After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off • Hacker News Board

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#51

Post by JosephRedfern » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #31

theflyinghorse wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you have in mind other than Facebook and Google as online advertising (actually any advertising) that has the same reach?

believe it or not, advertising existed before 2010.

Believe it or not, people used to physically borrow movies from shops and return them 2 days later!!! That doesn't mean that I can still walk to my newsagents and borrow a copy of Pulp Fiction on VHS.

Things change, and Facebook and Google are now the big players in online advertising, accounting for a large majority of the ad market. Other platforms exist, of course, but by cutting out Google Ads and Facebook you're going to be targetting a very different user base and are cutting out a significant share of the market.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#52

Post by lmilcin » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

I hope you understand the fault lies completely in you.

Facebook is know to do or say whatever is needed to further their business. It not a new thing, it is a pattern of deception well documented here on HN.

By choosing to build your business on FB platform you should have understanding, that you are not really building your own business but rather you are building business for FB which lets you build business on their platform until such time they decide it is not worth it and kick you out.

You chose an ally that has no morals and you let yourself be completely dependent on their willingness to keep you.

Every business owner is responsible for thinking for themselves and investigating their partners. If this was your only partner, on which you were completely reliant for your business, it means you have catastrophically neglected your responsibility. Have you done your job you would realize that there is a risk and you would try to save or diversify in case the worst comes. Instead you were just focused on reaping benefits rather than thinking long term.

Pass the message to other people as widely as possible so that public is aware of how FB conducts business so that less people will face the same tragedy in the future.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#53

Post by AlexandrB » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #31

theflyinghorse wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you have in mind other than Facebook and Google as online advertising (actually any advertising) that has the same reach?

believe it or not, advertising existed before 2010.

Online Facebook + Google take something like 50% of all ad revenue. Since the product being advertised is a website, offline advertising is probably a lot less effective than online.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#54

Post by ffhhj » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

__s wrote: post #37

smoyer wrote: post #30

> Facebook has systematically shut down our 2 small businesses during a pandemic and economic crisis without explanation. If you've spent $57MM on Facebook ads, are you still considered a "small business"? Perhaps I'm out of touch. I think the warning about building your business on someone else's land still applies but I'm not sure how you get around that when so much of the world's attention is controlled by a few…

> I think the warning about building your business on someone else's land There aren't really any businesses which have sovereign territory

> There aren't really any businesses which have sovereign territory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_City

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#55

Post by bryan0 » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

mattficke wrote: post #45

>Freebies has been plagued by recent ad violations suggesting they are not following policy for dating ads. Freebies has never run a dating site, nor has it advertised for dating sites on Facebook. The CEO of Freebies, Mike Debutte, tried in vain to reach out to Facebook for help in appealing the supposed violations that are causing major disruptions and loss of revenue to our business. It was frustrating and handica…

Yes they were kicked off for ad violations, but the violations were not explained.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#56

Post by boffinism » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

Lots of comments here to the effect of "shame on you for letting yourself be so dependent on them", but the awful thing is that there are so many businesses whose unit economics _only_ make sense if they can buy visitors via Facebook. They are way, way cheaper for a lot of B2C businesses than any other ad network. I don't know why. Is it because people who are browsing FB/IG are bored and actively looking for ads to click on? Either way, it sucks that no one else offers the same access and CPM/CPC etc

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#57

Post by scottrogowski » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

I visited "shared.com" and the content looks pretty innocuous. The first story is about office chairs, the second is about celebrity engagements. Sure, it's clickbait, but we're talking about facebook - not nature magazine.

Maybe facebook changed their ad policies to prohibit this kind of content. That's within their right but they owe an explanation to their advertisers and perhaps some wind-down time.

This sort of arbitrary ban-by-T&C, with no judicial oversight, is further evidence that Facebook, and likely all large tech companies, are abusing their monopoly power and need significantly more regulation.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#58

Post by capableweb » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

mattficke wrote: post #45

>Freebies has been plagued by recent ad violations suggesting they are not following policy for dating ads. Freebies has never run a dating site, nor has it advertised for dating sites on Facebook. The CEO of Freebies, Mike Debutte, tried in vain to reach out to Facebook for help in appealing the supposed violations that are causing major disruptions and loss of revenue to our business. It was frustrating and handica…

I'm failing to understand how they are ignoring violations when A) they don't see which policy rules are being broken B) the rule that Facebook says been broken has norelevance to the ads they actually run and C) the CEO of Freebies tried to reach out to Facebook to clear things up.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#59

Post by tiborsaas » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

simplecto wrote: post #17

missedthecue wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook and google are not the only places to advertise.

Please enlighten us. Porn networks do not count.

I haven't spent a dime on online ads, but if it were my problem, I'd go though the top Alexa websites and see if they accept money for ads.

Re: After spending $57M on Facebook ads, I was kicked off

#60

Post by absolutelyrad » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

smnrchrds wrote: post #47

AlexandrB wrote: post #5

Another sign that several FAANGs exist as a monopoly. When you're so big that you can provide effectively no customer service to a customer spending in the 10s of millions (and they have no competitor they can go to afterwards) there's a problem.

I agree with you. When the issue of Apple's anti-competitive behaviour comes up on HN, it is always rebuffed by saying Apple does not have a monopoly—its US share of smartphone market is merely 40%. This is demonstration that you don't need a 100% market share to act anti-competitively. Facebook and Google each have less than 30% market share in ad spend in the US.

The fact that 30% app store tax exists and both stores (App Store by Apple and Google Play Store) have somewhat similar strategies highly indicate collusion going on. Apple only changed it for people making under $1m a year after people got mad and they got sued by Epic Games or they knew Epic Games was coming for their asses. But they know that majority of their revenue comes from pubs making over $1m a year which they still tax at 30%.

Then the fact that they hold Safari backwards to cripple the adoption of PWA's (Modern Web Apps). They don't allow real competitors to Safari either. The competitors that exist like Chrome or Firefox are just Safari under the hood on iOS.

iOS and Apple have single handedly crippled the innovation on mobile web. Safari is the modern Internet Explorer but Apple forcing people to use it directly or indirectly and not allowing real competition on iOS.

This is straight up anti trust material and they should face scrutiny for it. Sleepy lawmakers should wake up.

Not only does it harm American businesses, but also businesses across the world.