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I've spent millions on FBX. Unless I'm missing something, Facebook has nothing to gain and a lot to lose from "artificially inflating" views. FBX is an ad EXC

I've spent millions on FBX. Unless I'm missing something, Facebook has nothing to gain and a lot to lose from "artificially inflating" views. FBX is an ad EXCHANGE where inventory gets sold to the highest bidder. If FB over-reports views by a factor of 2X to advertisers, the average CPM that advertisers are willing to pay will simply fall by 50%. Sure, there may be a short time period before bids equilibrate, but FB is liquid enough that this would happen extremely quickly. The same principle applies to people up in arms concerning "click fraud" on Facebook and/or Google's ad networks. As an advertiser, you really should not CARE if there is click fraud. So long as it impacts all advertisers equally, we're all bidding for the same quality inventory. It's useful to keep in mind that the vast majority of advertisers on any liquid ad network will not be successful. It's easy to rationalize that the reason you aren't able to make the channel work is that the network "rips off" its advertisers. In reality, there is no incentive for them to do so.

forgetsusername 10y ago
>So long as it impacts all advertisers equally That's a huge assumption. Besides, if click fraud is rampant it is no consolation to say "well, at least everyone's ads are being clicked by bots!" The end game isn't to win the ad auction, it's to be seen by real people who might buy your product.
fahrradflucht 10y ago
This assumes an even distribution of click fraud and wrong measurement along all advertisers and the ability to perfectly measure the ROI of your Facebook ads which is as strong (and in my opinion wrong) assumption to make...
- smallgovt 10y ago
  That's fair. It's not fair if advertisers are impacted differently. But, my main point is Facebook has a lot more to lose than gain by inflating clicks/views, so it's very likely to be an honest mistake.
  - sean_patel 10y ago
    > so it's very likely to be an honest mistake. So naive. Inflating clicks / views let's them charge more to advertizers (who falsely think that advertising on facebook is more ROI than on Google or elsewhere). And what Facebook gains is increases in share price every time they declare their earnings.

forgetsusername 10y ago

>So long as it impacts all advertisers equally That's a huge assumption. Besides, if click fraud is rampant it is no consolation to say "well, at least everyone's ads are being clicked by bots!" The end game isn't to win the ad auction, it's to be seen by real people who might buy your product.

fahrradflucht 10y ago

This assumes an even distribution of click fraud and wrong measurement along all advertisers and the ability to perfectly measure the ROI of your Facebook ads which is as strong (and in my opinion wrong) assumption to make...

smallgovt 10y ago
That's fair. It's not fair if advertisers are impacted differently. But, my main point is Facebook has a lot more to lose than gain by inflating clicks/views, so it's very likely to be an honest mistake.
- sean_patel 10y ago
  > so it's very likely to be an honest mistake. So naive. Inflating clicks / views let's them charge more to advertizers (who falsely think that advertising on facebook is more ROI than on Google or elsewhere). And what Facebook gains is increases in share price every time they declare their earnings.