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How Facebook Sold You Krill Oil
An anonymous reader writes with this look at how Facebook tries to make and sell "thumbstopper" ads compelling enough to get people to stop scrolling through their news feeds. With its trove of knowledge about the likes, histories and social connections of its 1.3 billion users worldwide, Facebook executives argue, it can help advertisers reach exactly the right audience and measure the impact of their ads — while also, like TV, conveying a broad brand message. Facebook, which made $1.5 billion in profit on $7.9 billion in revenue last year, sees particular value in promoting its TV-like qualities, given that advertisers spend $200 billion a year on that medium. "We want to hold ourselves accountable for delivering results," said Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vice president for global marketing solutions, in a recent interview. "Not smoke and mirrors, maybe it works, maybe it doesn't."
I have a problem with my fish oil sales, it tastes like shit, it does not outperform a placebo and costs twice as much as other competitors that also do nothing. Can you help?
Of course Facebook can help, that is exactly what social media is for.
When Facebook says they have 1.3 billion users worldwide, do they count inactive accounts such as mine, which I had to create to make sure nobody else could create a fake account about me and fill it with slander?
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Dress sweat pants are a thing, which I know only because of Facebook.
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Millions of people voluntarily give all kinds of relevant information about themselves to Facebook. Even without any serious data mining, and ignoring the people who deliberately create garbage data accounts, Facebook probably already have more accurate demographic data about their users than most advertising channels. For example, knowing about major life events like someone getting married or having a baby are advertising gold for some markets.
At the scale they're working on, even trivial analysis of the underlying graph is probably quite informative as well. If 60% of your friends are interested in a certain thing, there's a fair chance you are too, even if you didn't explicitly indicate this.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If you are using a credit card in a store like Target, they not only know your likes and dislikes, they know exactly what you buy. Sometimes they know more about you than your family.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka...
No one has commented so far about the creepiest aspect: according to the NYT article, Facebook knew how many of the people they showed the ads actually bought the product.
You see, stores sell your personally identifiable information regarding everything you buy to data brokers, and Facebook bought the data from the data brokers. Ergo, FB knew what percentage of people they showed these ads subsequently bought the product.
It's enough to make me seriously reconsider using anything but cash for certain purchases. How many insurance companies buy data regarding your alcohol and tobacco purchase frequency, for example?
Here's the problem: Facebook will never not show you an ad. At the end of the day, if you don't fit a better model, they revert to lowest common denominator advertising. "Over drinking age? Male? Cue up the alcohol ad with women in it!"
And that's the thing, Facebook's advertising as a result is like all the other advertising in the world: you know where it is, you know it mostly never applies to you, so you tune it out. If they make it more prominent, you turn on ad block. Which says worlds about their actual confidence in their data: they don't have any. They don't know what you will do next. Which is why they always show you something - because they can't afford not to. They won't leave ads turned off, then strategically show them right when you show a high probability of being interested in X and could be swayed to a brand. They have no idea when that is, or what it will be.
Isn't linking to a paragraph on a paywall just a horrible shitty advertisement as well?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I find that Facebook, Google, and every other "targeted" ad system does the same thing: they show me ads for the thing that I just bought and won't need to buy again for several years.
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