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GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

forbes.com

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Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#161

Post by jvanderwal »

mpeg wrote: post #116
jvanderwal wrote: post #27

With a click-through rate of about 0.051% on Facebook ads [1], I'm not too surprised by this. They also made some changes over the past month to their ad payments, in particular removing the option to manually set your CPM (which is the only option to pay to promote your fan page - it's CPC for an external site). So put together a poor CTR and losing some control over how much you're spending, and this is what happen…

Hey, That's not true, you can do either CPC or CPM for any kind of facebook ad; what they did do is replace the CPM functionality (which btw, is still available if you use a third party ad tool with facebook) with an "optimized CPM" which auto-bids for you according to what results you want to get. You can still set a manual max bid though :)

Thanks, I'll have to look into the third-party tool option. Mostly I've been running ads with external links and it would only let me do CPC, but I did do it all thru fb's dashboard.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#162

Post by adventureful »

cletus wrote: post #114

I've said this repeatedly: Facebook is a high-risk proposition, particularly as an investment (disclaimer: I work for Google). "Intent" as other commenters have noted is a big part of the story but it's not the only story. Search can broadly be broken up into at least two categories: 1. Navigational eg typing "b and h" into the browser; and 2. Informational eg "cheap flights to jamaica". I don't know what the make up…

The terrible misfortune of web / mobile based display advertising is that you can actually track it. If you could intimately track the performance of television ads, it'd be a disaster for that segment (ditto radio).

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#163

Post by tlianza »

MartinCron wrote: post #123
pmorici wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That's the power of intent and Facebook doesn't have that." Sure they do... Status Update from malandrew's mom: "OMG I can't wait to watch the new episode of The Good Wife tonight!" Facebook ads: "Click here to watch The latest Episode of the Good Wife" Facebook could has something better than Google intent in that they should be able to predict what you intend to search for before you go looking for it.

Facebook could has something better than Google intent in that they should be able to predict what you intend to search for before you go looking for it. You could say that Google responds to your demand while Facebook (at least in potential) creates new demands.

If we're still going with the given example, Facebook didn't create anything except a forum where a mom posted a status update.

There's no reason for an advertiser to pay to serve an ad for that. The ad was just given away for free. Unless you want to watch the show right at that moment, you wouldn't click it anyway.

So, I'm missing the part where Facebook can monetize the "new demands."

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#164

Post by joering2 »

untog wrote: post #121
cletus wrote: post #114

I've said this repeatedly: Facebook is a high-risk proposition, particularly as an investment (disclaimer: I work for Google). "Intent" as other commenters have noted is a big part of the story but it's not the only story. Search can broadly be broken up into at least two categories: 1. Navigational eg typing "b and h" into the browser; and 2. Informational eg "cheap flights to jamaica". I don't know what the make up…

"There is nothing preventing Facebook from being the next Myspace when something newer, cooler and hipper comes along and the users move on." I would argue that things like the massive photo collections people have made provide a large level of lock-in. I also suspect that Timeline is the first play in a "all your history, here" move that would make moving to another service very difficult.

I don't see a problem here. Most of folks here, including myself, over the span of one weekend could write a downloadable version of a Visual Basic application with a built-in Internet Explorer Window where you login to your facebook and then the app scrap (download) all data you ever had, all messages, photos, etc, everything within a couple of minutes, elegantly packet into zip, xml or whatever format you wish to have it!

Zuck could do shit, because that downloadable app would use client local IP, so they would have to block _everyone_ in order to stop the app. Further, it would use built-in IE frame, so all request would look like coming from legitimate Internet Explorer user. You could also implement "wait(rand [sec 1-5])" between downloading requests, so it looks more messy, more like a human that is clicking, rather then robot pulling requests in miliseconds.

Zuck once had hacked into school system. Who knows -- would be crazy to see an App that so easily ported out all your data out of Facebook, and see Zuck trying to stop it :)

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#165

Post by untog »

joering2 wrote: post #164
untog wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is nothing preventing Facebook from being the next Myspace when something newer, cooler and hipper comes along and the users move on." I would argue that things like the massive photo collections people have made provide a large level of lock-in. I also suspect that Timeline is the first play in a "all your history, here" move that would make moving to another service very difficult.

I don't see a problem here. Most of folks here, including myself, over the span of one weekend could write a downloadable version of a Visual Basic application with a built-in Internet Explorer Window where you login to your facebook and then the app scrap (download) all data you ever had, all messages, photos, etc, everything within a couple of minutes, elegantly packet into zip, xml or whatever format you wish to h…

then the app scrap (download) all data you ever had, all messages, photos, etc, everything within a couple of minutes

If you think you could download people's entire photo collections in a "couple of minutes" then you underestimate the insane number of photos uploaded to Facebook every day.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#166

Post by joering2 »

pork wrote: post #146
jusben1369 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the problem with GM's ads or FB's platform? Ie - What's Ford, Toyota or Hyundai doing with their ad spend on FB? We might be jumping to conclusions a little too quickly here.

Forbes just reported that Ford and Chrysler are keeping their ad spend on facebook and are very happy with the ads.

what it means: "very happy"?. maybe they like losing money, are careless, or losing $10MM to them is still "being happy". Without conversion rates, or % of awareness arisen, its hard to say whether FB is valuable place to pay for ads.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#167

Post by overworkedasian »

what did GM hope it would accomplish by advertising on facebook? Unless they are offering a discount coupon for 50% off their next GM car, facebook users wouldnt care. did they hope facebook users would be more inclined to buy GM vs a foreign car? if that is the case...i have bridge i would like to sell you.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#168

Post by notatoad »

Drbble wrote: post #153
molmalo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you something: When you want to search something, do you first go to your facebook account and tell your friends "hey, I want to learn more about x!" and then go to your favorite search engine, and actually do your search? I bet you don't. In your example, if the mom is saying "tonight", it probably means that she wants to see it "tonight" (maybe she doesn't have the time right now). so, they should try to…

Look up "retargeting". Creepily chasing people around the web is successful for advertisers.

It is a successful tool for ad networks to provide because advertisers pay more for it, I've yet to be convinced that it actually increases conversions. If I keep seeing an ad over and over again, I just get annoyed.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#169

Post by joering2 »

untog wrote: post #165
joering2 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a problem here. Most of folks here, including myself, over the span of one weekend could write a downloadable version of a Visual Basic application with a built-in Internet Explorer Window where you login to your facebook and then the app scrap (download) all data you ever had, all messages, photos, etc, everything within a couple of minutes, elegantly packet into zip, xml or whatever format you wish to h…

then the app scrap (download) all data you ever had, all messages, photos, etc, everything within a couple of minutes If you think you could download people's entire photo collections in a "couple of minutes" then you underestimate the insane number of photos uploaded to Facebook every day.

no, you misunderstood or I haven't explained properly (mostly the latter).

What I said is that the App would download all _your_ photos that you owe on your account. Given that it takes couple seconds max until I see a full photo from the moment I clicked it, it would take tens of minutes to download hundreds of photos: 5 sec per photo x 200 photos == 16 minutes of robot's work while you enjoy your drink.

edit: so this "I would argue that things like the massive photo collections people have made provide a large level of lock-in" becomes an irrelevant problem.

Re: GM Says Facebook Ads Don't Work, Pulls $10 Million Account

#170

Post by hackinthebochs »

badclient wrote: post #149

All this will be moot when Facebook launches its search engine in couple years.

Exactly. Its amazing to see so many people avoid making this connection in their heads. It's so painfully obvious. I just wish they had IPO'd a few years earlier...
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