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Facebook Essentially Has Been Telling Advertisers It Can Reach More People Than Actually Exist, Analyst Finds (marketwatch.com)
Facebook claims its ads have the potential to reach more people than recent U.S. census data shows exist, and that's troublesome for one analyst, who thinks third-party measurement services stand to benefit. From a report: Recently, Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser was intrigued by a trade publication study in Australia that said Facebook was claiming to reach 1.7 million more 16- to 39-year olds than actually existed in the country, according to Australian census data. In reproducing the study for the U.S., Wieser said Facebook's Ads Manager claims it can potentially reach 41 million 18- to 24-year-olds, 60 million 25- to 34-year-olds, and 61 million 35- to 49-year-olds. The problem arises when Wieser pulls up U.S. Census data from a year ago, showing 31 million 18- to 24-year-olds, 45 million 25- to 34-year-olds, and 61 million 35- to 49-year-olds. The upshot: Where is Facebook getting the extra 25 million 18- to 34-year-olds that the U.S. census did not count? "Conversations with agency executives on this topic indicate to us that the gap between Facebook and census figures is not widely known," Wieser said. "While Facebook's measurement issues won't necessarily deter advertisers from spending money with Facebook, they will help traditional TV sellers justify existing budget shares and could restrain Facebook's growth in video ad sales on the margins."
Advertising/marketing should be about 0.001% its current worth.
Honest question.
I'm thinking the Facebook numbers are closer to reality. After all, there are a LOT of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. at this point, and also probably a lot of people using some kind of internet service that appears to be from the U.S. to make use of U.S. media services. All of those Facebook would see, but not the census...
The most interesting thing to me is it's only the younger demographic counts that are off; for the older ranges, the values match.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Do the authors of the article really not know that people use fake ages, have two accounts, etc.
forgot to take into account all people with multiple facebook accounts
*demographic figures assume Everett Many-Worlds model of universe
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
(Oh for fucks sake, we're an existing software company with a new product)
Anyway, we have no CAPTCHA/robot check on our sign up form. And our execs love to brag about the userbase numbers both internally and to investors/partners. I'm fairly certain 90% of the users are bots.
Fake accounts, multiple accounts, fake information such as age/etc.
#DeleteFacebook
That's because you're reaching potential FB accounts, not people. There are many, many fake accounts on FB. I know of lots of people who have abandoned accounts and created new ones - either because they lost their password, or were being harassed, or because they just didn't know any better (my dad, who is not a big computer user, created a second account early on when he thought he was just logging in. It's still there, just not being used). As others have said, many people lie about their ages - at first FB would not allow minors to have accounts, so they would simply say they were at least 18. So that age range of demographics has to be quite skewed as well, especially the 18-25 range.
Better known as 318230.
Look, everyone has:
school FB that your parents can see
gaming FB that you use a gmail account for
sports or arts or news FB that you surf stupid cat vids on
in each group you connect to different people. You never post stuff to the first one that is really you.
in the second one you only post cosplay or fake pics so nobody can figure it's you.
in the third one you post a pic of a fuzzy animal or a truck or some animorph.
Are you guys so new to the Net that you don't know this?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
So they are counting the bots and people with multiple accounts. AI-s are people too aren't they? If I have multiple personalities, can't someone use which ever account they feel comfortable with at the time. Can't we all accept each other without judging. Why should we let mere-biology facts dictate our biases? ;^)
Or are we supposed to be hating on this (sometimes I forget, it's so complicated)...
That could potentially explain the US numbers. But as far as I know Australia doesn't have quite the same issue with border control. The majority of illegals in Australia are people who overstay visas and that is about 65,000. No where close to 1.7 million, though census data is estimated, so that is more likely the issue.
I'm neither surprised nor upset that these scoundrels rip-off each other.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
There are actually very few undocumented immigrants in the United States. The millions of illegal immigrants in the country are mostly documented in one or more databases.
The census isn't over 30% off dude, just think about it for a minute, isn't the more likely explanation that the discrepancy is from fake accounts? It's like you've never gotten a fake friend request
Nail, Head, Hit!
You have accurately diagnosed the issue.
There is no law stating you can only have one account.
No, but it's a violation of your user contract with FB.
Nobody faked being an overweight career focused 45 year old.
Plenty of reasons to be a fake 18 year old party girl.
You are negating yourself here. According to you FB has lot of foreigners who appear to be US people to get US media services. So they are not US people. If my product is limited to US, the FB numbers are deceiving as they include foreigners.
I'm thinking the Facebook numbers are closer to reality. After all, there are a LOT of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. at this point,
Gee, if only someone had ever tried to quantify the number of illegal immigrants in the US...
#DeleteChrome
Facebook has over a billion users - it's not just Americans who are "perfectly okay" with being tracked for profit.
#DeleteChrome
Why do people assume everyone has just one Facebook account? I've created throw-away accounts myself. Yes, Facebook would like to sell you on the total number of accounts created, rather than the number that are actually being used... but that would result in a lot less ad revenue, wouldn't it? My mother has a Facebook account that she literally hasn't logged into since 2007... but I'm sure Facebook still counts her as a customer! (She has alzheimer's, I'm pretty sure she's forgotten the password by now.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
That could potentially explain the US numbers. But as far as I know Australia doesn't have quite the same issue with border control. The majority of illegals in Australia are people who overstay visas and that is about 65,000. No where close to 1.7 million, though census data is estimated, so that is more likely the issue.
Australia has recently done a full five yearly census, so census data is NOT just estimated.
Having advertised on Facebook, I don't trust them any further than I can throw them.
If the site I was advertising really had the tens of thousands of clicks they claimed to have sent to my site, then the business in question (a small local restaurant) would have had 100% name recognition in the geographical area. They were junk clicks.
Google clicks cost a lot more, but I believe them, if only for the smaller volume they could attract for the price.
That's exactly what they want you to th1nm9&';{: .'@
no carrier
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
My question,not being a facebook-er, is why does Slashdot have a facebook page? Who benefits?
How many people have had facebook show up on their doorstep with guns and handcuffs?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Census data doesn't include Facebook bots.
Obviously bots account for a significant portion of the numbers.
*Nodding* yeah, you're right; 'troll accounts'.
Sock puppets are people too, my friend!
~ Mitt Romneyberg
Problem is advertising people really don't care. They are given money to spend and by god, they are going to spend it.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Only if they're incorporated.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I personally am more comfortable with facebook having access to my data than the government because facebook has no motivation to go on a fishing expedition and try and take away my liberty (to be fair, I don't think the government does either, but it's more likely).
A bank has access to my finances, but I wouldn't want to put them in a black box government bank. The bank has a motive to protect my money.
If it came out facebook was doing something truly nefarious with our data, they cease to exist, the government, not so much.
In theory the facebook data is protected by judicial oversight, the NSA data not as much (the part that is upsetting).
National Security Letters (part of what we freak out about) make the difference somewhat without meaning.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Bots.
I'm thinking the Facebook numbers are closer to reality.
And people like you get to vote...
Australia has recently done a full five yearly census, so census data is NOT just estimated.
And if you knew how well that went you wouldn't be so confident in the numbers...
Who cares if advertising people spend money on fake info?
Because it's money that could be spent elsewhere. Like compensation for employees, or new machinery, or bigger offices, etc. Or it could not be spent at all. Who do you think pays for this? You do. You seem perfectly happy paying more for goods and services so that companies can throw your money away. Well done, consumer.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
They keep statistics for how much ROI they get on different platforms.
No they don't. They can and they should, but they don't. Market research is something my wife does - and at a very high level in Fortune 500 companies - is something companies are spending less and less on each year. They think they can replace a trained researcher with survey monkey in the hands of a marketing graduate (market research != marketing kind of like a statistician is not an engineer). The attitude among companies is that market research is a waste of money and they can just guess if an ad is "good" or "bad" and go with their gut feeling - which is often completely wrong due to any number of biases. They generate statistics and studies that they don't understand or don't know how to apply. Etc. So yes you are right that they keep statistics. But they often have no idea what those statistics actually mean. You would be shocked at the stuff I've heard country and regional level marketing people say - and I only know what I know about research by "osmosis".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Which country is this supposed to represent again? The article claims both Australia and the US using census data.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Facebook does not get census data for each user. Instead, they infer demographics from user behavior or whatever information they bother to put when creating an account. Most 13 year olds are 31 year olds. A considerable number of users probably have multiple accounts to keep mom away from edgier aspects of their lifestyle. So this can be "as far as we know" instead of, or in addition to, straight WV-style cheating to tempt advertisers.
Because it's money that could be spent elsewhere. Like compensation for employees, or new machinery, or bigger offices, etc. Or it could not be spent at all.
I am not a fan of the marketing department in general but lets be honest. On some level we know for many classes of products advertising both works and is probably needed to drive the sales numbers most manufactures/re-sellers/retailers etc are aiming for or need for economy of scale as opposed to some other activity like quality improvement, better employee compensation etc.
Also as a customer of facebook (ad buyer) you know how many units you actually end up moving. You probably know how many you were moving before you began facebook ad buys. That alone is enough to decide if facebook ad buys are worth it.
The other questions are really around conversion rates. If facebook says we showed your ad to 100 people and you got 10 orders that say they were referred by facebook, well that is a conversion rate of 10%. facebook charges you $X for 100 impressions. Alright suppose facebooks numbers are wrong and they only showed ads to 50 real people. facebook is effectively charging you double for each ad impression, but as I pointed out in the previous paragraph, that really does not matter. It was worth paying facebook $X dollars for the sales bump it generates or its not. It isn't like facebook is going to take less revenue if they have to revise their ad impression numbers down, they will just raise their rates because their current customers should recognize the value is really unchanged.
Now you might argue that say if other media are accurately reporting impressions, say AM radios numbers are spot on ( yeah right ) that facebook is making themselves look artificially effective in comparison. When FB was new that might have been true, but at this point its really its own unique medium and advertising elsewhere isn't really going to be like for like substitute.
At the end of the day where this probably matters is, back to those conversion rates. If my actual conversion rate is much higher than facebooks inflated numbers make it appear. I would think as an marketer I would want to spend more money running more of my ads on facebook not less! Where as if I think my conversion rate is low I might instead invest in producing new/different ad content, revising slogans or even revising the product!
Initially facebook needed to prove they could reach a lot people. There isnt much doubt of that now. Inflating impressions probably hurts their revenue rather than helps.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
You don't need a signature to enter a contract. The courts have ruled on this. Don't be obtuse.
Fake/dupe accounts, fake DOBs. Used for spying on people, and used for older people to "be younger". They're pulling from their data stock, not from real data. Of course it's wrong.