Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

jordan-shared.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 322 posts

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

#251

Post by grishka »

mrtksn wrote: post #231
smnrchrds wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When Apple rejects your App you receive an explanation and even screenshots and a call from the reviewer with suggestions how to fix it.

Except sometimes Apple rejects your app such that you can't do anything to fix it. They straight up tell you that your whole concept isn't allowed to exist on the app store. I think I've seen a couple of stories about this a while ago. Or if there's any semblance of UGC, you're supposed to have a moderation team that would enforce Apple's ridiculous policies. Oh you're an individual and don't intend to turn that into a company? Tough luck, sorry.

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

#252

Post by presto8 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #240
nojokes wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what kind of Lalaland is 50 million nothing?

In the context of advertising, I read "57M" as $57,000. They would normally write 57MM if they meant $57 million, wouldn't they?

Do you mean like the Roman "M" for thousand and "MM" for million? That is mixing Arabic numerals with Roman numerals.

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

#253

Post by ska »

logronoide wrote: post #11

It’s hard to understand that a business partner for 15 years and after dozens of millions of dollars spent can kick you in the @@s and ghost you without any explanation. This kind of behaviors from large corporations have to stop.

If they can ghost you this effectively, you were never a business partner.

If they were an actual business partner, you could rely on the terms of the contract the two of you arrived at to define your partnership to give you recourse, assuming your lawyers were competent.

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

#254

Post by CamperBob2 »

pdonis wrote: post #242
CamperBob2 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of advertising, I read "57M" as $57,000. They would normally write 57MM if they meant $57 million, wouldn't they?

> In the context of advertising, I read "57M" as $57,000. ?? I would expect to see $57,000 abbreviated as $57K.

That's now how they roll in that business. CPM for instance = cost per thousand.

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

#255

Post by [deleted] »

logronoide wrote: post #50
drcongo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit of a stretch to call Facebook a "partner" to _any_ business. They're racketeers and building a business on the back of them is frankly insane.

If you pay such a large amount of money I think “partner” should be the right word... but you are right, they don’t deserve that. May be “cannibals” is more appropriate.

[deleted]

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

#256

Post by [deleted] »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #41

Looking at shared.com content - If I was forced to guess what might justify this apart from an FB screw up, is that while no single post breaks FB rules. The quantity that they are posting now breaks a new FB policy and that shared.com is seen as producing huge quantities of low quality, click bait content that FB see as 'polluting` their platform, leeching away users/ad viewers. That is just a guess.

[deleted]

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

#257

Post by munificent »

ogre_codes wrote: post #143
ianlevesque wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey now, my friends dogs and kids are very interesting! Or were when they used to go outside...

If they could, they would eliminate dog/kid photos entirely because they don't make money off that stuff. They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap.

> They just show you enough of your friends dogs and kids to keep you around to view the profit generating crap.

This was the realization that finally tipped me over into getting off Facebook.

I realized that every time I was posting pictures of my life to share with my friends, I was providing the bait that drew them in and forced them to watch ads and other drivel.

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

#258

Post by criddell »

sfblah wrote: post #185
blantonl wrote: post #61

Let's be fair here. Shared.com is in the business of producing and distributing crap content. That's a subjective term, but it's like the supreme court ruling on pornography, you'll know it when you see it. These guys most likely "skirt the line" to just operate as a mediocre and crappy content distribution network, that at scale, makes a lot of money because there is a certain subset of the population that will eat…

Ok, but if an advertiser spends $57M across many years generating likes on the platform and doesn't change its business practices materially across that timespan, it seems like they might be entitled to a refund when the pages are shut down.

Why? They paid for a service and received it.

If your ISP decides to pull out of your area and sends you a notice that your account will be closed at the end of the month, would you expect to be reimbursed for the years of service you paid for?

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

#259

Post by rightbyte »

Imnimo wrote: post #202
JVillella wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very common content marketing content. These articles are not intended to educate the reader, they're written to get high search rankings, and high click throughs.

So is the business that I buy an ad on Facebook, someone clicks on it, I then show them a bunch of ads, and I get paid enough for those ads to recoup the money I spent on my Facebook ad, and then some? Kind of genius, in a way.

Ye I believe so. They have like a picture of Britney Spear and an drug addict with the text "You can't believe how the celebtrity looks now" but no Britney if you click the article. I have seen it on Forbes looking over a shoulder without adblock.

I guess they do click scams via bots too?

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

#260

Post by papichulo4 »

tgv wrote: post #213
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…

The term was probably used to garner sympathy. "We, poor, small business owners, in the process of extracting the last bit of your muddled brain's attention, ..." But I'm sure they wouldn't have spent $57M if they hadn't extracted more than that from other advertising parties.

Are we really going to be willfully ignorant of the fact that it's $57m CAD over 15 years? That's $3.8m CAD per year. Come on now. Let's not try to exaggerate the numbers here.

I also don't see how shared.com is any different than buzzfeed.com. Is the deciding factor the number of things listed in an article? Like whether the list is of 8 things or of 38 things? What's the difference between those two sites?

Post reply on HN