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Thanks! That's a very well thought out argument :) The idea that facebook knows alot about me is somewhat scary :/ The problem I see is, people don't come on

by hasenj 16y ago

Thanks! That's a very well thought out argument :) The idea that facebook knows alot about me is somewhat scary :/ The problem I see is, people don't come on facebook to find stuff, they come to checkout what their friends are doing. According to this link http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/facebook-is-a-ponzi-scheme http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/facebook-is-a-ponzi-scheme, the ad revenue is coming from people "experimenting" with FB Ads. Soon they'll all realize that it doesn't work, and stop.

pak 16y ago
I completely agree with you. The argument that you should be able to charge 10x as much to target the 1/10th that is your most likely customer falls apart when you are advertising in a place where people generally don't want to think about buying stuff. People kill time, make plans, and stalk friends on FB; they don't go there to shop. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I've generally heard that CTR on FB ads is terrible. According to the logic above you should be getting 10x as many clicks because you are paying 10x as much, but advertisers aren't seeing anywhere near this ROI. It's like a bunch of salespeople coming to a party that's been running for 10 years and trying to push sales onto people; sure, you might hook a few, but people are there to party and not to spend money on your junk. The only way I can see them leveraging what they have a real advantage in, is by using the social graph to promote products to people's friends. That's kind of what Yelp does; you're more likely to spend money on things/places your friends recommend. The problem is that FB has done this before, it was called Beacon, and it was creepy. They are late to the game with Places, and they are getting so much cash from corporations for sponsored Pages that I don't think anybody uses them to judge actual value of a product.
ajays 16y ago
"The problem I see is, people don't come on facebook to find stuff, they come to checkout what their friends are doing." I think I addressed this in my comment. I don't think there's much value in advertising on FB itself (which is what I meant when I wrote the "bazillions of pageviews" sentence). You are right, people who are on FB don't care much for the ads. The real value is in FB becoming an ad provider (or filter), and supplying ads to 3rd party sites. Because they know so much about you, and the quality of what they know is so high, they will be able to command a huge premium for using this information to pick the right ads for you.
nl 16y ago
I've "experimented" with Facebook ads and found they work very well. I'll be using them again (and I'm not the only one). The targeting is really good, the ads are cheap, and you can choose CPM or CPC. What's not to like? (I think you'll find that a lot of people who say things like this are also the kind of people who can't believe people click on Google ads.)

by hasenj 16y ago

pak 16y ago

I completely agree with you. The argument that you should be able to charge 10x as much to target the 1/10th that is your most likely customer falls apart when you are advertising in a place where people generally don't want to think about buying stuff. People kill time, make plans, and stalk friends on FB; they don't go there to shop. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I've generally heard that CTR on FB ads is terrible. According to the logic above you should be getting 10x as many clicks because you are paying 10x as much, but advertisers aren't seeing anywhere near this ROI. It's like a bunch of salespeople coming to a party that's been running for 10 years and trying to push sales onto people; sure, you might hook a few, but people are there to party and not to spend money on your junk. The only way I can see them leveraging what they have a real advantage in, is by using the social graph to promote products to people's friends. That's kind of what Yelp does; you're more likely to spend money on things/places your friends recommend. The problem is that FB has done this before, it was called Beacon, and it was creepy. They are late to the game with Places, and they are getting so much cash from corporations for sponsored Pages that I don't think anybody uses them to judge actual value of a product.

ajays 16y ago

"The problem I see is, people don't come on facebook to find stuff, they come to checkout what their friends are doing." I think I addressed this in my comment. I don't think there's much value in advertising on FB itself (which is what I meant when I wrote the "bazillions of pageviews" sentence). You are right, people who are on FB don't care much for the ads. The real value is in FB becoming an ad provider (or filter), and supplying ads to 3rd party sites. Because they know so much about you, and the quality of what they know is so high, they will be able to command a huge premium for using this information to pick the right ads for you.

nl 16y ago

I've "experimented" with Facebook ads and found they work very well. I'll be using them again (and I'm not the only one). The targeting is really good, the ads are cheap, and you can choose CPM or CPC. What's not to like? (I think you'll find that a lot of people who say things like this are also the kind of people who can't believe people click on Google ads.)