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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

#171

Post by village-idiot »

munchbunny wrote: post #155
village-idiot wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what’s shocking is how awful a lot of the targeting is. Even before I started getting super aggressive about blocking all trackers, I regularly got fed ads for products and services I didn’t need, and in languages I couldn’t understand. The most confusing is that I keep getting ads from the same company I bought my wedding ring at. Like, I’m not divorced, and I don’t need a second. Why would they re-target me…

> The most confusing is that I keep getting ads from the same company I bought my wedding ring at. Like, I’m not divorced, and I don’t need a second. Why would they re-target me? I'm guessing there's a good reason for this. Did you visit the company's website? And did you buy in person? If so, you're seeing the online to offline problem: specifically, it's hard to correlate your online data with your offline data, so…

I purchased once from them half a decade ago online, I still receive ads for them now.

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

#172

Post by knicholes »

tripzilch wrote: post #166
knicholes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They're the ones sending themselves down that trail by serving their ads through various third party ad servers.

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

#173

Post by lawnchair_larry »

mattlondon wrote: post #93
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do youbmean by that? When I buy something at Target stores, they have absolutely no way to attribute whether I saw something on TV, a billboard, the aisle, their junk mail in my mailbox, or online.

I believe that Google can link in-store purchases to online ad exposure for most credit card users in the US. They've done this by doing a deal with MasterCard to integrate sales data cookie data. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...

I’m aware, but that still doesn’t apply to what I said.

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

#175

Post by kjprince »

cstejerean wrote: post #66
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.

I’m not surprised. Google shows me ads for things I’m searching for, but Facebook shows me ads for things I wouldn’t even know to look for. I can definitely see how one or the other would be better depending on the type of product.

Search intent matters and FB + Google ads are shown in different contexts. Of course the FB vs Google comparison in aggregate is useful but performance varies across markets and also depends on the attribution model.

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

#176

Post by kjprince »

emilsedgh wrote: post #105
a_imho wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, as far as I know, was never caught in dark ui patterns or fake number reports to generate revenue. They don't seem to need it. Autoplay videos with ads?

Youtube's autoplay actually works for some people. They want to watch the next video many times. It's far different from let them click on this by mistake

And FB video works for some people too... Depending on how you define "works" :)

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

#177

Post by kjprince »

ionised wrote: post #169
keyle wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point they might be "too big to fail".

There is absolutely nothing about Facebook that is essential or irreplaceable.

They have just a bit of traction...that's pretty hard to replace

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

#178

Post by lmkg »

tripzilch wrote: post #165
lmkg wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, I did ask myself that.

Google has an Analytics product so that website owners can see how much money they make from AdWords, thus encouraging them to spend more money on AdWords. GA is a strategic complement to Google's advertising services, and that is how they derive value from it.

Google does not dip into GA data for their own uses. Post-GDPR this is extra-explicit because they take pains to clarify how much they are not a Controller and only a Processor, but this has always been in their TOS. Frankly, most people's GA implementations are dumpster fires and trying to make use of that data would be more cost and less benefit than punching themselves in the dick.

Google does look at GA data on occasion, but only for the purposes of debugging and for ensuring compliance with the TOS (e.g. they will flag accounts that contain PII).

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

#179

Post by acct1771 »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #162
darpa_escapee wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Inflated efficacy of Facebook as a platform.

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

#180

Post by ionised »

kjprince wrote: post #177
ionised wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely nothing about Facebook that is essential or irreplaceable.

They have just a bit of traction...that's pretty hard to replace

Traction in what context?
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