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Facebook Fraud [video]

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Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#201

Post by pirateking »

xxbondsxx wrote: post #179
notlisted wrote: post #26

Nice video. All true. I have performed tests with the same ad budget ($20k) and target audience for Google and FB. FB ROI was negative. Google ROI was 400% (travel space). The only thing that seemingly "works" has been buying likes by advertising. This video should help educate my clients of the utter uselessness of those too. This brings up the interesting question of the general (non)value of a lot of mobile advert…

Hey everyone -- sorry to hijack the top thread but I’m an ads engineer at Facebook so I feel qualified to respond. I posted this over on reddit too but it's still pending approval. In the case of this ad — I think we actually delivered on what was asked for. The targeting specs were fairly broad (cat lovers in four countries). Getting 39 people who like cats to like a page with a cute cat picture in 20 minutes sounds…

Just curious, what "flavor" is Facebook blue (#3B5998) kool-aid? I always imagined it to be like a Blue Razz Blow Pop.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#202

Post by mullingitover »

pirateking wrote: post #198
mullingitover wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, Facebook isn't that terrible. I'm not saying I think they're good, but they make what is currently the modern equivalent of the telephone. It is what it is. And it's not about my convenience, it's about not inconveniencing my friends by demanding that they remember that I'm a special snowflake who won't use the dominant communication platform of the day, and I must have my special needs attended to by using older…

That is a terrible analogy. The modern telephone is the computer, and Facebook, if being forced to stick with the telephone analogy, is some kind of phone book / telemarketer / wiretap agency hybrid. The fact that computers are too inconvenient to use for communication without using locked centralized platforms and proprietary software is a testament to the failure of computers as a communication tool, rather than a…

> The fact that computers are too inconvenient to use for communication without using locked centralized platforms and proprietary software is a testament to the failure of computers as a communication tool

Or maybe social communication platforms are a natural monopoly and the computers are working just fine.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#203

Post by [deleted] »

prostoalex wrote: post #186
unclebucknasty wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article (video) is pointing to fundamental flaws in FB's advertising offerings. I don't think that any amount of "social media marketing" expertise will compensate for the fact that a large proportion of the ad spend on those offerings may likely be wasted on what is effectively fraud. Even if you optimize for better performance, there will still be inordinate waste to fraud. Beyond that, I think a lot of people…

It's not that fundamental . Buying Facebook likes for a Facebook page is a subset of ads. You're definitely driven towards it in Facebook UI, but if you're Amazon or NetFlix or Expedia or whoever buys billions of ads nowadays, you still buy clicks to your site and bid on CPC basis. Anecdotal evidence (visiting facebook.com on the Web, seeing 7 ads on the right-hand side) suggests very few businesses actually pay for…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#204

Post by JacobJans »

xxbondsxx wrote: post #179
notlisted wrote: post #26

Nice video. All true. I have performed tests with the same ad budget ($20k) and target audience for Google and FB. FB ROI was negative. Google ROI was 400% (travel space). The only thing that seemingly "works" has been buying likes by advertising. This video should help educate my clients of the utter uselessness of those too. This brings up the interesting question of the general (non)value of a lot of mobile advert…

Hey everyone -- sorry to hijack the top thread but I’m an ads engineer at Facebook so I feel qualified to respond. I posted this over on reddit too but it's still pending approval. In the case of this ad — I think we actually delivered on what was asked for. The targeting specs were fairly broad (cat lovers in four countries). Getting 39 people who like cats to like a page with a cute cat picture in 20 minutes sounds…

I spent $46k on Facebook ads last year, with very healthy ROI.

First, I want to say THANK YOU for the many improvements to the ad system that have recently taken place.

Second, I want to say that you have a LOT of work left to do. Facebook marketing is hard. Too hard.

I have many suggestions, but here's one of them:

Allow the same targeting options when posting directly to the page, as when posting an ad.

For example, I can create a custom audience, and send an ad only to them.

I want to be able to target (or exclude) that custom audience when I post to my Facebook page. If I could do that it would make a huge difference.

Thank you for your time / consideration.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#205

Post by anatari »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #96

I have my pet theory. I'm yet to find significant evidence for or against it, but it's what my hunch tells me. The theory goes like this: All on-line ads are mostly worthless - most clicks are from clickfarms, and the genuine parts are mostly by clickjacking or accidental misclicks. Almost no one really wants to buy stuff via ads. Ad agencies keep telling companies that advertising online will generate lots of revenu…

This is absurd. While I'm sure there is a lot of fraudulent activity and rubbish ad networks (IE Facebook likes, as claimed by the article), traditional online ads are pretty trivial to track at this point for a business that can complete transactions online. If you run a web store, you can track exactly how much sales you get from a particular ad channel and weigh it against the advertising cost by simply creating a unique link for each channel, or using any of the many available ad analytics platforms out there. Entire multi-million/billion dollar businesses are built around arbitraging this opportunity positively, particularly on Google.

Things like Facebook Likes are more difficult to track and are still relatively new, and that's why many people haven't figured them out yet, but over time they will either reach an equilibrium, where value provided is equal to cost or they will disappear.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#207

Post by rhizome »

kevando wrote: post #147
Houshalter wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. If content from your friends and family and other pages you enjoy is regularly filtered out and replaced with paid "promoted" posts, it decreases the quality of the site.

And from there, you have the fallacy of this argument. This decreases the quality of your experience on Facebook. With the million other options and networks, why on earth would Facebook purposefully lower the quality of their product in order to make a few bucks with ads?

They would do it to make more than "a few bucks" with ads. Business is full of these tradeoffs, so I don't know wherefrom this presumption of purity from FB to our walls comes from.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#208

Post by mschaecher »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #144
mschaecher wrote: post #54

As someone who has helped massively grow a handful of businesses with Facebook being a significant channel, part of me wants to say "Yep, FB advertising is bunk. Everyone stop!" But in reality I'd be saying that in a weak attempt to make my own Facebook advertising more effective. Lemme tl;dr this in three bullets: - It's far easier for non-sophisticated advertisers to waste money. - The ad platform is pretty technic…

This article (video) is pointing to fundamental flaws in FB's advertising offerings. I don't think that any amount of "social media marketing" expertise will compensate for the fact that a large proportion of the ad spend on those offerings may likely be wasted on what is effectively fraud. Even if you optimize for better performance, there will still be inordinate waste to fraud. Beyond that, I think a lot of people…

BS - I've watched both videos twice and more sophisticated targeting solves 90% of their "problems."

How much facebook advertising have you managed? I hope it's a lot if you're going to call out "fundamental flaws" and "large portion of ad spend...likely wasted...on what is effectively fraud."

I've managed many millions across a handful of companies. Has their been issues? Yes, just like every other channel.

You're spot on about being jaded though.

Wading through the masses of BS is a huge pain.

75% of the people probably give up, 20% outsourced to varying results, 5% nail it in-house or via finding the right partner.

But that 5%-15% of potential advertisers that lock it down?

That's 80% of the ad spend right there.

One Expedia is worth 100,000 small businesses to Google.

Google, Facebook, et al have all tried to simplify their ad products to capture more potential advertisers at different levels.

But in doing so they arrive at a Catch 22 though...

To make it simpler, they hide sophistication and advanced options. The very options that are needed to drive campaigns with meaningful ROI. But those options are also over the head of the SMBs.

So what are they supposed to do?

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#210

Post by entropic »

notlisted wrote: post #26

Nice video. All true. I have performed tests with the same ad budget ($20k) and target audience for Google and FB. FB ROI was negative. Google ROI was 400% (travel space). The only thing that seemingly "works" has been buying likes by advertising. This video should help educate my clients of the utter uselessness of those too. This brings up the interesting question of the general (non)value of a lot of mobile advert…

I'm the developer of Reddit In Pictures and I'm sorry about that issue, please go into 'Settings' and disable ads!

I just wanted to give as much space for images as possible, so when the ad loads it puts itself between the text showing the number of images and the ActionBar, if the ad doesn't load it doesn't take up any space. Is the bounce you're talking about when the ad initially loads (like on orientation change)?

I haven't had a chance to work on that app in a while, but when I have time to re-visit it I will test out making the ad area static so that it never seems to bounce.

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