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Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

theintercept.com

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Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#11

Post by at-fates-hands »

giarc wrote: post #2

This doesn't surprise me at all. I've run a few, albeit very small, campaigns on FB. I set up targetting (occupation and geography) and I would get people outside of my target 'liking' my ad. I'd reach out anyways to ask if they are interested in my product and they would never respond. I oftened wondered if they were just fake/bot accounts to make it look like my ads were getting attention. I'm glad some company has…

I can support what you're saying with the same experience.

I did some SEO for a local landscape company. They were already doing well, but asked me about doing ads on FB. I told them I thought it was a scam, but they persisted so I ran a few campaigns for irrigation in the Spring and then fall cleanup starting in August.

Same thing happened. They got a ton of impressions and clicks (no surprise) and a about a dozen leads. When they went through them, nearly all were for fake numbers (no answer and no VM) or email addresses that bounced. They ended up with one lead for a service they don't even make any money on.

In the end, they lost a few hundred dollars, but it was enough to convince them running FB ads to generate business was not only a good idea, but it convinced them it was rigged and a scam.

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#12

Post by edoceo »

qeternity wrote: post #9

So I’ve heard (and believe) this for years: the targeting of ad networks borders on useless. But as the old adage goes: I know 50% of my advertising is worthless, I just don’t know which 50%. So why haven’t we run out of suckers yet if this stuff is really that bad? If businesses weren’t seeing the ROI, you’d think they’d see that. So either, as bad as it is, it’s still worth it, or they aren’t able to measure ROI pr…

"why haven’t we run out of suckers yet"

New suckers are created at a rate of approximately 1/minute.

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#13

Post by dahdum »

qeternity wrote: post #9

So I’ve heard (and believe) this for years: the targeting of ad networks borders on useless. But as the old adage goes: I know 50% of my advertising is worthless, I just don’t know which 50%. So why haven’t we run out of suckers yet if this stuff is really that bad? If businesses weren’t seeing the ROI, you’d think they’d see that. So either, as bad as it is, it’s still worth it, or they aren’t able to measure ROI pr…

If you're running high volume campaigns with fast sales cycles you'll see huge gains from using advanced targeting options. All of them are best guesses and far from certain. Income targeting may be inferred by their (inferred) zip code and (inferred) age for example.

Identifying what to optimize is trivial at scale, simply look at your campaign performance by targeting options and it usually screams out at you. Doing better in the female, 18-25, urban demo? Raise bids for them and lower bids in the non-performing groups. It hardly matters to me how often Facebook or Google got it wrong if pulling the lever still works.

Most of the sour grapes I've seen are brand or lead gen campaigns run by the inexperienced griping about individual clicks. If you can't start broad and prune, you need to start hyper targeted and closely monitor.

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#14

Post by sorokod »

mjburgess wrote: post #5

This shows the limitations of ML: facebook has incredible amounts of preference & behaviour data on its users; and can't even meet incredibly generic categories such as "high-earner, college educated, etc.". The reason we think we're in an "AI" boom is 90% these ad. companies hyping their own abilities (an identical strategy to that of the initial boom in the 50s). What we call "AI" today is just an associative house…

Well, a combination of objective limitations and FB's ability to execute.

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#15

Post by danielrhodes »

I’m assuming Facebook is not so incompetent they can’t show an ad to its intended audience. I think the main issue is to do any sort of ML or user based targeting, you need to have a minimum amount of data to make good judgements in an auction. But then you realize you have multiple ads that are competing against each other and another ad might convert better or most important of all: pay more. Thus even if you have an ad which is targeted to that specific user, it might not get shown. Sometimes it is better to not show an ad at all. With all these trade offs, the result can sometimes look quite bizarre.

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#16

Post by neya »

My theory is - it's probably on purpose. If you spent $100 to reach your audience, your ROI would be pretty good for the $100. What if you spent $200 for the same audience reach? You still get results, albeit it's a bit more expensive now. But still better than other competitors out there because they don't have as much granular data about a user as Facebook does. Not even Google has this level of detail (Who are your friends, what you like to eat, What topics you like to chat about, etc.)

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#17

Post by tomcam »

edoceo wrote: post #12
qeternity wrote: post #9

So I’ve heard (and believe) this for years: the targeting of ad networks borders on useless. But as the old adage goes: I know 50% of my advertising is worthless, I just don’t know which 50%. So why haven’t we run out of suckers yet if this stuff is really that bad? If businesses weren’t seeing the ROI, you’d think they’d see that. So either, as bad as it is, it’s still worth it, or they aren’t able to measure ROI pr…

"why haven’t we run out of suckers yet" New suckers are created at a rate of approximately 1/minute.

Fact check: True

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#18

Post by fairity »

Facebook's ad inventory is sold by auction. Inaccurate targeting isn't a big deal as long as all advertisers are treated the same. Furthermore, granular targeting is no longer the way to scale on Facebook. Therefore, inaccurate targeting will have little to no effect on most campaigns' efficacies (at least the ones designed by those who are knowledgable of the ecosystem). Any FB marketer worth their salt knows this.

Many people are claiming FB ads are a scam due to their personal inability to make ads work for themselves. As someone who's spent 8 figures on FB with no special connections, I can tell you this assertion is complete hogwash.

In fact, the opposite assertion than the one in the article is true: Facebook is LEAGUES ahead of its competition as far as its ability to accurately predict user conversion rate given a specific ad and user.

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#19

Post by rattray »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #11
giarc wrote: post #2

This doesn't surprise me at all. I've run a few, albeit very small, campaigns on FB. I set up targetting (occupation and geography) and I would get people outside of my target 'liking' my ad. I'd reach out anyways to ask if they are interested in my product and they would never respond. I oftened wondered if they were just fake/bot accounts to make it look like my ads were getting attention. I'm glad some company has…

I can support what you're saying with the same experience. I did some SEO for a local landscape company. They were already doing well, but asked me about doing ads on FB. I told them I thought it was a scam, but they persisted so I ran a few campaigns for irrigation in the Spring and then fall cleanup starting in August. Same thing happened. They got a ton of impressions and clicks (no surprise) and a about a dozen l…

What could explain the mechanics of how this happens?

Surely FB employees aren't managing those bot accounts themselves. Do they generally determine accounts that engage with ads to be "human/real", thereby incentivizing bad actors who spin up fake FB accounts to click/"like" ads?

Re: Facebook managers trash their own ad targeting in unsealed remarks

#20

Post by na85 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #8

I know everyone loves to hate Facebook and articles that confirm that bias are very popular right now, but this lawsuit doesn't seem to have smoking gun evidence like the headline suggests. Have you ever written an e-mail or Slack message to a peer complaining that something at your company might not be working well? Or that something is totally broken and you think it should be prioritized in the ticket queue? Imagi…

You're citing an absence of evidence as evidence of absence.

Consider the following: if Facebook knows its targeting is ineffective and doesn't meet the criteria, why would they put that in writing, knowing that anything on writing can be subpoenaed?

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