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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

#161

Post by sharkmerry »

munchbunny wrote: post #160
sharkmerry wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would they want to solve this problem? It would improve their targeting but also lower their advertising base significantly. Ive used a shopping cart product for about 6 years, I still get ads for their company on my phone. No offline to online issue there and they still dont solve it.

Do you mean the online to offline issue? It's a pretty big thing right now because it's actually two issues: (1) is being more efficient with ad buying, and (2) is knowing whether your online ads are actually getting people to come in and buy stuff. Hypothetically, let's say current ROI is $1.10 for every $1 spent. We stop spending for people who already bought a diamond. Our ROI might go up to $1.12 for every $1 spe…

>> Hypothetically, let's say current ROI is $1.10 for every $1 spent. We stop spending for people who already bought a diamond. Our ROI might go up to $1.12 for every $1 spent. That means the ability to avoid targeting people who already bought a ring is worth $0.02 for every $1 we spend. A company comes and says "for $0.01 on every dollar, we'll give you that ability". Of course you'd take it.

But this is only if you are looking at 1 user right? The advertiser is making the call between the incremental income from better tracking vs the extra income from more impressions.

It seems as if they are choosing the extra income from more, but worse impressions. If they are not solving the online ad to online purchase, which in my mind, they arent doing because it limits the advertising base, which limits ROI more than targeting

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

#162

Post by IAmGraydon »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #70
IAmGraydon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who do you suspect is the bad actor and what is their motivation?

Facebook. More money.

I don’t follow. How would FB profit from showing you an inflated number of plays? Are you paying them for plays?

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

#163

Post by xevb3k »

lmkg wrote: post #142
xevb3k wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you (and why do people in general) not use server logs for analytics of this sort? Seems like it might show requests that failed to get to the point of processing the analytics JS as well as those running adblockers.

Your logs may be split across different services, and some of those services may be difficult to access. For example, if you're using a CDN, many hits won't go to your server. Off-the-shelf analytics solutions have a ton of heuristics and in-house knowledge built up over decades that help deal with inherently janky data. For example: over half of all internet traffic these days is bots. All modern analytics solutions…

Thank you for your detailed answer.

I understand the reasons better, it’s unfortunate and slightly depressing to me that the community hasn’t been able to come up with a better solution. Particularly as the google analytics approaches involves giving data up to a 3rd party for processing.

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

#164

Post by tripzilch »

xevb3k wrote: post #114
gk1 wrote: post #18

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 T…

Why do you (and why do people in general) not use server logs for analytics of this sort? Seems like it might show requests that failed to get to the point of processing the analytics JS as well as those running adblockers.

> Why do you (and why do people in general) not use server logs for analytics of this sort?

It almost seems that the tracking of users has to be looped through as many third parties as possible.

I don't know, whatever, it makes it easier to block.

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

#165

Post by tripzilch »

lmkg wrote: post #142
xevb3k wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you (and why do people in general) not use server logs for analytics of this sort? Seems like it might show requests that failed to get to the point of processing the analytics JS as well as those running adblockers.

Your logs may be split across different services, and some of those services may be difficult to access. For example, if you're using a CDN, many hits won't go to your server. Off-the-shelf analytics solutions have a ton of heuristics and in-house knowledge built up over decades that help deal with inherently janky data. For example: over half of all internet traffic these days is bots. All modern analytics solutions…

> Google Analytics has a free version.

So did you ever stop to ask yourself, if it's free then who exactly is the product? And did they consent to be being sold?

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

#166

Post by tripzilch »

knicholes wrote: post #79
gk1 wrote: post #18

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 T…

There's always going to be a ~30% dropoff between clicks and analytics because people click on ads, realize they've done it, and either push back or close the popped-up page. It's even higher for video. I work for a company that is a DSP, ad server, and analytics, and I've been investigating these click discrepancies. It's surprising how many places this can all go wrong. It gets especially worse when there are redir…

> It gets especially worse when there are redirect after redirect to other ad servers

Yes this is very wrong, but not because your tracking loses accuracy.

You realize that this sort of careless trail you send your users along is exactly how people get served malware from ads right? I mean you admit yourself you lose track of where they end up so who knows what they get served or redirected to.

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

#167

Post by ionised »

emilsedgh wrote: post #73
cm2012 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a direct response marketer, and only manage ad campaigns that provably generate revenue. Over $10,000,000 spend across more than a dozen companies. I can tell you that for many products Facebook absolutely outperforms Google.

For sure there are people who are careful with their spending and smart with their marketing. But there's been too many reports of bot activity, fake likes, fake followers in those platforms that I'm sure many companies and marketing departments fall for them. Not everyone does as good job as you Im sure. Google, as far as I know, was never caught in dark ui patterns or fake number reports to generate revenue. They d…

> Google, as far as I know, was never caught in dark ui patterns

Are you serious? Google uses dark patterns all the time.

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

#170

Post by tripzilch »

andruby wrote: post #113
cm2187 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, I thought something like 40% of browsers run adblockers, and possibly a disproportionate amount in your demographics. That could explain the bulk if the difference.

Wow, that would be a lot more than I would expect. Did you have a source for this number?

I personally try to make sure that nobody in my circles, techie or otherwise, surfs without an ad blocker. This irresponsible 3rd party advertising bullshit has got to stop.

We have people in this very thread openly talking about deploying third party ad scripts that send their users on chains of redirects that they admit to losing track of, and the only thing they see wrong with this is that they can't accurately track their users, not that they very probably sent their users down whatever rabbit/shithole serving malware, miners or drive-by downloaders.

Online advertising is a disgusting wasteland and many people coming out of the woodworks in this thread, working in the industry, are knowingly, unknowingly or usually willingly blindly working to create this situation as it is. Dollar bills make for very good blinders, especially if it's your living.

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