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I seem to be greatly misunderstanding the issue here, and thus I apologize in advance if this seems like a massive, and possibly dismissive oversimplification b

by iamdave 14y ago

I seem to be greatly misunderstanding the issue here, and thus I apologize in advance if this seems like a massive, and possibly dismissive oversimplification but the complaint here is that there are overeager users who are clicking on ads, not knowing what they're clicking, and because of this the author/campaign manager is owed a refund? Unless Facebook, using the logs they've requested can conclusively prove that these are bot profiles aimed at disrupting the Ad Platform (which is something I would assume Facebook would already be keenly aware of and taking excruciating steps to stamp out, as Ads play a big role in their bottom line), why exactly does the author feel he's entitled to a refund just because people click the ad who might not be interested in the product? Again, unless Facebook can show these were malicious bots or that their targeting algorithm has malfunctioned and displayed ads to profiles that do not meet the demographic criteria setup by the campaign manager and thus, ads are being displayed to users they shouldn't be and resulting in erroneous clicks, what's gone wrong?

astrodust 14y ago
If Facebook has developed a culture of rampant ad-clicking to further some other cause unrelated to your advertising then those ads should be valued accordingly. Imagine if in some Zynga game they had ads but rewarded users for clicking on them. Not interacting with, but simply clicking. Would you find much value in advertising there at all?
- iamdave 14y ago
  Imagine if in some Zynga game they had ads but rewarded users for clicking on them. Not interacting with, but simply clicking. Would you find much value in advertising there at all? You've actually brought up a very valid point; I kind of hinted on this in my OP but it deserves some clarification: has Facebook proven so far that these ad clicks are in some way spurious? Granted, knowing what motivated the clicks is an impossibly tall order; however I don't see much difference in what you've proposed versus the many Pages that encourage users to promote more followers in promise of some sort of a rebate/discount/incentive with a brick and mortar establishment. The primary and most obvious difference here is that there isn't a cost simply for putting up a Fan page. However and ultimately, my original premise I think deserves just as much consideration as incentivizing ad clicks to boost leads: unless Facebook can show that these clicks originated from a source and can sufficiently extrapolate evidence that these sources are motivated to disrupt the platform, I do not understand the author's complaint.
ghshephard 14y ago
Because the clicks by these "clickants" are worthless, and shouldn't be sold. Somebody blindly clicking on ads has no value, and you shouldn't be selling their clicks. It's akin to selling advertising on TVs that happened to be fast forwarded/skipped on Tivo. If the advertisers are aware from DVR logs that fewer people saw the logs, they need to reflect that in reduced costs to the advertisers by reducing bill-rates over time.
- iamdave 14y ago
  The Tivo analogy makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up, I figured initially that I was misunderstanding the point of the post and your analogy fixed it.
anon808 14y ago
I don't think the author is saying the clicks are malicious, just that they are lower 'quality'. Based on the authors experience he seems to be saying the intent of some facebook clickers is different than regular web link/banner clickers. He seems to imply the Facebook clickers have some other incentive to click other than to see the advertises website; and that incentive might be to collect 'likes'. And that actually makes sense to me, reminds me a bit of the incentivized clicks of the eagerly 00s, not worthless just worth a whole lot less than organic clicks. If Facebook has a lot of these clickers their inventory value becomes worth less.
- alexlitov 14y ago
  Of course they were of lower quality, they were intentionally running their ads to people from the "Philippines, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh".

by iamdave 14y ago

astrodust 14y ago

If Facebook has developed a culture of rampant ad-clicking to further some other cause unrelated to your advertising then those ads should be valued accordingly. Imagine if in some Zynga game they had ads but rewarded users for clicking on them. Not interacting with, but simply clicking. Would you find much value in advertising there at all?

iamdave 14y ago
Imagine if in some Zynga game they had ads but rewarded users for clicking on them. Not interacting with, but simply clicking. Would you find much value in advertising there at all? You've actually brought up a very valid point; I kind of hinted on this in my OP but it deserves some clarification: has Facebook proven so far that these ad clicks are in some way spurious? Granted, knowing what motivated the clicks is an impossibly tall order; however I don't see much difference in what you've proposed versus the many Pages that encourage users to promote more followers in promise of some sort of a rebate/discount/incentive with a brick and mortar establishment. The primary and most obvious difference here is that there isn't a cost simply for putting up a Fan page. However and ultimately, my original premise I think deserves just as much consideration as incentivizing ad clicks to boost leads: unless Facebook can show that these clicks originated from a source and can sufficiently extrapolate evidence that these sources are motivated to disrupt the platform, I do not understand the author's complaint.

ghshephard 14y ago

Because the clicks by these "clickants" are worthless, and shouldn't be sold. Somebody blindly clicking on ads has no value, and you shouldn't be selling their clicks. It's akin to selling advertising on TVs that happened to be fast forwarded/skipped on Tivo. If the advertisers are aware from DVR logs that fewer people saw the logs, they need to reflect that in reduced costs to the advertisers by reducing bill-rates over time.

iamdave 14y ago
The Tivo analogy makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up, I figured initially that I was misunderstanding the point of the post and your analogy fixed it.

anon808 14y ago

I don't think the author is saying the clicks are malicious, just that they are lower 'quality'. Based on the authors experience he seems to be saying the intent of some facebook clickers is different than regular web link/banner clickers. He seems to imply the Facebook clickers have some other incentive to click other than to see the advertises website; and that incentive might be to collect 'likes'. And that actually makes sense to me, reminds me a bit of the incentivized clicks of the eagerly 00s, not worthless just worth a whole lot less than organic clicks. If Facebook has a lot of these clickers their inventory value becomes worth less.

alexlitov 14y ago
Of course they were of lower quality, they were intentionally running their ads to people from the "Philippines, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh".