5 ms·

What you should learn from the man who lost $600,000 on Facebook ads

42 points by smalter 11y ago

strictnein 11y ago
The original article this is based on, if you want more info: http://www.businessinsider.com/mans-600000-facebook-ad-disaster-2014-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/mans-600000-facebook-ad-disas...
sandworm101 11y ago
It's a women's fashion publication. By the age of the models they use, their target market is girls age 15-25. (As opposed to tabloids or mags targeting an older range of women, see http://www.zoomermag.com/ http://www.zoomermag.com/). Given that target market I can see why facebook might have been appealing ... ten years ago. The young are walking away from facebook, women in particular. Most walked the day their grandparents and highschool teachers joined. But young women are really walking away these days because they find any picture of them on facebook is quickly harvested for use by some shady dating website. As one student expressed it to me, facebook has a "serious creep factor". So nobody should be surprised that a fashion mag lost money on facebook ads. I'd suggest which form of social media is better for this market, but as I am not a teenager whatever I say will just make me look old and out of touch.
- wwwdonohue 11y ago
  Instagram. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/new-social-stratosphere-who-using-facebook-twitter-pinterest-tumblr-and-instagram-2015-and-beyond-1622 http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/new-social-s...
- matt4077 11y ago
  > any picture of them on facebook is quickly harvested for use by some shady dating website I doubt that even one in 10,000 people has noticed this happening. I also know about 50 women aged 18-25 and all of them are on facebook.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    On facebook, but do they really use it in a manner profitable to advertisers? Those I know have erected behavioral barriers to protect themselves (privacy settings, not clicking things, quick unfriending) that limit their marketability to advertisers.
  - cbhl 11y ago
    That's confirmation bias -- your remark does not prove that those women aren't concerned about misuse of their photos. Maybe they are concerned but use Facebook despite those fears because they can't afford to be ostracized by your social circle for not being on Facebook. I've definitely had female friends leave Facebook because of the "creeper" problem; others use a fake profile picture (e.g. a cartoon or a drawing) because Facebook profile pictures are world-readable by design; others even use fake names so that you can't search for them (say, "Stone Steps") unless you talk to them IRL and ask them to add you first. It's sub-10% of my friend group, but it's the sort of trend that leads to services like SnapChat taking off.
    - herbig 11y ago
      That's not confirmation bias, unfortunately. The argument was not that women aren't concerned, although I would also argue that they, in general, are not. Bias aware bias: the tendency to bring up biases in an online argument, regardless of their definition or relevancy.
      - cbhl 11y ago
        As far as I can tell, the argument was, "All 50 women I know are on Facebook, therefore less than 1 in 10,000 women have noticed their Facebook photos are harvested for use on shady dating websites." That doesn't logically follow. I'd argue your remark is an ad hominem attack because latched onto my use of the word "bias" rather than refuting my argument with data.
- herbig 11y ago
  I keep hearing this mantra that young folks aren't on Facebook, but all of the young folks I know (younger cousins mostly) are on Facebook. I'm skeptical that this notion is true.
  - meatysnapper 11y ago
    They are on Snapchat + Instagram. Facebook is the social network for your mom. And everybody else's mom. No bueno! Their most active user demographic is over 50, according to someone I know who used to work there.
  - jandrese 11y ago
    It depends a bit on how you define it. All of those kids have Facebook accounts, but they don't tend to use them except to brag to their extended family about whatever it is they're doing this week. If they're talking with their friends they use something like Snapchat or Whatsapp instead. The same way you don't gossip in front of your parents.
  - cbhl 11y ago
    Just because they have a Facebook account doesn't mean that they use Facebook the way you did. It's like how you have an email account to interface with old people (e.g. parents) and websites (your bank, transactional emails from services). Think about how old people might still use email listservs, whereas you might be more Facebook primary, and the "young hip people" might be using Kik/SMS/SnapChat.
- hluska 11y ago
  You're talking like you have some special insight, yet all I'm finding are poorly reasoned anecdotes. For one, I have never met a single individual whose photo was actually harvested. Have you? For another, I cannot think of one sub-25 female friend who is not on Facebook. As for your comment how their activity is not conducive to advertising, show me some proof. The actual problem here is spending $600k in four days. Full stop. You, or this article can try to intellectualize that as much as you want. But fundamentally, advertising does not work like that. If you spent $600k on four days of television commercials, billboards, mascots, etc., the odds are overwhelmingly in favour of your failure. The only solution is to treat advertising as an engineering discipline.
  - giarc 11y ago
    I hear the argument that teenagers aren't on Facebook any more, they are now on Snapchat, Instagram etc. It always seems like their argument implies that teens use a single social network. I would guess that many teens use multiple social media platforms. Facebook has over a billion users, there's likely a few teenagers hanging around.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    "Shady promotion, sex trafficking, and data mining are just some of the tricks of the trade for Facebook's growing population of fakers" http://www.dailytech.com/Fakebook+Pt+I+From+The+Chive+to+AskMen+How+Facebooks+Phonies+are+Born+and+Used/article37488c.htm http://www.dailytech.com/Fakebook+Pt+I+From+The+Chive+to+Ask... On dating websites' use of stolen images: " He said: "We'd steal someone's identity through say My Space or something, we'd take someone from a totally different country, ie. Spain or wherever it may be. [...] We'd take the person's photos online and we'd start knocking out messages. It was all fake and under the pretence that it was real." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10207712/Online-dating-sites-use-stolen-data-to-create-fake-profiles-it-is-alleged.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/1020771... And yes, I have met people who have had their profile pics used elsewhere. TinEye is a great tool for discovering such incidents. Then again I used to work in the entertainment industry (film) and now teach a forensics class to young people at a local college so I probably run into it more often than the average.
t0mbstone 11y ago
The real problem is that facebook fans are useless, because even if you have them, 95% of them still won't see your posts unless you pay to boost them. Fans are effectively an illusion.
commentzorro 11y ago
Is this an ad or an article? It's Both! Extremely well done job of blurring the line between the two while keeping things compelling. Kudos to you, Adespresso.
- DivByZero 11y ago
  Lol ... it's Content Marketing :)
Xyik 11y ago
Hmm, so instead of Facebook Ad we should create click-bait articles as a form of free advertising. Thanks.

42 points by smalter 11y ago

The original article this is based on, if you want more info: http://www.businessinsider.com/mans-600000-facebook-ad-disaster-2014-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/mans-600000-facebook-ad-disas...

sandworm101 11y ago

It's a women's fashion publication. By the age of the models they use, their target market is girls age 15-25. (As opposed to tabloids or mags targeting an older range of women, see http://www.zoomermag.com/ http://www.zoomermag.com/). Given that target market I can see why facebook might have been appealing ... ten years ago. The young are walking away from facebook, women in particular. Most walked the day their grandparents and highschool teachers joined. But young women are really walking away these days because they find any picture of them on facebook is quickly harvested for use by some shady dating website. As one student expressed it to me, facebook has a "serious creep factor". So nobody should be surprised that a fashion mag lost money on facebook ads. I'd suggest which form of social media is better for this market, but as I am not a teenager whatever I say will just make me look old and out of touch.

wwwdonohue 11y ago
Instagram. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/new-social-stratosphere-who-using-facebook-twitter-pinterest-tumblr-and-instagram-2015-and-beyond-1622 http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/new-social-s...
matt4077 11y ago
> any picture of them on facebook is quickly harvested for use by some shady dating website I doubt that even one in 10,000 people has noticed this happening. I also know about 50 women aged 18-25 and all of them are on facebook.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  On facebook, but do they really use it in a manner profitable to advertisers? Those I know have erected behavioral barriers to protect themselves (privacy settings, not clicking things, quick unfriending) that limit their marketability to advertisers.
- cbhl 11y ago
  That's confirmation bias -- your remark does not prove that those women aren't concerned about misuse of their photos. Maybe they are concerned but use Facebook despite those fears because they can't afford to be ostracized by your social circle for not being on Facebook. I've definitely had female friends leave Facebook because of the "creeper" problem; others use a fake profile picture (e.g. a cartoon or a drawing) because Facebook profile pictures are world-readable by design; others even use fake names so that you can't search for them (say, "Stone Steps") unless you talk to them IRL and ask them to add you first. It's sub-10% of my friend group, but it's the sort of trend that leads to services like SnapChat taking off.
  - herbig 11y ago
    That's not confirmation bias, unfortunately. The argument was not that women aren't concerned, although I would also argue that they, in general, are not. Bias aware bias: the tendency to bring up biases in an online argument, regardless of their definition or relevancy.
    - cbhl 11y ago
      As far as I can tell, the argument was, "All 50 women I know are on Facebook, therefore less than 1 in 10,000 women have noticed their Facebook photos are harvested for use on shady dating websites." That doesn't logically follow. I'd argue your remark is an ad hominem attack because latched onto my use of the word "bias" rather than refuting my argument with data.
herbig 11y ago
I keep hearing this mantra that young folks aren't on Facebook, but all of the young folks I know (younger cousins mostly) are on Facebook. I'm skeptical that this notion is true.
- meatysnapper 11y ago
  They are on Snapchat + Instagram. Facebook is the social network for your mom. And everybody else's mom. No bueno! Their most active user demographic is over 50, according to someone I know who used to work there.
- jandrese 11y ago
  It depends a bit on how you define it. All of those kids have Facebook accounts, but they don't tend to use them except to brag to their extended family about whatever it is they're doing this week. If they're talking with their friends they use something like Snapchat or Whatsapp instead. The same way you don't gossip in front of your parents.
- cbhl 11y ago
  Just because they have a Facebook account doesn't mean that they use Facebook the way you did. It's like how you have an email account to interface with old people (e.g. parents) and websites (your bank, transactional emails from services). Think about how old people might still use email listservs, whereas you might be more Facebook primary, and the "young hip people" might be using Kik/SMS/SnapChat.
hluska 11y ago
You're talking like you have some special insight, yet all I'm finding are poorly reasoned anecdotes. For one, I have never met a single individual whose photo was actually harvested. Have you? For another, I cannot think of one sub-25 female friend who is not on Facebook. As for your comment how their activity is not conducive to advertising, show me some proof. The actual problem here is spending $600k in four days. Full stop. You, or this article can try to intellectualize that as much as you want. But fundamentally, advertising does not work like that. If you spent $600k on four days of television commercials, billboards, mascots, etc., the odds are overwhelmingly in favour of your failure. The only solution is to treat advertising as an engineering discipline.
- giarc 11y ago
  I hear the argument that teenagers aren't on Facebook any more, they are now on Snapchat, Instagram etc. It always seems like their argument implies that teens use a single social network. I would guess that many teens use multiple social media platforms. Facebook has over a billion users, there's likely a few teenagers hanging around.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  "Shady promotion, sex trafficking, and data mining are just some of the tricks of the trade for Facebook's growing population of fakers" http://www.dailytech.com/Fakebook+Pt+I+From+The+Chive+to+AskMen+How+Facebooks+Phonies+are+Born+and+Used/article37488c.htm http://www.dailytech.com/Fakebook+Pt+I+From+The+Chive+to+Ask... On dating websites' use of stolen images: " He said: "We'd steal someone's identity through say My Space or something, we'd take someone from a totally different country, ie. Spain or wherever it may be. [...] We'd take the person's photos online and we'd start knocking out messages. It was all fake and under the pretence that it was real." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10207712/Online-dating-sites-use-stolen-data-to-create-fake-profiles-it-is-alleged.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/1020771... And yes, I have met people who have had their profile pics used elsewhere. TinEye is a great tool for discovering such incidents. Then again I used to work in the entertainment industry (film) and now teach a forensics class to young people at a local college so I probably run into it more often than the average.

t0mbstone 11y ago

The real problem is that facebook fans are useless, because even if you have them, 95% of them still won't see your posts unless you pay to boost them. Fans are effectively an illusion.

commentzorro 11y ago

Is this an ad or an article? It's Both! Extremely well done job of blurring the line between the two while keeping things compelling. Kudos to you, Adespresso.

DivByZero 11y ago
Lol ... it's Content Marketing :)

Xyik 11y ago

Hmm, so instead of Facebook Ad we should create click-bait articles as a form of free advertising. Thanks.