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I have mentioned that several times before, but I always believed that FB's but also Google's metrics are at least borderline fraudulent. Inflated by bots and a

I have mentioned that several times before, but I always believed that FB's but also Google's metrics are at least borderline fraudulent. Inflated by bots and apps that simulate DAUs and clicks. I only have anecdotal evidence from Google, where I was frequently charged over my campaign limit on ad clicks that I could never validate on my own site. I believe FB is same.

village-idiot 8y ago
I personally suspect that’s why Twitter has failed to deal with their bot problem, fixing it would make their usage metrics plumit.
- m_ke 8y ago
  Also the reason why reddit went through the redesign. It lets them hide ads in the infinite scroll and pretend that people looked at them.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    I really can’t help but wonder if our entire online ecosystem is built entirely on fraudulent ad sales.
    - dragonsky67 8y ago
      Shhh, don't say that out loud. I love the fact that I get internet content for nothing as it's paid for by big advertisers who are to stupid to realise that I never purchase anything that they advertise.
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        Thankfully nobody important cares about my opinion.
      - tartoran 8y ago
        I think the same and stay quiet about it
    - Deimorz 8y ago
      This was a good article from a while back that shows how every dollar spent on online advertising seems to only result in about 3 cents worth of actual ad views: https://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/display-ads-my-3-worth.html https://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/display-ads-my-3-w...
    - munchbunny 8y ago
      Yes and no. Conventional wisdom inside ad tech is that fraud rates are about 30% on average. Typically lower for video. So there's real value in there (in terms of ROI for the advertiser) but there's effectively an entire margin of fraud where advertisers are bearing much of that cost.
      - thrower123 8y ago
        Video ads are intolerable. Whenever they exist, they spawn an arms war of dark patterns to get and stop them from auto-playing, without warning, at maximum volume. The Facebook Android app is gawdawful for this; I just discovered that you can put it into some sort of a data-saving mode, which seems to stop auto-play for the moment... but time will tell. And though we're supposed to be bagging on Facebook here, YouTube is really bad with some of their in-the-middle of content ad spots that I've been noticing lately. I'll be watching a peaceful little Timeline documentary, and right in the middle of an interview the TV starts blaring pop music for something I am never going to buy. Especially galling when it's something produced for cable TV, so it has commercial breaks built into it naturally, where the ads could be inserted unobtrusively.
        village-idiot 8y ago
        I think what’s shocking is how awful a lot of the targeting is. Even before I started getting super aggressive about blocking all trackers, I regularly got fed ads for products and services I didn’t need, and in languages I couldn’t understand. The most confusing is that I keep getting ads from the same company I bought my wedding ring at. Like, I’m not divorced, and I don’t need a second. Why would they re-target me?
        lmm 8y ago
        Weddings are a high-margin business, they can afford to spend a lot on advertising and not be too careful about their targeting. The advertising service is happy to take their money. It's not that we can't do better, it's that there isn't enough incentive to do better at any level.
        8y ago
- code4tee 8y ago
  My previous company stopped advertising on Twitter for precisely this reason. Our own analytics showed that the majority of the clicks we were getting and being charged for were obviously either bits or other spam accounts. It was actually crazy what we were being charged for.
- wild_preference 8y ago
  Watching Twitter attempt to deal with the cryptocurrency spammers that chain on to every half-popular tweet leads me to believe that it really is just incompetence (+ being a hard problem in general). For example, their latest solution is to prevent you from having the exact same name as a famous person. Notice all the bots now have the name "Elon" or "Elon Mu5k" when responding to Elon Musk.
liveoneggs 8y ago
google can't even get analytics to agree with their advertising platforms
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
codedokode 8y ago
Bots exist, but is it Google's fault? Fake views are often bought by site owners wanting to get more profit.
- kawsper 8y ago
  Clicks should at least show up on the server the ad is linking to, bot or not.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  Right, but they seem to be really good at not paying site owners who do that...
  - scythe 8y ago
    You hear about it when someone gets caught. You don't hear about it when they don't. Who would ever say, publicly, "Look! I've been faking out AdSense for years and getting away with it!"?
dirkgently 8y ago
And another discussion where Facebook does something wrong and HN immediately starts talking about Google.
- lovich 8y ago
  They are the top two players in the digital ad space, which this article is about. Talking about how others in the industry also follow this practice seems like a pertinent topic of discussion in light of the article
- andun 8y ago
  Personally I don't care much about FB because I don't use it. Google, on the other hand...
- draw_down 8y ago
  Give me a break. It’s a discussion about advertising and Google is the ad company.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cedivad 8y ago
I once had google adwords flooding my website with some ridiculous number like 1000 clicks in 5 minutes, zeroing my daily budget in just a few seconds. The clicks had nothing to do with my campaign keywords, which was set to gradually distribuite the adverts during the day instead of rushing to the budget limit. Conversion was terrible, as in no one subscribed to the newsletter (the website usually had a very high newsletter conversion rate (20-30%? I forgot), but of those 1000, not even one person decided to subscribe. The ad spend for the day (I remember now) was even higher than the daily limit. I spent two weeks talking to the useless billing support that would admit no fault before giving up and paying for a "bug" in their system.

village-idiot 8y ago

I personally suspect that’s why Twitter has failed to deal with their bot problem, fixing it would make their usage metrics plumit.

m_ke 8y ago
Also the reason why reddit went through the redesign. It lets them hide ads in the infinite scroll and pretend that people looked at them.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  I really can’t help but wonder if our entire online ecosystem is built entirely on fraudulent ad sales.
  - dragonsky67 8y ago
    Shhh, don't say that out loud. I love the fact that I get internet content for nothing as it's paid for by big advertisers who are to stupid to realise that I never purchase anything that they advertise.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Thankfully nobody important cares about my opinion.
    - tartoran 8y ago
      I think the same and stay quiet about it
  - Deimorz 8y ago
    This was a good article from a while back that shows how every dollar spent on online advertising seems to only result in about 3 cents worth of actual ad views: https://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/display-ads-my-3-worth.html https://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/display-ads-my-3-w...
  - munchbunny 8y ago
    Yes and no. Conventional wisdom inside ad tech is that fraud rates are about 30% on average. Typically lower for video. So there's real value in there (in terms of ROI for the advertiser) but there's effectively an entire margin of fraud where advertisers are bearing much of that cost.
    - thrower123 8y ago
      Video ads are intolerable. Whenever they exist, they spawn an arms war of dark patterns to get and stop them from auto-playing, without warning, at maximum volume. The Facebook Android app is gawdawful for this; I just discovered that you can put it into some sort of a data-saving mode, which seems to stop auto-play for the moment... but time will tell. And though we're supposed to be bagging on Facebook here, YouTube is really bad with some of their in-the-middle of content ad spots that I've been noticing lately. I'll be watching a peaceful little Timeline documentary, and right in the middle of an interview the TV starts blaring pop music for something I am never going to buy. Especially galling when it's something produced for cable TV, so it has commercial breaks built into it naturally, where the ads could be inserted unobtrusively.
      - village-idiot 8y ago
        I think what’s shocking is how awful a lot of the targeting is. Even before I started getting super aggressive about blocking all trackers, I regularly got fed ads for products and services I didn’t need, and in languages I couldn’t understand. The most confusing is that I keep getting ads from the same company I bought my wedding ring at. Like, I’m not divorced, and I don’t need a second. Why would they re-target me?
        lmm 8y ago
        Weddings are a high-margin business, they can afford to spend a lot on advertising and not be too careful about their targeting. The advertising service is happy to take their money. It's not that we can't do better, it's that there isn't enough incentive to do better at any level.
        8y ago
code4tee 8y ago
My previous company stopped advertising on Twitter for precisely this reason. Our own analytics showed that the majority of the clicks we were getting and being charged for were obviously either bits or other spam accounts. It was actually crazy what we were being charged for.
wild_preference 8y ago
Watching Twitter attempt to deal with the cryptocurrency spammers that chain on to every half-popular tweet leads me to believe that it really is just incompetence (+ being a hard problem in general). For example, their latest solution is to prevent you from having the exact same name as a famous person. Notice all the bots now have the name "Elon" or "Elon Mu5k" when responding to Elon Musk.

liveoneggs 8y ago

google can't even get analytics to agree with their advertising platforms

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

codedokode 8y ago

Bots exist, but is it Google's fault? Fake views are often bought by site owners wanting to get more profit.

kawsper 8y ago
Clicks should at least show up on the server the ad is linking to, bot or not.
cortesoft 8y ago
Right, but they seem to be really good at not paying site owners who do that...
- scythe 8y ago
  You hear about it when someone gets caught. You don't hear about it when they don't. Who would ever say, publicly, "Look! I've been faking out AdSense for years and getting away with it!"?

dirkgently 8y ago

And another discussion where Facebook does something wrong and HN immediately starts talking about Google.

lovich 8y ago
They are the top two players in the digital ad space, which this article is about. Talking about how others in the industry also follow this practice seems like a pertinent topic of discussion in light of the article
andun 8y ago
Personally I don't care much about FB because I don't use it. Google, on the other hand...
draw_down 8y ago
Give me a break. It’s a discussion about advertising and Google is the ad company.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cedivad 8y ago

I once had google adwords flooding my website with some ridiculous number like 1000 clicks in 5 minutes, zeroing my daily budget in just a few seconds. The clicks had nothing to do with my campaign keywords, which was set to gradually distribuite the adverts during the day instead of rushing to the budget limit. Conversion was terrible, as in no one subscribed to the newsletter (the website usually had a very high newsletter conversion rate (20-30%? I forgot), but of those 1000, not even one person decided to subscribe. The ad spend for the day (I remember now) was even higher than the daily limit. I spent two weeks talking to the useless billing support that would admit no fault before giving up and paying for a "bug" in their system.