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Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

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Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#61

Post by sean_patel »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #53
tyre wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched the video you linked to, which is mostly about people who rip content from YouTube and upload it to Facebook. The people who view the pirated content are still viewing content on FB. That isn't "artificially inflat[ing] their view counts." Those are real views, which is what advertisers are paying for, even if what they are viewing is stolen. The point about counting 3 seconds of auto-play as a view is prob…

I'm guessing he meant to link to this one about paid promotions leading to mostly fake likes and views from click farms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag > When I paid to promote my page I gained 80,000 followers in developing countries who didn't care about Veritasium (but I wasn't aware of this at the time). They drove my reach and engagement numbers down, basically rendering the page useless. > I though…

> I'm guessing he meant to link to this one about paid promotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

Yes, this one also. If anyone thinks this is a 'Conspiracy theory', you can confirm or refute it yourself for less than 50$, the way I did and the way the BBC reporter in this above video did.

After I left the Ad Team, and horrified at what I saw as widespread fraud, I registered a throwaway domain, put some viral videos from youtube, injected google analytics on the site / blog, bought a pre-paid visa card for 50$ (so facebook doesn't keep auto charging my card) and 'promoted' my blog posts shared on a Facebook page I set up.

Just like the BBC author, I noticed most of my 'Likes' on the FB page were from Indonesia, Pakistan, and many from Vietnam. And I checked some of the profiles, and they either appeared down right fake (i.e. no activity other than liking a 1000+ FB pages, or they weren't active since like 2011 or 12.

Worse still, for the pages I did promote - i.e. blog posts shared on FB wall for 5$ / day, I barely got 10 click-throughs to the actual post, but the Ad analytics said I "reached 600 / 700 something" viewers.

WTF does that mean??? ( I know what it means, that they "displayed" it in their feed) But how does this help any one, think small businesses, grow their brand or business??)

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#62

Post by ransom1538 »

rebuilder wrote: post #15

Is there any way for advertisers to independently verify FB's reported numbers at will? Or do they all rely on FB being honest? If FB's self-reporting is all that advertisers rely on, that seems like it would be an obvious problem, and the same goes for any other platform. The problem seems so obvious there must be checks in place, so I'm curious what they are.

Yes. If you see reports of sdks proliferation in the top apps you will see strange sdks like "mobileapptracking" from has offers. They are independent firms that can check ids from clicks and perform auditing. These firms are under assault by Apple & fb by means of removing traceable ids (uuid is gone, mac is gone, idfa is now resetable). Larger firms rely on dumb money and their audits can be crushing.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#63

Post by ransom1538 »

arbuge wrote: post #50
ransom1538 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. However, Facebook & Google deal mainly with 'dumb money', eg, ad money not analyzed or checked. Fraud doesn't affect people that know how to calculate ROI from a CPC campaign -- fraud affects "Coke" trying to run a large spend near the end of the quarter. Thus when these large companies ignore fraud or view inflation -- it does steal from ad companies that could have offered a real ROI and it steals fro…

And as long as there are dumb clients out there spending vast sums of money indiscriminately without demanding to see results, there will be very little motivation to fix anything. Those clients are mentally still stuck in the TV age, where measuring results is hard and hoping for the best is the mindset.

It gets even funnier. Because of dumb money - the costs per CPI goes up. Thus startups can never tell why fb ads have little to no return. AND fb and google are incentivized to make the system less transparent.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#65

Post by shostack »

Mtinie wrote: post #42
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DCM tags? VTs?

'DCM' = DoubleClick Campaign Manager tags 'VT', in this context, probably meant 'viewability tracking' or 'viewability targeting'.

Actually in this case VT refers to View-Throughs, ie. post-impression performance or conversions that occur from someone who sees a display ad impression, doesn't click, but later converts.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#66

Post by rebootthesystem »

2sk21 wrote: post #26
rebootthesystem wrote: post #25

Facebook advertising ROI is horrible. Not worth the effort. Sure, it works our for some but most end up learning the hard way that FB is a great way to burn cash, fast.

Not trolling but genuinely curious what kind of things you are trying to advertise. I have read elsewhere exactly the opposite that Facebook ROI is very good due to the precise targeting. I am just a back-end developer!

A variety of consumer products by our customers. Google has better ROI and pretty decent targeting.

One of the most blatant issues with FB is what they did with their pages. You spend tons of money and effort building an audience and they don't let you reach it unless you pay. And pay through your teeth you must, every time you want to reach your followers.

In other words, you never own your audience. This is a huge business mistake. You want to own your audience. Your list is worth gold. Here's where email marketing (to a vetted list) still beats FB.

If you use FB to drive traffic to a site, have people hop-on to your email list and then market directly, sure, yeah, that works. You can do that with Google just as well.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#67

Post by evgen »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #66
2sk21 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trolling but genuinely curious what kind of things you are trying to advertise. I have read elsewhere exactly the opposite that Facebook ROI is very good due to the precise targeting. I am just a back-end developer!

A variety of consumer products by our customers. Google has better ROI and pretty decent targeting. One of the most blatant issues with FB is what they did with their pages. You spend tons of money and effort building an audience and they don't let you reach it unless you pay. And pay through your teeth you must, every time you want to reach your followers. In other words, you never own your audience. This is a huge…

Someone hit a 'like' for your post or your page is not a follower. I see this assumption in people who think that convincing people to hit the like button on whatever click-bait they throw out there is somehow building an audience. I, and just about everyone else, is quite happy that FB forces you to pay a toll to spam my page as it cuts down on the marketing BS I have to wade through every day.

I truly hope everyone follows your advice to drive traffic over to an email list, being able to dump your marketing into my spam folder takes fewer clicks than marking your follow-up posts as something I never want to see again in my FB news feed.

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#68

Post by Mtinie »

shostack wrote: post #65
Mtinie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'DCM' = DoubleClick Campaign Manager tags 'VT', in this context, probably meant 'viewability tracking' or 'viewability targeting'.

Actually in this case VT refers to View-Throughs, ie. post-impression performance or conversions that occur from someone who sees a display ad impression, doesn't click, but later converts.

Ah, that makes better sense. Thank you!

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#69

Post by elgenie »

forgetsusername wrote: post #33
elgenie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NY Post are the ones that didn't do their homework. Their source for this article is FB trying for transparency. If you have proof of inflating metrics and numbers, especially deliberately, you're welcome to post some. Posting detailed reports of errors discovered during an internal audit when under no obligation to do so, on the other hand, is not in keeping with your conspiracy theory.

> Posting detailed reports of errors discovered during an internal audit when under no obligation to do so You dont think a public company is obligated to audit internal controls and keep shareholders and regulators in the loop?

A public company is obligated to report quarterly, in a prescribed format, a bunch of high-level information material to the business by Regulation S-K and Regulation S-X.

A public company is not obligated to rush out details like "We’ve determined that the average time spent per article had been over-reported by 7-8% on average since August of last year. This was caused by a calculation error: we were calculating the average across a histogram of time spent, instead of reflecting the total time spent reading an article divided by its total views."

Re: Facebook’s ad metric problem is becoming Zuckerberg’s headache

#70

Post by rebootthesystem »

evgen wrote: post #67
rebootthesystem wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A variety of consumer products by our customers. Google has better ROI and pretty decent targeting. One of the most blatant issues with FB is what they did with their pages. You spend tons of money and effort building an audience and they don't let you reach it unless you pay. And pay through your teeth you must, every time you want to reach your followers. In other words, you never own your audience. This is a huge…

Someone hit a 'like' for your post or your page is not a follower. I see this assumption in people who think that convincing people to hit the like button on whatever click-bait they throw out there is somehow building an audience. I, and just about everyone else, is quite happy that FB forces you to pay a toll to spam my page as it cuts down on the marketing BS I have to wade through every day. I truly hope everyone…

I was over-simplifying the "like" thing. Of course, you are right. It takes a lot more than clicking a "like" button for someone to truly engage with your business.

And this is exactly one of the problems with FB. So many people pay good money for what effectively translates to nothing. I have personally watched a campaign delivered 400 visitors per minute (peak) to a site and produced exactly zero sales in three days. Not blaming FB 100% for this, of course. But, if you measure it, they do tend to produce a lot of useless clicks.

Here's the difference between FB advertising and AdWords. It's simple.

People to to FB to chit-chat with friends and family. Not to buy.

People go to Google because their are looking for something and, yes, they are far more likely to be in a buying mindset. Particularly when compared to FB.

When was the last time anyone said: "I need to buy a rug. Let's go check them out on Facebook". Never. It's Google or Amazon.

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