Narrative: Facebook's Bad Metrics
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Narrative: Facebook’s Bad Metrics (Dec 27, 2016)
Updated: May 16, 2017
Timeline:
This narrative is of fairly recent vintage – it was really only in the second half of 2016 that Facebook started to be plagued by reports of faulty metrics relating to the performance of ads and published content on the site. Two things created this narrative: firstly, four separate incidents have now occurred, and secondly, advertisers and publishers are starting to express concern about a pattern and what it implies about whether Facebook can be trusted on this point. That, in turn, has led to calls for independent auditing of Facebook’s various metrics.
All of this also taps into a related narrative about Facebook’s Power, in that none of this would matter if Facebook weren’t the major filter through which people increasingly see the world and consume news and other content. These publishers and advertisers increasingly have to use Facebook if they want to reach their viewers, readers, and potential customers.
It appears that these issues are the result of a lack of appropriate focus at Facebook on metrics – relative to all the other things that people at Facebook are working on, this one is pretty humdrum. And yet getting it right is critical for Facebook to retain (or regain) the trust of content owners and advertisers as they use the platform. Facebook does now seem to be taking all this much more seriously, and its recent internal review of its metrics was what threw up some of the later findings, which suggests that process is working. But this is an area where Facebook will not now have the trust of its partners by default, and as Facebook’s power grows we’ll continue to see calls for greater transparency and external auditing.
Facebook is Criticized for Claiming to Reach More People than Census Shows in US (Sep 6, 2017)
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Facebook Attempts to Remove Accidental Ad Clicks from Reporting (Aug 8, 2017)
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Facebook Video Ad Viewability Numbers Far Lower than Industry Averages (Jun 26, 2017)
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Facebook Announces Yet Another Measurement Screwup (May 16, 2017)
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Facebook Agrees to Audit of its Metrics Following Data Controversy – WSJ (Feb 10, 2017)
This is yet another bit of damage control by Facebook in the wake of its metrics problems in late 2016, and the MRC partnership has been in the works for some time (see the full timeline on the “Facebook’s Bad Metrics” narrative page). It sounds like marketers are reassured by some of these moves, which combine better third party auditing with some new video ad buying options.
via WSJ (Facebook’s own post here)
Facebook Improves Transparency and Deepens Partnerships Around Metrics (Jan 31, 2017)
The other bit of news from Facebook today addresses the recent problems it’s had with unreliable metrics for advertisers and publishers. Some of this is just about providing more metrics for measuring performance on Facebook across various channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network within its own products can be compared with TV and/or print data from wider campaigns), but there’s also news on the third party verification front, which advertisers have been asking for. It now has deeper partnerships with Nielsen and ComScore, and is deepening its viewability measurement tools, as well as adding some additional partnerships. There’s lots here, the detail of which won’t be all that interesting unless you’re directly involved in this stuff, but Facebook is showing some promising willingness to open up more to outside measurement platforms its partners trust as a way of offsetting the embarrassing errors which turned up late last year.
via Facebook
Errors in Facebook ad metrics could lead to more independent audits – Silicon Valley Business Journal (Jan 19, 2017)
This is the fallout from Facebook’s series of admissions towards the end of 2016 about its metrics relating to both content and ad performance: major advertisers are now going to be calling for more third party auditing of ad performance on Facebook. To the extent that Facebook is already said to be working with some outside groups on this, that effort needs to accelerate and come to a rapid conclusion to satisfy advertisers. On the other hand, it’s also clear from the same survey that Facebook is far from the only company whose ad metrics are mistrusted by advertisers – only Google has the confidence of over 50% of buyers, while AOL has the confidence of just 26%. But having said all that, advertisers don’t seem to feel they have alternatives to the big two, on which they plan to continue spending more money this year than last.
MRC in Talks With Facebook About Auditing Its Metrics | Digital – AdAge (Dec 23, 2016)
Facebook said all the way back in November that it intended to form a measurement council to improve external oversight of its metrics and reporting. This is one of the first concrete signs that it’s moving towards better outside auditing, though it’s not an announced deal yet.
via MRC in Talks With Facebook About Auditing Its Metrics | Digital – AdAge
Twitter app bug inflated video ad metrics by as much as 35% – Business Insider (Dec 22, 2016)
Facebook and not Twitter has mostly been in the news for misstating its metrics, but it’s clear that the latter isn’t immune. Although Facebook’s confessions have been embarrassing, it hasn’t had to refund advertisers, but it appears Twitter has, though only over a brief period due to a technical glitch.
via Twitter app bug inflated video ad metrics by as much as 35% – Business Insider