often bought by site owners wanting to get more profit.

Right, but they seem to be really good at not paying site owners who do that...

Re: Facebook lured advertisers by inflating video ad-watch times: lawsuit

#16

Post by village-idiot »

m_ke wrote: post #10
village-idiot wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally suspect that’s why Twitter has failed to deal with their bot problem, fixing it would make their usage metrics plumit.

Also the reason why reddit went through the redesign. It lets them hide ads in the infinite scroll and pretend that people looked at them.

I really can’t help but wonder if our entire online ecosystem is built entirely on fraudulent ad sales.

Re: Facebook lured advertisers by inflating video ad-watch times: lawsuit

#17

Post by scythe »

cortesoft wrote: post #12
codedokode wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bots exist, but is it Google's fault? Fake views are often bought by site owners wanting to get more profit.

Right, but they seem to be really good at not paying site owners who do that...

You hear about it when someone gets caught. You don't hear about it when they don't. Who would ever say, publicly, "Look! I've been faking out AdSense for years and getting away with it!"?

Re: Facebook lured advertisers by inflating video ad-watch times: lawsuit

#18

Post by gk1 »

Pretty sure Twitter has an ad metrics problem too. As I wrote last year:

> When I ran a Twitter Ads campaign for one of my clients, within two days I noticed that Google Analytics was reporting nearly 100% fewer visitors from the campaign than Twitter was reporting clicks. That is, if Twitter counted (and charged for) 100 clicks, Google Analytics showed fewer than 5 visitors from the campaign.

> The support team at Twitter Ads told me they are legitimate clicks, but people are probably clicking the image in the tweet to expand the tweet or image, not expecting it to take them to a different site. As soon as they realize they’ve just clicked an outgoing link, they go back or close the tab before our site and Google Analytics script even has time to load.

https://www.gkogan.co/blog/how-ad-campaigns-fail/

Re: Facebook lured advertisers by inflating video ad-watch times: lawsuit

#19

Post by dragonsky67 »

village-idiot wrote: post #16
m_ke wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the reason why reddit went through the redesign. It lets them hide ads in the infinite scroll and pretend that people looked at them.

I really can’t help but wonder if our entire online ecosystem is built entirely on fraudulent ad sales.

Shhh, don't say that out loud.

I love the fact that I get internet content for nothing as it's paid for by big advertisers who are to stupid to realise that I never purchase anything that they advertise.

Re: Facebook lured advertisers by inflating video ad-watch times: lawsuit

#20

Post by hammock »

andreygrehov wrote: post #6
hammock wrote: post #3

Facebook could still be doing it... There is no third party auditor of their ad analytics. And you can't create one either, because you can't scrape a walled garden like Facebook the way you can scrape the internet. The only thing that's true is the data you are measuring yourself, which would be web traffic, conversions etc. Although it's not inconceivable that a fraudulent actor would send bit traffic with (e.g. Fa…

I wonder if you can reproduce the inflation by ultra-targeting a number of hand picked users.

You can create "custom audiences" by uploading a list of email addresses, it has to be a minimum size group of 100 I believe.

However it's unlikely that you'd see too much as I have to imagine most of the inflation is happening in the broader targeting efforts. "males 18-31 with these interests" etc.

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