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I don't use Instagram much, but I am on Facebook too often. The limitations of the advertising algorithms are very interesting to me. For example: I participate

I don't use Instagram much, but I am on Facebook too often. The limitations of the advertising algorithms are very interesting to me. For example: I participate in ex-evangelical groups because of my childhood experiences. Also follow pages which discuss American Christianity from a secular or journalistic perspective, and in Christian groups which interpret their beliefs from a left-ish ideology. "Liking" any post from those groups will trigger an onslaught of ads almost exclusively for conservative churches and conservative organizations. The algorithms can't differentiate between "pro", "anti", and "observer" on a particular topic. Nor does it seem to have any awareness of ideology. It's very rare when I see progressive churches advertise. I understand that the algorithms are going to have difficulty with subtleties. But I'd think they'd still have some rough awareness about "anti" vs. "pro". And thus not flood people who dislike a thing with ads promoting the thing. At any rate, I suppose it's oddly reassuring Facebook is so inaccurate. Judging by the high number of critical comments on the religious ads, there are many uninterested people being targeted.

smt88 5y ago
I don't necessarily think you're experiencing an important flaw here. I'd wager that the vast majority of people interacting with content related to evangelical Christianity are in the "pro" category, so people in the "anti" category are an acceptable false-positive. For example, if I'm trying to sell something to evangelical Christians and 95% of my views are "pro" and 5% are "anti", that's still hugely valuable to me and something Facebook can charge a lot for. Maybe FB could increase the price without the false positives, but neither they nor their advertisers care that much.
- dunnevens 5y ago
  You're probably right and it isn't necessarily a huge flaw. But, the failures are interesting. Especially when it involves a subject where the for / against lines are so clearly drawn. If Facebook is failing at such an easy subject, then what else are they getting wrong?
  - hectormalot 5y ago
    Their definition of successful targeting is different than yours. Back in 2019(?) Google published average display ad click rates of 0.03% I think. If FBs targeting gets them to 3% (100x better), that’s hugely valuable to them, while you still see mostly non interesting ads.
pestaa 5y ago
Sure the algos can always be better, but consider the possibility that conservative churches just spend absurdly, mind-boggingly large sums of money on fb advertising.
- jaspax 5y ago
  To pick a nit, I don't think that it's the churches per se that do most of the advertising (though they probably do some), it's mostly Evangelical publishers, etc. selling to church-goers.
  - dunnevens 5y ago
    In my experience, this is incorrect. Majority of the religious ads are directly from churches or individuals. And, what's interesting to me, is most of those ads are from people who have no experience with marketing. The ads are often very crude. But that's just my timeline. For other people who live in the evangelical universe 24/7, maybe they mostly see ads for Zondervan or the big brand-name churches. I wouldn't be surprised.
djantje 5y ago
If you were running these ad-campaigns, how en who would you target and what would be the revenue? I think those ads could have a very good return, the more provocative the ad the more they will be talked/thought/bought, and that is the whole idea of advertising.
- dunnevens 5y ago
  It would be interesting to know the return. Probably only 10% of my religious ads come from large, well-funded churches or organizations with any remote understanding of marketing. The rest are largely just "here's our meeting time" for a 50 member church 800 miles away from me. Or some text-only rant that goes on for 12 paragraphs. Those rants are usually not selling anything. Those ads are probably just from people who paid $20 to "promote this post". Not some substantial campaign run by social media professionals. At least from my experience, there's a ton of misfires in terms of targeting. And it's largely small time advertisers. But I have no idea about the revenue. Perhaps all those $20 ads add up to some substantial amount.
onion2k 5y ago
At any rate, I suppose it's oddly reassuring Facebook is so inaccurate. Facebook's ad market tools give advertisers plenty of power to choose who to advertise to. If advertisers didn't want your demographic cohort to see their ad they could easily filter you out. Rather than seeing this as inaccuracy, it might be more prudent to ask why they haven't. It's probably just that the advertiser hasn't configured their ad settings very well, but it's also possible that they believe skeptical people will return to their church in a crisis and they're building brand recognition or something.
- dunnevens 5y ago
  I still think it was inaccuracy. Once I was bored enough to dig through all the ad settings. For those who don't know, there's a section called "interest settings" that's buried inside of "category settings" in ad preferences. "Interest settings" has a list of interests Facebook has generated based on your activity. My list contained things like "Calvinism", "angels", "church growth strategies", "sermon topics", "contemporary Christian music", "Southern Baptist Convention", etc. Based on this list, a Baptist church which embraced Calvinism might think I would be a huge fan. I've never once interacted with a FB post which talked about these things positively. Only from the critical groups. But the algorithms aren't sensitive enough to pick that up. Had the interests listed "News about Southern Baptist Convention" or "Critiques about SBC", then that would have been accurate. But simply listing "Southern Baptist Convention" mis-labels me as being positively interested in the subject and their churches. Same goes for the other topics. While the list is more or less neutral, it implies positive interest. At any rate, FB gives you the option to delete these things from your interests list. I did so. Religious ads went away for a little while. They came back as soon as I interacted with one of my critical groups. Apparently, FB is keeping a shadow list of interests I cannot edit. Which is a shame. They should listen to me. I occasionally click the ads when they're nothing but Raspberry Pi accessories or art books.
barry-cotter 5y ago
> It's very rare when I see progressive churches advertise. You’d just be setting your money on fire. You’re trying to find the people at the intersection of progressive attitudes and serious commitment to Christianity. Progressive churches have lower commitment because they have minimal to zero differences in morality with progressives who don’t go to church and they’re less likely to have children continue in the faith. Same phenomenon as how the Jewish assimilation treadmill goes Orthodox > Conservative > Reform > Secular > does not identify as Jewish.
- Breza 5y ago
  That really depends. If you're the ELCA and trying to get people to call Congress about the latest SNAP bill, you'd love to get your message in front of liberal Christians.
- dunnevens 5y ago
  I think this depends on what the ads are being used for. Majority of ads I see are for church services, or long rants on a particular religious topic by individuals who aren't selling anything. Most of my religious ads are not part of a big marketing campaign. Centrist or progressive churches would also benefit from telling people what time services start. And some progressive Christians would want their opinion piece or podcast promoted. I'm sure those ads exist. I just don't see them very often. For ads of this type, we're not talking about expensive bids. These fall squarely into the "$20 to promote this post" category.
  - fakedang 5y ago
    I guess the simple answer is that progressive churches, or any progressive places of worship for that matter, don't receive as much funding as their conservative equivalents. Nor do they harangue their masses for funding like their conservative equivalents.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
beardyw 5y ago
Sorry to sound stupid, but I live in the UK and have literally never seen an ad from a church (except maybe on a board outside). What is the purpose of the ad? What is their motivation?
- bbarnett 5y ago
  It seems somewhat shady, there is a profit motive? Maybe it is about conversion, which at least has honorable intentions. When I drove through the US South, I saw all sorts of anti-abortion church billboards, so maybe this?
- mattbee 5y ago
  I remember about 15 or 20 years ago when Alpha was new, they were advertising in newspapers and on buses. It seemed weirdly un-British and didn't last long. (The course is still going, I just only see the branding on actual churches now)
  - beardyw 5y ago
    Yes, I remember the Alpha ads. Thanks, and that is aimed specifically at new Christians which seems laudable.
- zebnyc 5y ago
  There are mega churches in the US which push the prosperity theology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology Many of their pastors make several million USD every year. Also, There is a strong overlap between conservatives and right leaning politicians. So there are money and power motives
- native_samples 5y ago
  That's because churches in the UK are all bankrupt, more or less. I vaguely recall seeing ads for churches or Christianity in general in the UK some time ago, and I still see pro-Christian ads (usually just bible quotes) in Switzerland.
- coldtea 5y ago
plater 5y ago
"And thus not flood people who dislike a thing with ads promoting the thing." But isn't that what these ads are about. They want to show the people who dislike a thing with ads promoting the thing so that hopefully one day they will like it. Sure it could make you hate it more, but unconsciously or whatever, you will be affected. I see ads for shoe brands I don't like or care about, but for sure, the next time I need to buy a pair of shoes, that brand name is on top of my mind.
- dunnevens 5y ago
  I'd think Facebook has an interest in showing ads people will like. Or at least will tolerate. Not just for getting the click through rates as high as possible, but also because ads for things you dislike will negatively affect your experience with the site. Something FB doesn't want since they're trying to make the experience as addictive as they can. That's part of what makes this inaccuracy interesting. And I don't think the ads are aimed at changing my mind. Most of these ads aren't coordinated branding campaigns. They're largely small-time $20 ads placed by individuals and normal-sized churches. That indicates a failure by either FB in targeting, or a failure in choosing audiences by the ad buyer. I suspect it's both.
nedt 5y ago
I‘m a cyclist in an European city and in groups about making traffic better and safer for everyone. But the ads I get are all about cars, like you can only get around with a car, while that‘s the thing we are trying to fight. And this is not just on Facebook. I see this generalisation of topics everywhere, while they say they‘d need to track me to improve the ads. Bull.

smt88 5y ago

I don't necessarily think you're experiencing an important flaw here. I'd wager that the vast majority of people interacting with content related to evangelical Christianity are in the "pro" category, so people in the "anti" category are an acceptable false-positive. For example, if I'm trying to sell something to evangelical Christians and 95% of my views are "pro" and 5% are "anti", that's still hugely valuable to me and something Facebook can charge a lot for. Maybe FB could increase the price without the false positives, but neither they nor their advertisers care that much.

dunnevens 5y ago
You're probably right and it isn't necessarily a huge flaw. But, the failures are interesting. Especially when it involves a subject where the for / against lines are so clearly drawn. If Facebook is failing at such an easy subject, then what else are they getting wrong?
- hectormalot 5y ago
  Their definition of successful targeting is different than yours. Back in 2019(?) Google published average display ad click rates of 0.03% I think. If FBs targeting gets them to 3% (100x better), that’s hugely valuable to them, while you still see mostly non interesting ads.

pestaa 5y ago

Sure the algos can always be better, but consider the possibility that conservative churches just spend absurdly, mind-boggingly large sums of money on fb advertising.

jaspax 5y ago
To pick a nit, I don't think that it's the churches per se that do most of the advertising (though they probably do some), it's mostly Evangelical publishers, etc. selling to church-goers.
- dunnevens 5y ago
  In my experience, this is incorrect. Majority of the religious ads are directly from churches or individuals. And, what's interesting to me, is most of those ads are from people who have no experience with marketing. The ads are often very crude. But that's just my timeline. For other people who live in the evangelical universe 24/7, maybe they mostly see ads for Zondervan or the big brand-name churches. I wouldn't be surprised.

djantje 5y ago

If you were running these ad-campaigns, how en who would you target and what would be the revenue? I think those ads could have a very good return, the more provocative the ad the more they will be talked/thought/bought, and that is the whole idea of advertising.

dunnevens 5y ago
It would be interesting to know the return. Probably only 10% of my religious ads come from large, well-funded churches or organizations with any remote understanding of marketing. The rest are largely just "here's our meeting time" for a 50 member church 800 miles away from me. Or some text-only rant that goes on for 12 paragraphs. Those rants are usually not selling anything. Those ads are probably just from people who paid $20 to "promote this post". Not some substantial campaign run by social media professionals. At least from my experience, there's a ton of misfires in terms of targeting. And it's largely small time advertisers. But I have no idea about the revenue. Perhaps all those $20 ads add up to some substantial amount.

onion2k 5y ago

At any rate, I suppose it's oddly reassuring Facebook is so inaccurate. Facebook's ad market tools give advertisers plenty of power to choose who to advertise to. If advertisers didn't want your demographic cohort to see their ad they could easily filter you out. Rather than seeing this as inaccuracy, it might be more prudent to ask why they haven't. It's probably just that the advertiser hasn't configured their ad settings very well, but it's also possible that they believe skeptical people will return to their church in a crisis and they're building brand recognition or something.

dunnevens 5y ago
I still think it was inaccuracy. Once I was bored enough to dig through all the ad settings. For those who don't know, there's a section called "interest settings" that's buried inside of "category settings" in ad preferences. "Interest settings" has a list of interests Facebook has generated based on your activity. My list contained things like "Calvinism", "angels", "church growth strategies", "sermon topics", "contemporary Christian music", "Southern Baptist Convention", etc. Based on this list, a Baptist church which embraced Calvinism might think I would be a huge fan. I've never once interacted with a FB post which talked about these things positively. Only from the critical groups. But the algorithms aren't sensitive enough to pick that up. Had the interests listed "News about Southern Baptist Convention" or "Critiques about SBC", then that would have been accurate. But simply listing "Southern Baptist Convention" mis-labels me as being positively interested in the subject and their churches. Same goes for the other topics. While the list is more or less neutral, it implies positive interest. At any rate, FB gives you the option to delete these things from your interests list. I did so. Religious ads went away for a little while. They came back as soon as I interacted with one of my critical groups. Apparently, FB is keeping a shadow list of interests I cannot edit. Which is a shame. They should listen to me. I occasionally click the ads when they're nothing but Raspberry Pi accessories or art books.

barry-cotter 5y ago

> It's very rare when I see progressive churches advertise. You’d just be setting your money on fire. You’re trying to find the people at the intersection of progressive attitudes and serious commitment to Christianity. Progressive churches have lower commitment because they have minimal to zero differences in morality with progressives who don’t go to church and they’re less likely to have children continue in the faith. Same phenomenon as how the Jewish assimilation treadmill goes Orthodox > Conservative > Reform > Secular > does not identify as Jewish.

Breza 5y ago
That really depends. If you're the ELCA and trying to get people to call Congress about the latest SNAP bill, you'd love to get your message in front of liberal Christians.
dunnevens 5y ago
I think this depends on what the ads are being used for. Majority of ads I see are for church services, or long rants on a particular religious topic by individuals who aren't selling anything. Most of my religious ads are not part of a big marketing campaign. Centrist or progressive churches would also benefit from telling people what time services start. And some progressive Christians would want their opinion piece or podcast promoted. I'm sure those ads exist. I just don't see them very often. For ads of this type, we're not talking about expensive bids. These fall squarely into the "$20 to promote this post" category.
- fakedang 5y ago
  I guess the simple answer is that progressive churches, or any progressive places of worship for that matter, don't receive as much funding as their conservative equivalents. Nor do they harangue their masses for funding like their conservative equivalents.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

beardyw 5y ago

Sorry to sound stupid, but I live in the UK and have literally never seen an ad from a church (except maybe on a board outside). What is the purpose of the ad? What is their motivation?

bbarnett 5y ago
It seems somewhat shady, there is a profit motive? Maybe it is about conversion, which at least has honorable intentions. When I drove through the US South, I saw all sorts of anti-abortion church billboards, so maybe this?
mattbee 5y ago
I remember about 15 or 20 years ago when Alpha was new, they were advertising in newspapers and on buses. It seemed weirdly un-British and didn't last long. (The course is still going, I just only see the branding on actual churches now)
- beardyw 5y ago
  Yes, I remember the Alpha ads. Thanks, and that is aimed specifically at new Christians which seems laudable.
zebnyc 5y ago
There are mega churches in the US which push the prosperity theology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology Many of their pastors make several million USD every year. Also, There is a strong overlap between conservatives and right leaning politicians. So there are money and power motives
native_samples 5y ago
That's because churches in the UK are all bankrupt, more or less. I vaguely recall seeing ads for churches or Christianity in general in the UK some time ago, and I still see pro-Christian ads (usually just bible quotes) in Switzerland.
coldtea 5y ago

plater 5y ago

"And thus not flood people who dislike a thing with ads promoting the thing." But isn't that what these ads are about. They want to show the people who dislike a thing with ads promoting the thing so that hopefully one day they will like it. Sure it could make you hate it more, but unconsciously or whatever, you will be affected. I see ads for shoe brands I don't like or care about, but for sure, the next time I need to buy a pair of shoes, that brand name is on top of my mind.

dunnevens 5y ago
I'd think Facebook has an interest in showing ads people will like. Or at least will tolerate. Not just for getting the click through rates as high as possible, but also because ads for things you dislike will negatively affect your experience with the site. Something FB doesn't want since they're trying to make the experience as addictive as they can. That's part of what makes this inaccuracy interesting. And I don't think the ads are aimed at changing my mind. Most of these ads aren't coordinated branding campaigns. They're largely small-time $20 ads placed by individuals and normal-sized churches. That indicates a failure by either FB in targeting, or a failure in choosing audiences by the ad buyer. I suspect it's both.

nedt 5y ago

I‘m a cyclist in an European city and in groups about making traffic better and safer for everyone. But the ads I get are all about cars, like you can only get around with a car, while that‘s the thing we are trying to fight. And this is not just on Facebook. I see this generalisation of topics everywhere, while they say they‘d need to track me to improve the ads. Bull.